As far as I know this charge was made for the first time in R. Meyer's Emancipationskampf des vierten Standes , p. 43: "It can be proved that Marx has gathered the greater part of his critique from these publications " -- meaning the works of Rodbertus dating back to the last half of the thirties. I may well assume, until further evidence is produced, that the "whole proof" of this assertion consists in Rodbertus having assured Herr Meyer that this was so.
In 1879 Rodbertus himself appears on the scene and writes the following to J. Zeller ( Zeitschrift fur die gesamte Staatswissenschaft , Tubingen, 1879, p. 219), with reference to his work Zur Erkenntniss unsrer staatswirtschaftlichen Zustande , 1842:
"You will find that this" (the line of thought developed in it) "has been very nicely used... by Marx, without, however, giving me credit for it." The posthumous publisher of Rodbertus's works, Th. Kozak, repeats his insinuation without further ceremony. (Das Kapital von Rodbertus. Berlin, 1884, Introduction, p. XV.)Finally in the Briefe und Sozialpolitische Aufsatze von Dr. Rodbertus-Jagetzow , published by R. Meyer in 1881, Rodbertus says point-blank: "To-day I find I have been robbed by Schaffle and Marx without having my name mentioned.
" (Letter No. 60, p..134.) And in another place, Rodbertus's claim assumes a more definite form: "In my third social letter I have shown virtually in the same way as Marx, only more briefly and clearly, what the source of the surplus-value of the capitalist is. " (Letter No. 48, p.
111.)
Marx had never heard anything about any of these charges of plagiarism.
In his copy of the Emancipationskampf only that part had been cut open which related to the International. The remaining pages were not opened until I cut them myself after his death. He never looked at the Tubingen Zeitschrift . The Briefe , etc., to R. Meyer likewise remained unknown to him, and I did not learn of the passage referring to the "robbery"until Dr. Meyer himself was good enough to call my attention to it in 1884.
However, Marx was familiar with letter No. 48. Dr. Meyer had been so kind as to present the original to the youngest daughter of Marx. When some of the mysterious whispering about the secret source of his criticism having to be sought in Rodbertus reached the ear of Marx, he showed me that letter with the remark that here he had at last authentic information as to what Rodbertus himself claimed; if that was all Rodbertus asserted he, Marx, had no objection, and he could well afford to let Rodbertus enjoy the pleasure of considering his own version the briefer and clearer one. In fact, Marx considered the matter settled by this letter of Rodbertus.
He could so all the more since I know for certain that he was not in the least acquainted with the literary activity of Rodbertus until about 1859, when his own critique of Political Economy had been completed, not only in its fundamental outlines, but also in its more important details.
Marx began his economic studies in Paris, in 1843, starting with the great Englishmen and Frenchmen. Of German economists he knew only Rau and List, and he did not want any more of them. Neither Marx nor I heard a word of Rodbertus's existence until we had to criticise, in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung , 1848, the speeches he made as Berlin Deputy and his actions as Minister. We were both so ignorant that we had to ask the Rhenish deputies who this Rodbertus was that had become a Minister so suddenly. But these deputies too could not tell us anything about the economic writings of Rodbertus. That on the other hand Marx had known very well already at that time, without the help of Rodbertus, not only whence but also how "the surplus-value of the capitalist " came into existence is proved by his Poverty of Philosophy , 1847, and by his lectures on wage-labour and capital, delivered in Brussels the same year and published in Nos.
264-69 of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung , in 1849. It was only in 1859, through Lassalle, that Marx learned of the existence of a certain economist named Rodbertus and thereupon Marx looked up the "third social letter"in the British Museum.
These were the actual circumstances. And now let us see what there is to the content, of which Marx is charged with "robbing" Rodbertus. Says Rodbertus: "In my third social letter I have shown in the same way as Marx, only more briefly and clearly, what the source of the surplus-value of the capitalist is. " This, then, is the crux of the matter: The theory of surplus-value. And indeed, it would he difficult to say what else there is in Marx that Rodbertus might claim as his property. Thus Rodbertus declares here he is the real originator of the theory of surplus-value and that Mars robbed him of it.
And what has the third social letter to say in regard to the origin of surplus-value? Simply this: That "rent, " his term which lumps together ground-rent and profit, does not arise from an "addition of value" to the value of a commodity, but "from a deduction of value from wages; in other words, because wages represent only a part of the value of a product,"and if labour is sufficiently productive wages need not be "equal to the natural exchange-value of the product of labour in order to leave enough of this value for the replacing of capital (!) and for rent. We are not informed however what sort of a "natural exchange-value" of a product it is that leaves nothing for the "replacing of capital," consequently, for the replacement of raw material and the wear and tear of tools.
It is our good fortune to be able to state what impression was produced on Marx by this stupendous discovery of Rodbertus. In the manuscript Zur Kritik , notebook X, pp. 445 et seqq. we find a "Digression. Herr Rodbertus.