tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38679287480330077202024-03-08T10:06:53.927-08:00Value, Price and ProfitAlan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3867928748033007720.post-18120960981326758492013-03-26T18:21:00.002-07:002013-03-26T18:21:38.985-07:00Value, Price and Profit by Karl Marx
<div align="CENTER" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.17in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Karl Marx</b></span></span></div>
<div align="CENTER" class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span><span lang="en-GB"><b>Value,
Price and Profit</b></span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" lang="en-AU" style="margin-top: 0.08in;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="en-GB">Source:
Marx, Karl. </span><span lang="en-GB"><i>Value, Price and Profit</i></span><span lang="en-GB">.
New York: International Co., Inc, 1969;<br />Written: between end of
May and June 27, 1865;<br />First published: 1898;<br />Edited: by
Eleanor Marx Aveling;<br /></span></span></div>
<div align="CENTER" class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span lang="en-GB"><b>Table
of Contents</b></span></span></span></div>
<h2 class="western" lang="en-GB" style="page-break-before: always;">
Preface
</h2>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">The circumstances under which this paper was read
are narrated at the beginning of the work. The paper was never
published during the lifetime of Marx. It was found amongst his
papers after the death of Engels. Among many other characteristics of
Marx, this paper shows two especially. These are his patient
willingness to make the meaning of his ideas plain to the humblest
student, and the extraordinary clearness of those ideas. In a partial
sense the present volume is an epitome of the first volume of
Capital. More than one of us have attempted to analyze and simplify
that volume, with not too much success perhaps. In fact, a witty
friend and commentator has suggested that what is now required is an
explanation by Marx of our explanations of him. I am often asked what
is the best succession of books for the student to acquire the
fundamental principles of Socialism. The question is a difficult one
to answer. But, by way of suggestion, one might say, first, Engels'
</span><span lang="en-US"><i>Socialism, Scientific And Utopian</i></span><span lang="en-US">,
then the present work, the first volume of Capital, and the Student's
Marx. My small part in the preparation of this work has been reading
the manuscript, making a few suggestions as to English forms of
expression, dividing the work up into chapters and naming the
chapters, and revising the proofs for press. All the rest, and by far
the most important part, of the work has been done by her whose name
appears on the title page. The present volume has already been
translated into German.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span lang="en-US"><i>Edward Aveling.</i></span></span></div>
<h3 class="western" lang="en-GB" style="page-break-before: always;">
Preliminary</h3>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
CITIZENS,</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">Before entering into the subject-matter, allow me
to make a few preliminary remarks. There reigns now on the Continent
a real epidemic of strikes, and a general clamour for a rise of
wages. The question will turn up at our Congress. You, as the head of
the International Association, ought to have settled convictions upon
this paramount question. For my own part, I considered it therefore
my duty to enter fully into the matter, even at the peril of putting
your patience to a severe test.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">Another preliminary remark I have to make in
regard to Citizen Weston. He has not only proposed to you, but has
publicly defended, in the interest of the working class, as he
thinks, opinions he knows to be most unpopular with the working
class. Such an exhibition of moral courage all of us must highly
honour. I hope that, despite the unvarnished style of my paper, at
its conclusion he will find me agreeing with what appears to me the
just idea lying at the bottom of his theses, which, however, in their
present form, I cannot but consider theoretically false and
practically dangerous.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">I shall now at once proceed to the business before
us.</span></div>
<h3 class="western" lang="en-AU">
<span lang="en-US">I. Production and
Wages</span></h3>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">Citizen Weston's argument rested, in fact, upon
two premises: firstly, the amount of national production is a fixed
thing, a constant quantity or magnitude, as the mathematicians would
say; secondly, that the amount of real wages, that is to say, of
wages as measured by the quantity of the commodities they can buy, is
a fixed amount, a constant magnitude.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">Now, his first assertion is evidently erroneous.
Year after year you will find that the value and mass of production
increase, that the productive powers of the national labour increase,
and that the amount of money necessary to circulate this increasing
production continuously changes. What is true at the end of the year,
and for different years compared with each other, is true for every
average day of the year. The amount or magnitude of national
production changes continuously. It is not a constant but a variable
magnitude, and apart from changes in population it must be so,
because of the continuous change in the accumulation of capital and
the productive powers of labour. It is perfectly true that if a rise
in the general rate of wages should take place today, that rise,
whatever its ulterior effects might be, would, by itself, not
immediately change the amount of production. It would, in the first
instance, proceed from the existing state of things. But if before
the rise of wages the national production was variable, and not
fixed, it will continue to be variable and not fixed after the rise
of wages.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">But suppose the amount of national production to
be constant instead of variable. Even then, what our friend Weston
considers a logical conclusion would still remain a gratuitous
assertion. If I have a given number, say eight, the absolute limits
of this number do not prevent its parts from changing their relative
limits. If profits were six and wages two, wages might increase to
six and profits decrease to two, and still the total amount remain
eight. The fixed amount of production would by no means prove the
fixed amount of wages. How then does our friend Weston prove this
fixity? By asserting it.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">But even conceding him his assertion, it would cut
both ways, while he presses it only in one direction. If the amount
of wages is a constant magnitude, then it can be neither increased
nor diminished. If then, in enforcing a temporary rise of wages, the
working men act foolishly, the capitalists, in enforcing a temporary
fall of wages, would act not less foolishly. Our friend Weston does
not deny that, under certain circumstances, the working men </span><span lang="en-US"><i>can</i></span><span lang="en-US">
enforce a rise of wages, but their amount being naturally fixed,
there must follow a reaction. On the other hand, he knows also that
the capitalists </span><span lang="en-US"><i>can</i></span><span lang="en-US">
enforce a fall of wages, and, indeed, continuously try to enforce it.
According to the principle of the constancy of wages, a reaction
ought to follow in this case not less than in the former. The working
men, therefore, reacting against the attempt at, or the act of,
lowering wages, would act rightly. They would, therefore, act rightly
in enforcing </span><span lang="en-US"><i>a rise of wages</i></span><span lang="en-US">,
because every </span><span lang="en-US"><i>reaction</i></span><span lang="en-US">
against the lowering of wages is an </span><span lang="en-US"><i>action</i></span><span lang="en-US">
for raising wages. According to Citizen Weston's own principle of the
</span><span lang="en-US"><i>constancy of wages</i></span><span lang="en-US">,
the working men ought, therefore, under certain circumstances, to
combine and struggle for a rise of wages. If he denies this
conclusion, he must give up the premise from which it flows. He must
not say that the amount of wages is a </span><span lang="en-US"><i>constant
quantity</i></span><span lang="en-US">, but that, although it cannot
and must not </span><span lang="en-US"><i>rise</i></span><span lang="en-US">,
it can and must </span><span lang="en-US"><i>fall</i></span><span lang="en-US">,
whenever capital pleases to lower it. If the capitalist pleases to
feed you upon potatoes instead of upon meat, and upon oats instead of
upon wheat, you must accept his will as a law of political economy,
and submit to it. If in one country the rate of wages is higher than
in another, in the United States, for example, than in England, you
must explain this difference in the rate of wages by a difference
between the will of the American capitalist and the will of the
English capitalist, a method which would certainly very much
simplify, not only the study of economic phenomena, but of all other
phenomena.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">But even then, we might ask, </span><span lang="en-US"><i>why</i></span><span lang="en-US">
the will of the American capitalist differs from the will of the
English capitalist? And to answer the question you must go beyond the
domain of </span><span lang="en-US"><i>will</i></span><span lang="en-US">.
