p The price of labour power and surplus value are in inverse rati» to each other. The dearer labour power is sold, the lower the rate of surplus value, and vice versa. The interests of the seller of labour power are diametrically opposed to those of its buyer.  Taken in its essence, this contradiction can be neither removed nor " blunted" until the buying and selling of labour ends, i.e., until the capitalist mode of production is eliminated. However, the terms under which the buying and selling of labour power are effected can change in one direction or another. If they change to the advantage of the sellers, the price of labour power rises and the working class receives, in the form of wages, a greater share of the value created by its labour than before. This, in its turn, leads to an improvement of its social position and a decrease in the distance’ between the exploited proletariat and the capitalists, who exploit it. If the terms on which labour power is sold change to the advantage of its buyers, then its price falls, and the working class gets a smaller part of the value created by its labour than before. This is inevitably followed by a deterioration in the proletariat’s social position and a greater distance between it and the bourgeoisie. In the first instance, we seem to have a right to speak of a blunting of the contradiction, if not between the workers and the employers,, then at least between the interests of the worker, on the one hand, and the existence of the capitalist system, on the other. In fact, this will only seem to be a right; we have already seen, in our first article, that the improvement in the French bourgeoisie’s social condition, far from blunting the contradiction between its interests and those of the ancien regime, made it more and more acute. Nevertheless, those who are afraid of the proletariat’s revolutionary movement have always been prone to think that gradual improvement in the life of the working class is able to avert the danger and rid society of stormy convulsions. That is why people of this category try to assure themselves and others (and sometimes only others) that, with the development of capitalism, the proletariat’s condition improves, and with the passage of time it comes closer to the bourgeoisie than it stood at the beginning. It must be recognised that their conservative instinct prompts in them a consideration 515 that is not quite erroneous: while a decrease in the distance between the exploiters and the exploited is by no means sufficient to prevent a revolutionary explosion, an increase in that distance already holds out to the esteemed conservatives no other prospect but the rapid spread of the “dogmata” of revolutionary Social– Democracy among the workers.

p But what do we see in reality? In what direction do the conditions of the sale of labour power change with the consolidation and development of the capitalist system?

p This is a question that vulgar political economy has long been engaged in: it has brought forward a phalanx of “scholars” who are bending every effort to prove that the conditions of the sale of labour power are changing ever more to the advantage of the proletariat, which is getting an ever greater share of the national income. Henry Charles Carey, the well-known US economist, lucidly formulated this theory as far back as 1838.  [515•*  It was borrowed from Carey by the notorious Bastiat, whose arguments we must study a little more closely.

p In his Harmonies economiques, Bastiat assures us that, in its justice and goodness, Providence has prepared a better part for Labour than for Capital.  [515•**  This pleasant thought is based on the following "unshakeable axiom":

p “In proportion to the increase of capital, the absolute share of the total product falling to the capitalist is augmented, but his relative share is diminished; while, on the contrary, the share of labourer is increased both absolutely and relatively."

p To make this “axiom” clearer, Bastiat provides a table, which is quite identical with the one we meet in Carey’s Principles of Social Science:

Total
Share of
Share of
product
capital
labour
First period .....
1 000

p son
Second period .... Third period ....
2,000 3,000
800 1,050
1,200 1,950
Fourth period ....
4,000
1,200
2,800

p “Such is the grand, admirable, consoling, necessary and inflexible law of capital,” Bastiat exclaims rapturously. "To 516 demonstrate that means, it would seem, completely discrediting these declamations ... against the greed and the tyranny of the most powerful- instrument of civilisation and egalisation that has emerged from the human faculties.  [516•* 

The reader will see for himself that it would be most pleasing to prove so admirable and consoling a law but, to his regret, he will have to acknowledge that Bastiat’s proofs lack conviction. All his arguments consist in the indication that the percentage accompanying the industrial development of civilised countries is falling. Anyone "with the most modest acquaintance with political economy understands that this proof is more than feeble. However, this "brilliant French economist" lacks the time to dwell on proofs. He hastens to go over to the admirable and consoling conclusions that emerge from his admirable and consoling law. "Cease, capitalists and workers,” he vociferates, "to regard each other with an eye of defiance and envy! Close your ears to these absurd declamations, whose arrogance is matched only by their ignorance and which, under a promise of prospective philanthropy, begin by encouraging the present discord. Acknowledge that your interests are common and identical, that they converge towards the achievement of the common weal”, etc., etc.  [516•**  This sentimental tirade^leaves no room for the least doubt as to why Bastiat has needed the necessary and inflexible law he has borrowed from Carey (without indicating the source): reference to that law would have the aim of reconciliating the workers with the capitalists and undermining the influence of socialism.