Letter to Karl Marx, December 22, 1882

Add a subpage to this text

Read the help page for usage.

 

To Marx in Ventnor

London, 22 December 1882

Dear Moor,

To return once more to Podolinsky; I must make a correction, namely, that storage of energy through work really only takes place in agriculture; in cattle-raising the energy accumulated in the plants is simply transferred as a whole to the animals, and one can only speak of storage of energy in the sense that without cattle-raising, nutritious plants wither uselessly, whereas with it they are utilised. In all branches of industry, on the other hand, energy is only expended. The most that has to be taken into consideration is the fact that vegetable products, wood, straw, flax, etc., and animal products in which vegetable energy is stored up, are put to use by being worked upon and therefore preserved longer than when they are left to decay naturally. So that if one chooses one can translate into the physical world the old economic fact that all industrial producers have to live from the products of agriculture, cattle-raising, hunting, and fishing – but there is hardly much to be gained from doing so.

Herewith letter from Laura; Jenny’s case would not, in fact, appear to be too bad, always providing she obtains proper and regular treatment — this being necessary not because of any immediate danger, but because of the extremely unpleasant consequences that might result from neglect.

Hartmann has thrown up the sponge here and tomorrow is crossing the ocean again. It’s just as well. His contracts over here have involved him in such a mass of legal obligations (some of them unfulfilled) that he himself no longer knows where he stands. I shall tell you all about it when I see you and am glad he is going away. It has now transpired that, all the while he was touching me for loans, he was pocketing anything from five to six pounds a week.

You are right when you say that Bernstein doesn’t always allow himself adequate time for reflection. But he’s not alone in that. Take a look at Lafargue’s recent discoveries in ‘Prêtres et commerçants’ (Egalité, 20 December) and, ibid., Deville’s latest reconstruction of Weitlingianism —by no means an improvement.

I am glad that on the history of serfdom we ‘proceed in agreement’, as they say in business. It is certain that serfdom and bondage are not a peculiarly medieval-feudal form, we find them everywhere or nearly everywhere where conquerors have the land cultivated for them by the old inhabitants – e.g., very early in Thessaly. This fact has even misled me and many other people about servitude in the Middle Ages; one was much too much inclined to base it simply on conquest, this made everything so neat and easy. See Thierry among others.

The position of the Christians in Turkey during the height of the old Turkish semi-feudal system was something similar.

But here is Pumps arriving for dinner, it being now 5 o’clock, and thus I am the victim of force majeure. I hope that this glorious weather has pulled you round again.

Your

Fred