A person may tell me that God wills one thing in France, and another
thing in England. If I summon him to explain this duality of will, he
might have the brass to answer me that God wills to have one will in
France and another will in England. But our friend Weston is
certainly the last man to make an argument of such a complete
negation of all reasoning.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">The </span><span lang="en-US"><i>will</i></span><span lang="en-US">
of the capitalist is certainly to take as much as possible. What we
have to do is not to talk about his </span><span lang="en-US"><i>will</i></span><span lang="en-US">,
but to enquire into his </span><span lang="en-US"><i>power</i></span><span lang="en-US">,
the </span><span lang="en-US"><i>limits of that power</i></span><span lang="en-US">,
and the </span><span lang="en-US"><i>character of those limits</i></span><span lang="en-US">.</span></div>
<h3 class="western" lang="en-AU">
II. Production, Wages, Profits</h3>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">The address Citizen Weston read to us might have
been compressed into a nutshell.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">All his reasoning amounted to this: If the working
class forces the capitalist class to pay five shillings instead of
four shillings in the shape of money wages, the capitalist will
return in the shape of commodities four shillings' worth instead of
five shillings' worth. The working class would have to pay five
shillings for what, before the rise of wages, they bought with four
shillings. But why is this the case? Why does the capitalist only
return four shillings' worth for five shillings? Because the amount
of wages is fixed. By why is it fixed at four shillings' worth of
commodities? Why not at three, or two, or any other sum? If the limit
of the amount of wages is settled by an economical law, independent
alike of the will of the capitalist and the will of the working man,
the first thing Citizen Weston had to do was to state that law and
prove it. He ought then, moreover, to have proved that the amount of
wages actually paid at every given moment always corresponds exactly
to the necessary amount of wages, and never deviates from it. If, on
the other hand, the given limit of the amount of wages is founded on
the </span><span lang="en-US"><i>mere will</i></span><span lang="en-US">
of the capitalist, or the limits of his avarice, it is an arbitrary
limit. There is nothing necessary in it. It may be changed </span><span lang="en-US"><i>by</i></span><span lang="en-US">
the will of the capitalist, and may, therefore, be changed </span><span lang="en-US"><i>against</i></span><span lang="en-US">
his will.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">Citizen Weston illustrated his theory by telling
you that a bowl contains a certain quantity of soup, to be eaten by a
certain number of persons, an increase in the broadness of the spoons
would produce no increase in the amount of soup. He must allow me to
find this illustration rather spoony. It reminded me somewhat of the
simile employed by Menenius Agrippa. When the Roman plebeians struck
against the Roman patricians, the patrician Agrippa told them that
the patrician belly fed the plebeian members of the body politic.
Agrippa failed to show that you feed the members of one man by
filling the belly of another. Citizen Weston, on his part, has
forgotten that the bowl from which the workmen eat is filled with the
whole produce of national labour, and that what prevents them
fetching more out of it is neither the narrowness of the bowl nor the
scantiness of its contents, but only the smallness of their spoons.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">By what contrivance is the capitalist enabled to
return four shillings' worth for five shillings? By raising the price
of the commodity he sells. Now, does a rise and more generally a
change in the prices of commodities, do the prices of commodities
themselves, depend on the mere will of the capitalist? Or are, on the
contrary, certain circumstances wanted to give effect to that will?
If not, the ups and downs, the incessant fluctuations of market
prices, become an insoluble riddle.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">As we suppose that no change whatever has taken
place either in the productive powers of labour, or in the amount of
capital and labour employed, or in the value of the money wherein the
values of products are estimated, but </span><span lang="en-US"><i>only
a change in the rate of wages</i></span><span lang="en-US">, how
could that </span><span lang="en-US"><i>rise of wages</i></span><span lang="en-US">
affect the</span><span lang="en-US"><i>prices of commodities</i></span><span lang="en-US">?
Only by affecting the actual proportion between the demand for, and
the supply of these commodities.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">It is perfectly true that, considered as a whole,
the working class spends, and must spend, its income upon
</span><span lang="en-US"><i>necessaries</i></span><span lang="en-US">.
A general rise in the rate of wages would, therefore, produce a rise
in the demand for, and consequently in the </span><span lang="en-US"><i>market
prices of necessaries</i></span><span lang="en-US">. The capitalists
who produce these necessaries would be compensated for the risen
wages by the rising market prices of their commodities. But how with
the other capitalists who do </span><span lang="en-US"><i>not</i></span><span lang="en-US">
produce necessaries? And you must not fancy them a small body. If you
consider that two-thirds of the national produce are consumed by
one-fifth of the population — a member of the House of Commons
stated it recently to be but one-seventh of the population — you
will understand what an immense proportion of the national produce
must be produced in the shape of luxuries, or be </span><span lang="en-US"><i>exchanged</i></span><span lang="en-US">
for luxuries, and what an immense amount of the necessaries
themselves must be wasted upon flunkeys, horses, cats, and so forth,
a waste we know from experience to become always much limited with
the rising prices of necessaries.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">Well, what would be the position of those
capitalists who do </span><span lang="en-US"><i>not</i></span><span lang="en-US">
produce necessaries? For the </span><span lang="en-US"><i>fall in the
rate of profit</i></span><span lang="en-US">, consequent upon the
general rise of wages, they could not compensate themselves by a </span><span lang="en-US"><i>rise
in the price of their commodities</i></span><span lang="en-US">,
because the demand for those commodities would not have increased.
Their income would have decreased, and from this decreased income
they would have to pay more for the same amount of higher-priced
necessaries. But this would not be all. As their income had
diminished they would have less to spend upon luxuries, and therefore
their mutual demand for their respective commodities would diminish.
Consequent upon this diminished demand the prices of their
commodities would fall. In these branches of industry, therefore, </span><span lang="en-US"><i>the
rate of profit would fall</i></span><span lang="en-US">, not only in
simple proportion to the general rise in the rate of wages, but in
the compound ratio of the general rise of wages, the rise in the
prices of necessaries, and the fall in the prices of luxuries.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">What would be the consequence of </span><span lang="en-US"><i>this
difference in the rates of profit</i></span><span lang="en-US"> for
capitals employed in the different branches of industry? Why, the
consequence that generally obtains whenever, from whatever reason,
the </span><span lang="en-US"><i>average rate of profit</i></span><span lang="en-US">
comes to differ in different spheres of production. Capital and
labour would be transferred from the less remunerative to the more
remunerative branches; and this process of transfer would go on until
the supply in the one department of industry would have risen
proportionately to the increased demand, and would have sunk in the
other departments according to the decreased demand. This change
effected, the general rate of profit would again be </span><span lang="en-US"><i>equalized</i></span><span lang="en-US">
in the different branches. As the whole derangement originally arose
from a mere change in the proportion of the demand for, and supply
of, different commodities, the cause ceasing, the effect would cease,
and PRICES would return to their former level and equilibrium.
Instead of being limited to some branches of industry, </span><span lang="en-US"><i>the
fall in the rate of profit</i></span><span lang="en-US"> consequent
upon the rise of wages would have become general. According to our
supposition, there would have taken place no change in the productive
powers of labour, nor in the aggregate amount of production, but </span><span lang="en-US"><i>that
given amount of production would have changed its form</i></span><span lang="en-US">.
A greater part of the produce would exist in the shape of
necessaries, a lesser part in the shape of luxuries, or what comes to
the same, a lesser part would be exchanged for foreign luxuries, and
be consumed in its original form, or, what again comes to the same, a
greater part of the native produce would be exchanged for foreign
necessaries instead of for luxuries. The general rise in the rate of
wages would, therefore, after a temporary disturbance of market
prices, only result in a general fall of the rate of profit without
any permanent change in the prices of commodities. If I am told that
in the previous argument I assume the whole surplus wages to be spent
upon necessaries, I answer that I have made the supposition most
advantageous to the opinion of Citizen Weston. If the surplus wages
were spent upon articles formerly not entering into the consumption
of the working men, the real increase of their purchasing power would
need no proof. Being, however, only derived from an advance of wages,
that increase of their purchasing power must exactly correspond to
the decrease of the purchasing power of the capitalists. The</span><span lang="en-US"><i>aggregate
demand</i></span><span lang="en-US"> for commodities would,
therefore, not </span><span lang="en-US"><i>increase</i></span><span lang="en-US">,
but the constituent parts of that demand would </span><span lang="en-US"><i>change</i></span><span lang="en-US">.
