Friedrich Engels (1843): Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/d... [feedly]

Brad DeLong;s long running, anxious, affair with Marx and Engels has taken an extra bounce since he became a Piketty fan. I love this one from Engels.

Friedrich Engels (1843): Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/d...
https://www.bradford-delong.com/2020/01/friedrich-engels-1843-_outlines-of-a-critique-of-political-economy_-according-to-the-economists-the-production-cos.html

Friedrich Engels (1843): Outlines of a Critique of Political Economyhttps://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/df-jahrbucher/outlines.htm: 'According to the economists, the production costs of a commodity consist of three elements: the rent for the piece of land required to produce the raw material; the capital with its profit, and the wages for the labour required for production and manufacture.... [Since] capital is "stored-up labour"... two sides–the natural, objective side, land; and the human, subjective side, labour, which includes capital and, besides capital, a third factor which the economist does not think about–I mean the mental element of invention, of thought, alongside the physical element of sheer labour...

...What has the economist to do with inventiveness? Have not all inventions fallen into his lap without any effort on his part? Has one of them cost him anything? Why then should he bother about them in the calculation of production costs? Land, capital and labour are for him the conditions of wealth, and he requires nothing else. Science is no concern of his.

What does it matter to him that he has received its gifts through Berthollet, Davy, Liebig, Watt, Cartwright, etc.–gifts which have benefited him and his production immeasurably? He does not know how to calculate such things; the advances of science go beyond his figures. But in a rational order which has gone beyond the division of interests as it is found with the economist, the mental element certainly belongs among the elements of production and will find its place, too, in economics among the costs of production.

And here it is certainly gratifying to know that the promotion of science also brings its material reward; to know that a single achievement of science like James Watt's steam-engine has brought in more for the world in the first fifty years of its existence than the world has spent on the promotion of science since the beginning of time...

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