Letter from Marx to Nikolai Danielson

in London

DANIELSON SAYS IN PART —> [

CAPITALISM IS ABOLISHED ROOT AND
BRANCH by the bare assumption that it is personal consumption and not
enrichment that works as the compelling motive.

On the other hand, the appearance of the railway system in the leading countries of
capitalism allowed, and even forced, states where capitalism was confined to a
few summits of society, to suddenly create and enlarge their capitalistic
superstructure in dimensions altogether disproportionate to the bulk of the
social body, carrying on the great work of production in the traditional modes.
There is, therefore, not the least doubt that in those states the railway creation has
accelerated the social and political disintegration, as in the more advanced states it
hastened the final development and therefore the final change, of capitalistic
production. In all states except England, the governments enriched and fostered
the railway companies at the expense of the Public Exchequer. In the United
States, to their profit, great part of the public land they received as a present, not
only the land necessary for the construction of the lines but many miles of land
along both sides the lines, covered with forests, etc. They become so the greatest
landlords, the small immigrating farmers preferring of course land so situated as to
ensure their produce ready means of transport.]

Written: April 10, 1879

Source: Marx and Engels Correspondence
Publisher: International Publishers (1968)
First Published: Gestamtausgabe
Translated: Donna Torr
Transcribed: Sally Ryan in 1999
HTML Markup: Sally Ryan

[MARX REPLIES TO DANIELSON —>] In

regard to your most remarkable letter I [MARX] shall
confine myself to a few observations.

The railways sprang up first as the couronnement de l'oeuvre in those countries

where modern industry was most developed, England, United States, Belgium,
France, etc. I call them the "couronnement de l'oeuvre" not only in the sense that
they were at last (together with steamships for oceanic intercourse and the
telegraphs) the means of communication adequate to the modern means of
production, but also in so far as they were the basis of immense joint stock
companies, forming at the same time a new starting point for all other sorts of joint
stock companies, to commence by banking companies. They gave in one word, an
impetus never before suspected to the concentration of capital, and also to the
accelerated and immensely enlarged cosmopolitan activity of loanable capital, thus
embracing the whole world in a network of financial swindling and mutual
indebtedness, the capitalist form of "international" brotherhood.

On the other hand, the appearance of the railway system in the leading countries of
capitalism allowed, and even forced, states where capitalism was confined to a few
summits of society, to suddenly create and enlarge their capitalistic superstructure
in dimensions altogether disproportionate to the bulk of the social body, carrying
on the great work of production in the traditional modes. There is, therefore, not
the least doubt that in those states the railway creation has accelerated the social
and political disintegration, as in the more advanced states it hastened the final
development and therefore the final change, of capitalistic production. In all states
except England, the governments enriched and fostered the railway companies at
the expense of the Public Exchequer. In the United States, to their profit, great part
of the public land they received as a present, not only the land necessary for the
construction of the lines but many miles of land along both sides the lines, covered
with forests, etc. They become so the greatest landlords, the small immigrating
farmers preferring of course land so situated as to ensure their produce ready
means of transport.

The system inaugurated in France by Louis Philippe, of handing over the railways
to a small band of financial aristocrats, endowing them with long terms of
possession, guaranteeing the interest out of the
Letter from Marx to Nikolai Danielson http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/letters/dan/79_04_10.htm (1 of 3)
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public pocket, etc., etc., was pushed to the utmost limit by Louis Bonaparte, whose
regime, in fact, was essentially based upon the traffick in railway concessions, to
some of which he was so kind as to make presents of canals, etc.

And in Austria and Italy above all, the railways were a new source of unbearable
state indebtedness and grinding of the masses.

Generally the railways gave of course an immense impulse to the development of

foreign commerce, but the commerce in countries which export principally raw
produce increased the misery of the masses. Not only that the new indebtedness,
contracted by the government on account of the railways, increased the bulk of
imposts weighing upon them, but from the moment every local production could be
converted into cosmopolitan gold, many articles formerly cheap, because
invendible to a great degree, such as fruit, wine, fish, deer, etc., became dear and
were withdrawn from the consumption of the people, while on the other hand, the
production itself, I mean the special sort of produce, was changed according to its
greater or minor suitableness for exportation, while formerly it was principally
adapted to its consumption in loco. Thus, for instance, in Schleswig-Holstein
agricultural land was converted into pasture, because the export of cattle was more
profitable, but at the same time the agricultural population was driven away.

All the changes very useful indeed for the great landed proprietor, the usurer, the
merchant, the railways, the bankers and so forth, but very dismal for the real
producer! It is, to conclude by this my letter (since the time for putting it to post
draws nearer and nearer), impossible to find real analogies between the United
States and Russia. In the former the expenses of the government diminish daily and
its public debt is quickly and yearly reduced; in the latter public bankruptcy is a
goal more and more appearing to become unavoidable. The former has freed itself
(although in a most infamous way, for the advantage of the creditors and at the
expense of the menu peuple) of its paper money, the latter has no more flourishing
fabric than that of paper money. In the former the concentration of capital and the
gradual expropriation of the masses is not only the vehicle, but also the natural
offspring (though artificially accelerated by the civil war) of an unprecedented
rapid industrial development, agricultural progress, etc.; the latter reminds you
rather of the time of Louis XIV and Louis XV, where the financial, commercial,
industrial superstructure, or rather the facades of the social edifices, looked
(although they had a much more solid foundation than in Russia) like a satyre upon
the stagnant state of the bulk of production (the agricultural one) and the famine of
the producers.

The United States have at present overtaken England in the rapidity of economical
progress, though they lag still behind in the extent of acquired wealth; but at the
same time the masses are quicker, and have greater political means in their hands,
to resent the form of a progress accomplished at their expense. I need not prolong
antitheses.

A propos. Which do you consider the best Russian work on credit and banking?

Biographical blurb on Danielson ˅

[DANIELSON (NICOLAI-ON) NIKOLAI FRANZEVICH (1844-1918).

Russian economist, Narodnik; translator of Capital; he completed the translation begun by G. A.
Lopatin of the first volume, which was published in 1872. In this connection Danielson entered
into correspondence with Marx. Danielson was one of the chief theoreticians of the Narodniki,
who contested the necessity and possibility of the development of capitalism in Russia.]