The increasing demand on the one side would be counterbalanced by the
decreasing demand on the other side. Thus the aggregate demand
remaining stationary, no change whatever could take place in the
market prices of commodities. You arrive, therefore, at this dilemma:
Either the surplus wages are equally spent upon all articles of
consumption — then the expansion of demand on the part of the
working class must be compensated by the contraction of demand on the
part of the capitalist class — or the surplus wages are only spent
upon some articles whose market prices will temporarily rise. The
consequent rise in the rate of profit in some, and the consequent
fall in the rate of profit in other branches of industry will produce
a change in the distribution of capital and labour, going on until
the supply is brought up to the increased demand in the one
department of industry, and brought down to the diminished demand in
the other departments of industry. On the one supposition there will
occur no change in the prices of commodities. On the other
supposition, after some fluctuations of market prices, the
exchangeable values of commodities will subside to the former level.
On both suppositions the general rise in the rate of wages will
ultimately result in nothing else but a general fall in the rate of
profit.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">To stir up your powers of imagination Citizen
Weston requested you to think of the difficulties which a general
rise of English agricultural wages from nine shillings to eighteen
shillings would produce. Think, he exclaimed, of the immense rise in
the demand for necessaries, and the consequent fearful rise in their
prices! Now, all of you know that the average wages of the American
agricultural labourer amount to more than double that of the English
agricultural labourer, although the prices of agricultural produce
are lower in the United States than in the United Kingdom, although
the general relations of capital and labour obtain in the United
States the same as in England, and although the annual amount of
production is much smaller in the United States than in England. Why,
then, does our friend ring this alarm bell? Simply to shift the real
question before us. A sudden rise of wages from nine shillings to
eighteen shillings would be a sudden rise to the amount of 100
percent. Now, we are not at all discussing the question whether the
general rate of wages in England could be suddenly increased by 100
percent. We have nothing at all to do with the </span><span lang="en-US"><i>magnitude</i></span><span lang="en-US">
of the rise, which in every practical instance must depend on, and be
suited to, given circumstances. We have only to inquire how a general
rise in the rate of wages, even if restricted to one percent, will
act.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">Dismissing friend Weston's fancy rise of 100
percent, I propose calling your attention to the real rise of wages
that took place in Great Britain from 1849 to 1859.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">You are all aware of the Ten Hours Bill, or rather
Ten-and-a-half Hours Bill, introduced since 1848. This was one of the
greatest economical changes we have witnessed. It was a sudden and
compulsory rise of wages, not in some local trades, but in the
leading industrial branches by which England sways the markets of the
world. It was a rise of wages under circumstances singularly
unpropitious. Dr. Ure, Professor Senior, and all the other official
economical mouthpieces of the middle class</span><sup><span lang="en-US"><a class="sdendnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3867928748033007720#sdendnote6sym" name="sdendnote6anc"><sup>1</sup></a></span></sup><span lang="en-US">,
</span><span lang="en-US"><i>proved</i></span><span lang="en-US">,
and I must say upon much stronger grounds than those of our friend
Weston, that it would sound the death-knell of English industry. They
proved that it not only amounted to a simple rise of wages, but to a
rise of wages initiated by, and based upon, a diminution of the
quantity of labour employed. They asserted that the twelfth hour you
wanted to take from the capitalist was exactly the only hour from
which he derived his profit. They threatened a decrease of
accumulation, rise of prices, loss of markets, stinting of
production, consequent reaction upon wages, ultimate ruin. In fact,
they declared Maximillian Robespierre's Maximum Laws</span><sup><span lang="en-US"><a class="sdendnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3867928748033007720#sdendnote7sym" name="sdendnote7anc"><sup>2</sup></a></span></sup><span lang="en-US">
to be a small affair compared to it; and they were right in a certain
sense. Well, what was the result? A rise in the money wages of the
factory operatives, despite the curtailing of the working day, a
great increase in the number of factory hands employed, a continuous
fall in the prices of their products, a marvellous development in the
productive powers of their labour, an unheard-of progressive
expansion of the markets for their commodities. In Manchester, at the
meeting, in 1860, of the Society for the Advancement of Science, I
myself heard Mr. Newman confess that he, Dr. Ure, Senior, and all
other official propounders of economical science had been wrong,
while the instinct of the people had been right. I mention Mr. W.
Newman, not Professor Francis Newman, because he occupies an eminent
position in economical science, as the contributor to, and editor of,
Mr. Thomas Tooke's</span><span lang="en-US"><i>History Of Prices</i></span><span lang="en-US">,
that magnificent work which traces the history of prices from 1793 to
1856. If our friend Weston's fixed idea of a fixed amount of wages, a
fixed amount of production, a fixed degree of the productive power of
labour, a fixed and permanent will of the capitalist, and all his
other fixedness and finality were correct, Professor Senior's woeful
forebodings would been right, and Robert Owen</span><sup><span lang="en-US"><a class="sdendnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3867928748033007720#sdendnote8sym" name="sdendnote8anc"><sup>3</sup></a></span></sup><span lang="en-US">,
who already in 1816 proclaimed a general limitation of the working
day the first preparatory step to the emancipation of the working
class, and actually in the teeth of the general prejudice inaugurated
it on his own hook in his cotton factory at New Lanark, would have
been wrong.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">In the very same period during which the
introduction of the Ten Hours Bill, and the rise of wages consequent
upon it, occurred, there took place in Great Britain, for reasons
which it would be out of place to enumerate here, </span><span lang="en-US"><i>a
general rise in agricultural wages</i></span><span lang="en-US">.
Although it is not required for my immediate purpose, in order not to
mislead you, I shall make some preliminary remarks.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">If a man got two shillings weekly wages, and if
his wages rose to four shillings, the </span><span lang="en-US"><i>rate
of wages</i></span><span lang="en-US"> would have risen by 100 per
cent. This would seem a very magnificent thing if expressed as a rise
in the </span><span lang="en-US"><i>rate of wages</i></span><span lang="en-US">,
although the </span><span lang="en-US"><i>actual amount of wages</i></span><span lang="en-US">,
four shillings weekly, would still remain a wretchedly small, a
starvation pittance. You must not, therefore, allow yourselves to be
carried away by the high sounding per cents in </span><span lang="en-US"><i>rate</i></span><span lang="en-US">
of wages. You must always ask: What was the </span><span lang="en-US"><i>original</i></span><span lang="en-US">
amount?</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">Moreover, you will understand, that if there were
ten men receiving each 2s. per week, five men receiving each 5s., and
five men receiving 11s. weekly, the twenty men together would receive
100s., or 5 Pounds, weekly. If then a rise, say by 20 per cent, upon
the </span><span lang="en-US"><i>aggregate</i></span><span lang="en-US">
sum of their weekly wages took place, there would be an advance from
5 Pounds to 6 Pounds. Taking the average, we might say that the
</span><span lang="en-US"><i>general rate of wages</i></span><span lang="en-US">
had risen by 25 per cent, although, in fact, the wages of the ten men
had remained stationary, the wages of the one lot of five men had
risen from 5s. to 6s. only, and the wages of the other lot of five
from 55s. to 70s.</span><sup><span lang="en-US"><a class="sdendnoteanc" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3867928748033007720#sdendnote9sym" name="sdendnote9anc"><sup>4</sup></a></span></sup><span lang="en-US">
One half of the men would not have improved at all their position,
one quarter would have improved it in an imperceptible degree, and
only one quarter would have bettered it really. Still, reckoning by
the </span><span lang="en-US"><i>average</i></span><span lang="en-US">,
the total amount of the wages of those twenty men would have
increased by 25 per cent, and as far as the aggregate capital that
employs them, and the prices of the commodities they produce, are
concerned, it would be exactly the same as if all of them had equally
shared in the average rise of wages. In the case of agricultural
labour, the standard wages being very different in the different
counties of England and Scotland, the rise affected them very
unequally.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">Lastly, during the period when that rise of wages
took place counteracting influences were at work such as the new
taxes consequent upon the Russian war, the extensive demolition of
the dwelling-houses of the agricultural labourers, and so forth.
