Public health estimates in Marx's Capital

Daniel Little:

Long stretches of Marx's Capital take the form of an effort at developing and defending an economic model of capitalism, based on the theories of value and surplus value.  But there are also recurring efforts at providing a descriptive sociology of capitalism: the forms of day-to-day life that British economic relations imposed upon the working class.  This dimension of the book is descriptive and detailed; it has much in common with Engels's approach in The Condition of the Working Class in England.

 

Marx was very interested in these descriptive investigations -- Dr. Simon, Dr. Julian Hunter, Mr. Smith, Dr. Bell, and the inquiries and Acts of Parliament in the 1860s that shed light on the depth of English poverty.  The index for Capital includes a section, "Parliamentary Reports and Other Official Publications," which includes references to over a hundred reports on factories, poverty, nutrition, and health.  These range from a Report of Select Committee, London, 1855, on "Adulteration of Bread", to "Reports of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council on Public Health" (1861-66).  And these reports constitute the core of empirical evidence that Marx brings to bear for his economic assertions throughout the work.  In fact, we might describe some parts of Capital as a sort of "meta-study" of current investigations of the public health status of England's cities.

 

This interest is particularly evident late in Capital where Marx turns to the topic of "The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation."  Consider one fairly detailed section, "The Badly Paid Strata of the British Industrial Class" (link).  Here Marx is offering the best information available, at the household level, concerning the standard of living of this stratum of the British working class.

 

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