Having premised so much, I proceed to state that from 1849 to 1859
there took place a </span><span lang="en-US"><i>rise of about 40
percent</i></span><span lang="en-US"> in the average rate of the
agricultural wages of Great Britain. I could give you ample details
in proof of my assertion, but for the present purpose think it
sufficient to refer you to the conscientious and critical paper read
in 1860 by the late Mr. John C. Morton at the London Society of Arts
on “The Forces used in Agriculture.” Mr. Morton gives the
returns, from bills and other authentic documents, which he had
collected from about one hundred farmers, residing in twelve Scotch
and thirty-five English counties.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">According to our friend Weston's opinion, and
taken together with the simultaneous rise in the wages of the factory
operatives, there ought to have occurred a tremendous rise in the
prices of agricultural produce during the period 1849 to 1859. But
what is the fact? Despite the Russian war, and the consecutive
unfavourable harvests from 1854 to 1856, the average price of wheat,
which is the leading agricultural produce of England, fell from about
3 Pounds per quarter for the years 1838 to 1848 to about 2 Pounds 10
Shillings per quarter for the years 1849 to 1859. This constitutes a
fall in the price of wheat of more than 16 percent simultaneously
with an average rise of agricultural wages of 40 percent. During the
same period, if we compare its end with its beginning, 1859 with
1849, there was a decrease of official pauperism from 934,419 to
860,470, the difference being 73,949; a very small decrease, I grant,
and which in the following years was again lost, but still a
decrease.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US">It might be said that, consequent upon the
abolition of the Corn Laws, the import of foreign corn was more than
doubled during the period from 1849 to 1859, as compared with the
period from 1838 to 1848. And what of that? From Citizen Weston's
standpoint one would have expected that this sudden, immense, and
continuously increasing demand upon foreign markets must have sent up
the prices of agricultural produce there to a frightful height, the
effect of increased demand remaining the same, whether it comes from
without or from within. What was the fact? Apart from some years of
failing harvests, during all that period the ruinous fall in the
price of corn formed a standing theme of declamation in France; the
Americans were again and again compelled to burn their surplus
produce; and Russia, if we are to believe Mr. Urquhart, prompted the
Civil War in the United States because her agricultural exports were
crippled by the Yankee competition in the markets of Europe.</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span lang="en-US"><i>Reduced to its abstract form</i></span><span lang="en-US">,
Citizen Weston's argument would come to this: Every rise in demand
occurs always on the basis of a given amount of production. It can,
therefore, </span><span lang="en-US"><i>never increase the supply of
the articles demanded</i></span><span lang="en-US">, but can </span><span lang="en-US"><i>only
enhance their money prices</i></span><span lang="en-US">. Now the
most common observation shows than an increased demand will, in some
instances, leave the market prices of commodities altogether
unchanged, and will, in other instances, cause a temporary rise of
market prices followed by an increased supply, followed by a
reduction of the prices to their original level, and in many cases
</span><span lang="en-US"><i>below</i></span><span lang="en-US">their
original level. Whether the rise of demand springs from surplus
wages, or from any other cause, does not at all change the conditions
of the problem. From Citizen Weston's standpoint the general
phenomenon was as difficult to explain as the phenomenon occurring
under the exceptional circumstances of a rise of wages. His argument
had, therefore, no peculiar bearing whatever upon the subject we
treat. It only expressed his perplexity at accounting for the laws by
which an increase of demand produces an increase of supply, instead
of an ultimate rise of market prices.</span></div>
<h3 class="western" lang="en-AU">
IV. Supply and Demand</h3>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Our friend Weston accepts the Latin proverb that “<em><span style="color: black;">repetitio
est mater studiorum</span></em>,” that is to say, that repetition
is the mother of study, and consequently he repeated his original
dogma again under the new form, that the contraction of currency,
resulting from an enhancement of wages, would produce a diminution of
capital, and so forth. Having already dealt with his currency
crotchet, I consider it quite useless to enter upon the imaginary
consequences he fancies to flow from his imaginary currency mishap. I
shall proceed to at once reduce his<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">one
and the same dogma</span></em>, repeated in so many different shapes,
to its simplest theoretical form.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
The uncritical way in which he has treated his subject will become
evident from one single remark. He pleads against a rise of wages or
against high wages as the result of such a rise. Now, I ask him: What
are high wages and what are low wages? Why constitute, for example,
five shillings weekly low, and twenty shillings weekly high wages? If
five is low as compared with twenty, twenty is still lower as
compared with two hundred. If a man was to lecture on the
thermometer, and commenced by declaiming on high and low degrees, he
would impart no knowledge whatever. He must first tell me how the
freezing-point is found out, and how the boiling-point, and how these
standard points are settled by natural laws, not by the fancy of the
sellers or makers of thermometers. Now, in regard to wages and
profits, Citizen Weston has not only failed to deduce such standard
points from economical laws, but he has not even felt the necessity
to look after them. He satisfied himself with the acceptance of the
popular slang terms of low and high as something having a fixed
meaning, although it is self-evident that wages can only be said to
be high or low as compared with a standard by which to measure their
magnitudes.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
He will be unable to tell me why a certain amount of money is given
for a certain amount of labour. If he should answer me, “This was
settled by the law of supply and demand,” I should ask him, in the
first instance, by what law supply and demand are themselves
regulated. And such an answer would at once put him out of court. The
relations between the supply and demand of labour undergo perpetual
change, and with them the market prices of labour. If the demand
overshoots the supply wages rise; if the supply overshoots the demand
wages sink, although it might in such circumstances be necessary to<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">test</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>the real state of demand and supply by a strike, for example,
or any other method. But if you accept supply and demand as the law
regulating wages, it would be as childish as useless to declaim
against a rise of wages, because, according to the supreme law you
appeal to, a periodical rise of wages is quite as necessary and
legitimate as a periodical fall of wages. If you do<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">not</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>accept supply and demand as the law regulating wages, I again
repeat the question, why a certain amount of money is given for a
certain amount of labour?</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
But to consider matters more broadly: You would be altogether
mistaken in fancying that the value of labour or any other commodity
whatever is ultimately fixed by supply and demand. Supply and demand
regulate nothing but the temporary<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">fluctuations</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of market prices. They will explain to you why the market
price of a commodity rises above or sinks below its<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">value</span></em>, but they can
never account for the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>itself. Suppose supply and demand to equilibrate, or, as the
economists call it, to cover each other. Why, the very moment these
opposite forces become equal they paralyze each other, and cease to
work in the one or other direction. At the moment when supply and
demand equilibrate each other, and therefore cease to act, the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">market price</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of a commodity coincides with its<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">real
value</span></em>, with the standard price round which its market
prices oscillate. In inquiring into the nature of that VALUE, we have
therefore nothing at all to do with the temporary effects on market
prices of supply and demand. The same holds true of wages and of the
prices of all other commodities.</div>
<h3 class="western" lang="en-AU">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3867928748033007720" name="c5"></a>V. Wages and Prices</h3>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Reduced to their simplest theoretical expression, all our friend's
arguments resolve themselves into this one dogma: “<em><span style="color: black;">The
prices of commodities are determined or regulated by wages.</span></em>"</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
I might appeal to practical observation to bear witness against this
antiquated and exploded fallacy. I might tell you that the English
factory operatives, miners, shipbuilders, and so forth, whose labour
is relatively high-priced, undersell by the cheapness of their
produce all other nations; while the English agricultural labourer,
for example, whose labour is relatively low-priced, is undersold by
almost every other nation because of the dearness of his produce. By
comparing article with article in the same country, and the
commodities of different countries, I might show, apart from some
exceptions more apparent than real, that on an average the
high-priced labour produces the low-priced, and low priced labour
produces the high-priced commodities. This, of course, would not
prove that the high price of labour in the one, and its low price in
the other instance, are the respective causes of those diametrically
opposed effects, but at all events it would prove that the prices of
commodities are not ruled by the prices of labour. However, it is
quite superfluous for us to employ this empirical method.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
It might, perhaps, be denied that Citizen Weston has put forward the
dogma: “<em><span style="color: black;">The prices of commodities are
determined or regulated by wages.</span></em>” In point of fact, he
has never formulated it. He said, on the contrary, that profit and
rent also form constituent parts of the prices of commodities,
because it is out of the prices of commodities that not only the
working man's wages, but also the capitalist's profits and the
landlord's rents must be paid. But how in his idea are prices formed?
First by wages. Then an additional percentage is joined to the price
on behalf of the capitalist, and another additional percentage on
behalf of the landlord. Suppose the wages of the labour employed in
the production of a commodity to be ten. If the rate of profit was
100 per cent, to the wages advanced the capitalist would add ten, and
if the rate of rent was also 100 per cent upon the wages, there would
be added ten more, and the aggregate price of the commodity would
amount to thirty. But such a determination of prices would be simply
their determination by wages. If wages in the above case rose to
twenty, the price of the commodity would rise to sixty, and so forth.
Consequently all the superannuated writers on political economy who
propounded the dogma that wages regulate prices, have tried to prove
it by treating profit and rent<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">as
mere additional percentages upon wages</span></em>. None of them
were, of course, able to reduce the limits of those percentages to
any economic law. They seem, on the contrary, to think profits
settled by tradition, custom, the will of the capitalist, or by some
other equally arbitrary and inexplicable method. If they assert that
they are settled by the competition between the capitalists, they say
nothing. That competition is sure to equalize the different rates of
profit in different trades, or reduce them to one average level, but
it can never determine the level itself, or the general rate of
profit.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
What do we mean by saying that the prices of the commodities are
determined by wages? Wages being but a name for the price of labour,
we mean that the prices of commodities are regulated by the price of
labour. As “price” is exchangeable value — and in speaking of
value I speak always of exchangeable value — is exchangeable<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">value expressed in money</span></em>,
the proposition comes to this, that “the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">value of commodities</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>is determined by the value of labour,” or that “the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">value of labour is the general
measure of value</span></em>."</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
But how, then, is the “<em><span style="color: black;">value of labour</span></em>”
itself determined? Here we come to a standstill. Of course, we come
to a standstill if we try reasoning logically, yet the propounders of
that doctrine make short work of logical scruples. Take our friend
Weston, for example. First he told us that wages regulate the price
of commodities and that consequently when wages rise prices must
rise. Then he turned round to show us that a rise of wages will be no
good because the prices of commodities had risen, and because wages
were indeed measured by the prices of the commodities upon which they
are spent. Thus we begin by saying that the value of labour
determines the value of commodities, and we wind up by saying that
the value of commodities determines the value of labour. Thus we move
to and fro in the most vicious circle, and arrive at no conclusion at
all.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
On the whole, it is evident that by making the value of one
commodity, say labour, corn, or any other commodity, the general
measure and regulator of value, we only shift the difficulty, since
we determine one value by another, which on its side wants to be
determined.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
The dogma that “wages determine the price of commodities,”
expressed in its most abstract terms, comes to this, that “value is
determined by value,” and this tautology means that, in fact, we
know nothing at all about value. Accepting this premise, all
reasoning about the general laws of political economy turns into mere
twaddle. It was, therefore, the great merit of Ricardo that in his
work on<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">the
principles of political economy</span></em>, published in 1817, he
fundamentally destroyed the old popular, and worn-out fallacy that
“wages determine prices,” a fallacy which Adam Smith and his
French predecessors had spurned in the really scientific parts of
their researches, but which they reproduced in their more exoterical
and vulgarizing chapters.</div>
<h3 class="western" lang="en-AU">
VI. Value and Labour</h3>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Citizens, I have now arrived at a point where I must enter upon the
real development of the question. I cannot promise to do this in a
very satisfactory way, because to do so I should be obliged to go
over the whole field of political economy. I can, as the French would
say, but “effleurer la question,” touch upon the main points. The
first question we have to put is: What is the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">value</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of a commodity? How is it determined?</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
At first sight it would seem that the value of a commodity is a thing
quite<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">relative</span></em>,
and not to be settled without considering one commodity in its
relations to all other commodities. In fact, in speaking of the
value, the value in exchange of a commodity, we mean the proportional
quantities in which it exchanges with all other commodities. But then
arises the question: How are the proportions in which commodities
exchange with each other regulated? We know from experience that
these proportions vary infinitely. Taking one single commodity,
wheat, for instance, we shall find that a quarter of wheat exchanges
in almost countless variations of proportion with different
commodities. Yet,<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">its
value remaining</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">always
the same</span></em>, whether expressed in silk, gold, or any other
commodity, it must be something distinct from, and independent of,
these<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">different
rates of exchange</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>with
different articles. It must be possible to express, in a very
different form, these various equations with various commodities.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Besides, if I say a quarter of wheat exchanges with iron in a certain
proportion, or the value of a quarter of wheat is expressed in a
certain amount of iron, I say that the value of wheat and its
equivalent in iron are equal to<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">some
third thing</span></em>, which is neither wheat nor iron, because I
suppose them to express the same magnitude in two different shapes.
Either of them, the wheat or the iron, must, therefore, independently
of the other, be reducible to this third thing which is their common
measure.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
To elucidate this point I shall recur to a very simple geometrical
illustration. In comparing the areas of triangles of all possible
forms and magnitudes, or comparing triangles with rectangles, or any
other rectilinear figure, how do we proceed? We reduce the area of
any triangle whatever to an expression quite different from its
visible form. Having found from the nature of the triangle that its
area is equal to half the product of its base by its height, we can
then compare the different values of all sorts of triangles, and of
all rectilinear figures whatever, because all of them may be resolved
into a certain number of triangles.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
The same mode of procedure must obtain with the values of
commodities. We must be able to reduce all of them to an expression
common to all, and distinguishing them only by the proportions in
which they contain that identical measure.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
As the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">exchangeable
values</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>of commodities are
only<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">social
functions</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>of those things,
and have nothing at all to do with the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">natural</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>qualities, we must first ask: What is the common<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">social substance</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of all commodities? It is<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">labour</span></em>.
To produce a commodity a certain amount of labour must be bestowed
upon it, or worked up in it. And I say not only<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">labour</span></em>, but<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">social labour</span></em>. A man who
produces an article for his own immediate use, to consume it himself,
creates a<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">product</span></em>,
but not a<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">commodity</span></em>.
As a self-sustaining producer he has nothing to do with society. But
to produce a<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">commodity</span></em>,
a man must not only produce an article satisfying some<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">social</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>want, but his labour itself must form part and parcel of the
total sum of labour expended by society. It must be subordinate to
the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">division
of labour within society</span></em>. It is nothing without the other
divisions of labour, and on its part is required to<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">integrate</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>them.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
If we consider<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">commodities
as values</span></em>, we consider them exclusively under the single
aspect of<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">realized,
fixed</span></em>, or, if you like,<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">crystallized social labour</span></em>.
In this respect they can<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">differ</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>only by representing greater or smaller quantities of labour,
as, for example, a greater amount of labour may be worked up in a
silken handkerchief than in a brick. But how does one measure<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">quantities of labour</span></em>? By
the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">time the
labour lasts</span></em>, in measuring the labour by the hour, the
day, etc. Of course, to apply this measure, all sorts of labour are
reduced to average or simple labour as their unit. We arrive,
therefore, at this conclusion. A commodity has<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">a value</span></em>, because it is a<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">crystallization of social labour</span></em>.
The<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">greatness</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of its value, or its<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">relative</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>value, depends upon the greater or less amount of that social
substance contained in it; that is to say, on the relative mass of
labour necessary for its production. The<em><span style="color: black;">relative
values of commodities</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>are,
therefore, determined by the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">respective
quantities or amounts of labour, worked up, realized, fixed in them</span></em>.
The<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">correlative</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>quantities of commodities which can be produced in the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">same time of labour</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>are<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">equal</span></em>.
Or the value of one commodity is to the value of another commodity as
the quantity of labour fixed in the one is to the quantity of labour
fixed in the other.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
I suspect that many of you will ask: Does then, indeed, there exist
such a vast or any difference whatever, between determining the
values of commodities by<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">wages</span></em>,
and determining them by the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">relative
quantities of labour</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>necessary
for their production? You must, however, be aware that the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">reward</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>for labour, and<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">quantity</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of labour, are quite disparate things. Suppose, for example,<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">equal quantities of labour</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>to be fixed in one quarter of wheat and one ounce of gold. I
resort to the example because it was used by Benjamin Franklin in his
first Essay published in 1721, and entitled<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">A
Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency</span></em>,
where he, one of the first, hit upon the true nature of value.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Well. We suppose, then, that one quarter of wheat and one ounce of
gold are<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">equal
values</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>or<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">equivalents</span></em>, because
they are<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">crystallizations
of equal amounts of average labour</span></em>, of so many days' or
so many weeks' labour respectively fixed in them. In thus determining
the relative values of gold and corn, do we refer in any way whatever
to the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">wages</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of the agricultural labourer and the miner? Not a bit. We
leave it quite<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">indeterminate</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>how their day's or their week's labour was paid, or even
whether wage labour was employed at all. If it was, wages may have
been very unequal. The labourer whose labour is realized in the
quarter of wheat may receive two bushels only, and the labourer
employed in mining may receive one-half of the ounce of gold. Or,
supposing their wages to be equal, they may deviate in all possible
proportions from the values of the commodities produced by them. They
may amount to one-fourth, one-fifth, or any other proportional part
of the one quarter of corn or the one ounce of gold. Their<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">wages</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>can, of course, not<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">exceed</span></em>,
not be<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">more</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>than the values of the commodities they produced, but they can
be<span style="color: black;"> </span><i>less</i><span style="color: black;"> </span>in
every possible degree. Their<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">wages</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>will be<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">limited</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>by the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">values</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of the products, but the<em><span style="color: black;">values of
their products</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>will not be
limited by the wages. And above all, the values, the relative values
of corn and gold, for example, will have been settled without any
regard whatever to the value of the labour employed, that is to say,
to<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">wages</span></em>.
To determine the values of commodities by the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">relative quantities of labour fixed
in them</span></em>, is, therefore, a thing quite different from the
tautological method of determining the values of commodities by the
value of labour, or by<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">wages</span></em>.
This point, however, will be further elucidated in the progress of
our inquiry.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
In calculating the exchangeable value of a commodity we must add to
the quantity of labour<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">previously</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>worked up in the raw material of the commodity, and the labour
bestowed on the implements, tools, machinery, and buildings, with
which such labour is assisted. For example, the value of a certain
amount of cotton yarn is the crystallization of the quantity of
labour added to the cotton during the spinning process, the quantity
of labour previously realized in the cotton itself, the quantity of
labour realized in the coal, oil, and other auxiliary substances
used, the quantity of labour fixed in the steam-engine, the spindles,
the factory building, and so forth. Instruments of production
properly so-called, such as tools, machinery, buildings, serve again
and again for longer or shorter period during repeated processes of
production. If they were used up at once, like the raw material,
their whole value would at once be transferred to the commodities
they assist in producing. But as a spindle, for example, is but
gradually used up, an average calculation is made, based upon the
average time it lasts, and its average waste or wear and tear during
a certain period, say a day. In this way we calculate how much of the
value of the spindle is transferred to the yarn daily spin, and how
much, therefore, of the total amount of labour realized in a pound of
yarn, for example, is due to the quantity of labour previously
realized in the spindle. For our present purpose it is not necessary
to dwell any longer upon this point.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
It might seem that if the value of a commodity is determined by the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">quantity of labour bestowed upon its
production</span></em>, the lazier a man, or the clumsier a man, the
more valuable his commodity, because the greater the time of labour
required for finishing the commodity. This, however, would be a sad
mistake. You will recollect that I used the word “<em><span style="color: black;">social</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>labour,” and many points are involved in this qualification
of “<em><span style="color: black;">social</span></em>.” In saying that
the value of a commodity is determined by the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">quantity of labour</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>worked up or crystallized in it, we mean<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">the quantity of labour necessary</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>for its production in a given state of society, under certain
social average conditions of production, with a given social average
intensity, and average skill of the labour employed. When, in
England, the power-loom came to compete with the hand-loom, only half
the former time of labour was wanted to convert a given amount of
yarn into a yard of cotton or cloth. The poor hand-loom weaver now
worked seventeen or eighteen hours daily, instead of the nine or ten
hours he had worked before. Still the product of twenty hours of his
labour represented now only ten social hours of labour, or ten hours
of labour socially necessary for the conversion of a certain amount
of yarn into textile stuffs. His product of twenty hours had,
therefore, no more value than his former product of ten hours.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
If then the quantity of socially necessary labour realized in
commodities regulates their exchangeable values, every increase in
the quantity of labour wanted for the production of a commodity must
augment its value, as every diminution must lower it.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
If the respective quantities of labour necessary for the production
of the respective commodities remained constant, their relative
values also would be constant. But such is not the case. The quantity
of labour necessary for the production of a commodity changes
continuously with the changes in the productive powers of labour, the
more produce is finished in a given time of labour; and the smaller
the productive powers of labour, the less produce is finished in the
same time. If, for example, in the progress of population it should
become necessary to cultivate less fertile soils, the same amount of
produce would be only attainable by a greater amount of labour spent,
and the value of agricultural produce would consequently rise. On the
other hand, if, with the modern means of production, a single spinner
converts into yarn, during one working day, many thousand times the
amount of cotton which he could have spun during the same time with
the spinning wheel, it is evident that every single pound of cotton
will absorb many thousand times less of spinning labour than it did
before, and consequently, the value added by spinning to every single
pound of cotton will be a thousand times less than before. The value
of yarn will sink accordingly.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Apart from the different natural energies and acquired working
abilities of different peoples, the productive powers of labour must
principally depend: —</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Firstly. Upon the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">natural</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>conditions of labour, such as fertility of soil, mines, and so
forth.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Secondly. Upon the progressive improvement of the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">social powers of labour</span></em>,
such as are derived from production on a grand scale, concentration
of capital and combination of labour, subdivision of labour,
machinery, improved methods, appliance of chemical and other natural
agencies, shortening of time and space by means of communication and
transport, and every other contrivance by which science presses
natural agencies into the service of labour, and by which the social
or co-operative character of labour is developed. The greater the
productive powers of labour, the less labour is bestowed upon a given
amount of produce; hence the smaller the value of the produce. The
smaller the productive powers of labour, the more labour is bestowed
upon the same amount of produce; hence the greater its value. As a
general law we may, therefore, set it down that: —</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<em><span style="color: black;">The values of commodities are directly as
the times of labour employed in their production, and are inversely
as the productive powers of the labour employed.</span></em></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Having till now only spoken of<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value</span></em>,
I shall add a few words about<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">price</span></em>,
which is a peculiar form assumed by value.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Price, taken by itself, is nothing but the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">monetary expression of value</span></em>.
The values of all commodities of the country, for example, are
expressed in gold prices, while on the Continent they are mainly
expressed in silver prices. The value of gold or silver, like that of
all other commodities is regulated by the quantity of labour
necessary for getting them. You exchange a certain amount of your
national products, in which a certain amount of your national labour
is crystallized, for the produce of the gold and silver producing
countries, in which a certain quantity of<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">their</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>labour is crystallized. It is in this way, in fact by barter,
that you learn to express in gold and silver the values of all
commodities, that is the respective quantities of labour bestowed
upon them. Looking somewhat closer into the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">monetary expression of value</span></em>,
or what comes to the same, the conversion of value into price, you
will find that it is a process by which you give to the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">values</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of all commodities an<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">independent</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>and<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">homogeneous
form</span></em>, or by which you express them as quantities of equal
social labour. So far as it is but the monetary expression of value,
price has been called<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">natural
price</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>by Adam Smith, “<em><span style="color: black;">prix
necessaire</span></em>” by the French physiocrats.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
What then is the relation between<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>and<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">market
prices</span></em>, or between<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">natural
prices</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>and<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">market prices</span></em>? You all
know that the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">market
price</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>is the<em><span style="color: black;">same</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>for all commodities of the same kind, however the conditions
of production may differ for the individual producers. The market
price expresses only the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">average
amount of social labour</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>necessary,
under the average conditions of production, to supply the market with
a certain mass of a certain article. It is calculated upon the whole
lot of a commodity of a certain description.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
So far the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">market
price</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>of a commodity
coincides with its<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value</span></em>.
On the other hand, the oscillations of market prices, rising now
over, sinking now under the value or natural price, depend upon the
fluctuations of supply and demand. The deviations of market prices
from values are continual, but as Adam Smith says:</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-left: 0.39in; margin-right: 0.47in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
“The natural price is the central price to which the prices of
commodities are continually gravitating. Different accidents may
sometimes keep them suspended a good deal above it, and sometimes
force them down even somewhat below it. But whatever may be the
obstacles which hinder them from settling in this center of repose
and continuance, they are constantly tending towards it.”</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
I cannot now sift this matter. It suffices to say the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">if</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>supply and demand equilibrate each other, the market prices of
commodities will correspond with their natural prices, that is to say
with their values, as determined by the respective quantities of
labour required for their production. But supply and demand<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">must</span></em>constantly tend to
equilibrate each other, although they do so only by compensating one
fluctuation by another, a rise by a fall, and<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">vice versa</span></em>. If instead
of considering only the daily fluctuations you analyze the movement
of market prices for longer periods, as Mr. Tooke, for example, has
done in his<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">History
of Prices</span></em>, you will find that the fluctuations of market
prices, their deviations from values, their ups and downs, paralyze
and compensate each other; so that apart from the effect of
monopolies and some other modifications I must now pass by, all
descriptions of commodities are, on average, sold at their respective<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">values</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>or natural prices. The average periods during which the
fluctuations of market prices compensate each other are different for
different kinds of commodities, because with one kind it is easier to
adapt supply to demand than with the other.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
If then, speaking broadly, and embracing somewhat longer periods, all
descriptions of commodities sell at their respective values, it is
nonsense to suppose that profit, not in individual cases; but that
the constant and usual profits of different trades spring from the
prices of commodities, or selling them at a price over and above
their<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value</span></em>.
The absurdity of this notion becomes evident if it is generalized.
What a man would constantly win as a seller he would constantly lose
as a purchaser. It would not do to say that there are men who are
buyers without being sellers, or consumers without being producers.
What these people pay to the producers, they must first get from them
for nothing. If a man first takes your money and afterwards returns
that money in buying your commodities, you will never enrich
yourselves by selling your commodities too dear to that same man.
This sort of transaction might diminish a loss, but would never help
in realizing a profit. To explain, therefore, the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">general nature of profits</span></em>,
you must start from the theorem that, on an average, commodities are<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">sold at their real values</span></em>,
and that<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">profits
are derived from selling them at their values</span></em>, that is,
in proportion to the quantity of labour realized in them. If you
cannot explain profit upon this supposition, you cannot explain it at
all. This seems paradox and contrary to every-day observation. It is
also paradox that the earth moves round the sun, and that water
consists of two highly inflammable gases. Scientific truth is always
paradox, if judged by every-day experience, which catches only the
delusive appearance of things.</div>
<h3 class="western" lang="en-AU">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3867928748033007720" name="c7"></a>VII. Labour Power</h3>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Having now, as far as it could be done in such a cursory manner,
analyzed the nature of<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value</span></em>,
of the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value
of any commodity whatever</span></em>, we must turn our attention to
the specific<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value
of labour</span></em>. And here, again, I must startle you by a
seeming paradox. All of you feel sure that what they daily sell is
their Labour; that, therefore, Labour has a price, and that, the
price of a commodity being only the monetary expression of its value,
there must certainly exist such a thing as the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">value of labour</span></em>.
However, there exists no such thing as the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">value of labour</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>in the common acceptance of the word. We have seen that the
amount of necessary labour crystallized in a commodity constitutes
its value. Now, applying this notion of value, how could we define,
say, the value of a ten hours working day? How much labour is
contained in that day? Ten hours' labour.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
To say that the value of a ten hours working day is equal to ten
hours' labour, or the quantity of labour contained in it, would be a
tautological and, moreover, a nonsensical expression. Of course,
having once found out the true but hidden sense of the expression
“<em><span style="color: black;">value of labour</span></em>,” we shall
be able to interpret this irrational, and seemingly impossible
application of value, in the same way that, having once made sure of
the real movement of the celestial bodies, we shall be able to
explain their apparent or merely phenomenal movements.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
What the working man sells is not directly his<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">labour</span></em>, but his<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">labouring power</span></em>, the
temporary disposal of which he makes over to the capitalist. This is
so much the case that I do not know whether by the English Laws, but
certainly by some Continental Laws, the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">maximum
time</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>is fixed for which a
man is allowed to sell his labouring power. If allowed to do so for
any indefinite period whatever, slavery would be immediately
restored. Such a sale, if it comprised his lifetime, for example,
would make him at once the lifelong slave of his employer.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
One of the oldest economists and most original philosophers of
England — Thomas Hobbes — has already, in his Leviathan,
instinctively hit upon this point overlooked by all his successors.
He says: “<em><span style="color: black;">the value or worth of a man</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>is, as in all other things, his<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">price</span></em>:
that is so much as would be given for the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">use
of his power</span></em>.” Proceeding from this basis, we shall be
able to determine the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value
of labour</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>as that of all
other commodities.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
But before doing so, we might ask, how does this strange phenomenon
arise, that we find on the market a set of buyers, possessed of land,
machinery, raw material, and the means of subsistence, all of them,
save land in its crude state, the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">products
of labour</span></em>, and on the other hand, a set of sellers who
have nothing to sell except their labouring power, their working arms
and brains? That the one set buys continually in order to make a
profit and enrich themselves, while the other set continually sells
in order to earn their livelihood? The inquiry into this question
would be an inquiry into what the economists call “<em><span style="color: black;">previous
or original accumulation</span></em>,” but which ought to be called<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">original expropriation</span></em>.
We should find that this so-called<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">original
accumulation</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>means nothing
but a series of historical processes, resulting in a<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">decomposition</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">original
union</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>existing between the
labouring Man and his Instruments of Labour. Such an inquiry,
however, lies beyond the pale of my present subject. The<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">separation</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>between the Man of Labour and the Instruments of Labour once
established, such a state of things will maintain itself and
reproduce itself upon a constantly increasing scale, until a new and
fundamental revolution in the mode of production should again
overturn it, and restore the original union in a new historical form.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
What, then, is the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value
of labouring power</span></em>?</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Like that of every other commodity, its value is determined by the
quantity of labour necessary to produce it. The labouring power of a
man exists only in his living individuality. A certain mass of
necessaries must be consumed by a man to grow up and maintain his
life. But the man, like the machine, will wear out, and must be
replaced by another man. Beside the mass of necessaries required for<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">his own</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>maintenance, he wants another amount of necessaries to bring
up a certain quota of children that are to replace him on the labour
market and to perpetuate the race of labourers. Moreover, to develop
his labouring power, and acquire a given skill,another amount of
values must be spent. For our purpose it suffices to consider only<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">average</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>labour, the costs of whose education and development are
vanishing magnitudes. Still I must seize upon this occasion to state
that, as the costs of producing labouring powers of different quality
differ, so much differ the values of the labouring powers employed in
different trades. The cry for an<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">equality
of wages</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>rests, therefore,
upon a mistake, is an inane wish never to be fulfilled. It is an
offspring of that false and superficial radicalism that accepts
premises and tries to evade conclusions. Upon the basis of the wages
system the value of labouring power is settled like that of every
other commodity; and as different kinds of labouring power have
different values, or require different quantities of labour for their
production, they<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">must</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>fetch different prices in the labour market. To clamour for<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">equal or even equitable</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">retribution</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>on the basis of the wages system is the same as to clamour for<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">freedom</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>on the basis of the slavery system. What you think just or
equitable is out of the question. The question is: What is necessary
and unavoidable with a given system of production? After what has
been said, it will be seen that the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value
of labouring power</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>is
determined by the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value
of the necessaries</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>required
to produce, develop, maintain, and perpetuate the labouring power.</div>
<h3 class="western" lang="en-AU">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3867928748033007720" name="c8"></a>VIII. Production of
Surplus Value</h3>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Now suppose that the average amount of the daily necessaries of a
labouring man require<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">six
hours of average labour</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>for
their production. Suppose, moreover, six hours of average labour to
be also realized in a quantity of gold equal to 3s. Then 3s. would be
the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">price</span></em>,
or the monetary expression of the<em><span style="color: black;">daily
value</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>of that man's<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">labouring power</span></em>. If he
worked daily six hours he would daily produce a value sufficient to
buy the average amount of his daily necessaries, or to maintain
himself as a labouring man.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
But our man is a wages labourer. He must, therefore, sell his
labouring power to a capitalist. If he sells it at 3s. daily, or 18s.
weekly, he sells it at its value. Suppose him to be a spinner. If he
works six hours daily he will add to the cotton a value of 3s. daily.
This value, daily added by him, would be an exact equivalent for the
wages, or the price of his labouring power, received daily. But in
that case<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">no
surplus value</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>or<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">surplus produce</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>whatever would go to the capitalist. Here, then, we come to
the rub.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
In buying the labouring power of the workman, and paying its value,
the capitalist, like every other purchaser, has acquired the right to
consume or use the commodity bought. You consume or use the labouring
power of a man by making him work, as you consume or use a machine by
making it run. By buying the daily or weekly value of the labouring
power of the workman, the capitalist has, therefore, acquired the
right to use or make that labouring power during the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">whole day or week</span></em>. The
working day or the working week has, of course, certain limits, but
those we shall afterwards look more closely at.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
For the present I want to turn your attention to one decisive point.
The<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of the labouring power is determined by the quantity of labour
necessary to maintain or reproduce it, but the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">use</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of that labouring power is only limited by the active energies
and physical strength of the labourer. The daily or weekly<em><span style="color: black;">value</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of the labouring power is quite distinct from the daily or
weekly exercise of that power, the same as the food a horse wants and
the time it can carry the horseman are quite distinct. The quantity
of labour by which the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of the workman's labouring power is limited forms by no means
a limit to the quantity of labour which his labouring power is apt to
perform. Take the example of our spinner. We have seen that, to daily
reproduce his labouring power, he must daily reproduce a value of
three shillings, which he will do by working six hours daily. But
this does not disable him from working ten or twelve or more hours a
day. But by paying the daily or weekly<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of the spinner's labouring power the capitalist has acquired
the right of using that labouring power during<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">the whole day or week</span></em>.
He will, therefore, make him work say, daily<em><span style="color: black;">,
twelve hours. Over and above</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>the
six hours required to replace his wages, or the value of his
labouring power, he will, therefore, have to work<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">six other hours</span></em>, which I
shall call hours of<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">surplus
labour</span></em>, which surplus labour will realize itself in a<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">surplus value</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>and a<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">surplus
produce</span></em>. If our spinner, for example, by his daily labour
of six hours, added three shillings' value to the cotton, a value
forming an exact equivalent to his wages, he will, in twelve hours,
add six shillings' worth to the cotton, and produce<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">a proportional surplus of yarn</span></em>.
As he has sold his labouring power to the capitalist, the whole value
of produce created by him belongs to the capitalist, the owner<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">pro tem</span></em>. of his
labouring power. By advancing three shillings, the capitalist will,
therefore, realize a value of six shillings, because, advancing a
value in which six hours of labour are crystallized, he will receive
in return a value in which twelve hours of labour are crystallized.
By repeating this same process daily, the capitalist will daily
advance three shillings and daily pocket six shillings, one half of
which will go to pay wages anew, and the other half of which will
form<em><span style="color: black;">surplus value</span></em>, for which
the capitalist pays no equivalent. It is this<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">sort of exchange between capital and
labour</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>upon which
capitalistic production, or the wages system, is founded, and which
must constantly result in reproducing the working man as a working
man, and the capitalist as a capitalist.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<em><span style="color: black;">The rate of surplus value</span></em>, all
other circumstances remaining the same, will depend on the proportion
between that part of the working day necessary to reproduce the value
of the labouring power and the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">surplus
time</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>or<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">surplus labour</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>performed for the capitalist. It will, therefore, depend on
the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">ratio in
which the working day is prolonged over and above that extent</span></em>,
by working which the working man would only reproduce the value of
his labouring power, or replace his wages.</div>
<h3 class="western" lang="en-AU">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3867928748033007720" name="c9"></a>IX. Value of Labour</h3>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
We must now return to the expression, “<em><span style="color: black;">value,
or price of labour</span></em>.” We have seen that, in fact, it is
only the value of the labouring power, measured by the values of
commodities necessary for its maintenance. But since the workman
receives his wages<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">after</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>his labour is performed, and knows, moreover, that what he
actually gives to the capitalist is his labour, the value or price of
his labouring power necessarily appears to him as the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">price</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>or<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value
of his labour itself</span></em>. If the price of his labouring power
is three shillings, in which six hours of labour are realized, and if
he works twelve hours, he necessarily considers these three shillings
as the value or price of twelve hours of labour, although these
twelve hours of labour realize themselves in a value of six
shillings. A double consequence flows from this.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Firstly. The<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value
or price of the labouring power</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>takes the semblance of the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">price
or value of labour itself</span></em>, although, strictly speaking,
value and price of labour are senseless terms.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Secondly. Although one part only of the workman's daily labour is<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">paid</span></em>, while the other
part is<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">unpaid</span></em>,
and while that unpaid or surplus labour constitutes exactly the fund
out of which<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">surplus
value</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>or<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">profit</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>is formed, it seems as if the aggregate labour was paid
labour.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
This false appearance distinguishes<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">wages
labour</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>from other<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">historical</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>forms of labour. On the basis of the wages system even the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">unpaid</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>labour seems to be<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">paid</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>labour. With the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">slave</span></em>,
on the contrary, even that part of his labour which is paid appears
to be unpaid. Of course, in order to work the slave must live, and
one part of his working day goes to replace the value of his own
maintenance. But since no bargain is struck between him and his
master, and no acts of selling and buying are going on between the
two parties, all his labour seems to be given away for nothing.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Take, on the other hand, the peasant serf, such as he, I might say,
until yesterday existed in the whole of East of Europe. This peasant
worked, for example, three days for himself on his own field or the
field allotted to him, and the three subsequent days he performed
compulsory and gratuitous labour on the estate of his lord. Here,
then, the paid and unpaid parts of labour were sensibly separated,
separated in time and space; and our Liberals overflowed with moral
indignation at the preposterous notion of making a man work for
nothing.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
In point of fact, however, whether a man works three days of the week
for himself on his own field and three days for nothing on the estate
of his lord, or whether he works in the factory or the workshop six
hours daily for himself and six for his employer, comes to the same,
although in the latter case the paid and unpaid portions of labour
are inseparably mixed up with each other, and the nature of the whole
transaction is completely masked by the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">intervention of a contract</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>and the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">pay</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>received at the end of the week. The gratuitous labour appears
to be voluntarily given in the one instance, and to be compulsory in
the other. That makes all the difference.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
In using the word “<em><span style="color: black;">value of labour</span></em>,”
I shall only use it as a popular slang term for “<em><span style="color: black;">value
of labouring power</span></em>."</div>
<h3 class="western" lang="en-AU">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3867928748033007720" name="c10"></a>X. Profit is Made
by Selling a Commodity at its Value</h3>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Suppose an average hour of labour to be realized in a value equal to
sixpence, or twelve average hours of labour to be realized in six
shillings. Suppose, further, the value of labour to be three
shillings or the produce of six hours' labour. If, then, in the raw
material, machinery, and so forth, used up in a commodity,
twenty-four hours of average labour were realized, its value would
amount to twelve shillings. If, moreover, the workman employed by the
capitalist added twelve hours of labour to those means of production,
these twelve hours would be realized in an additional value of six
shillings. The<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">total
value of the product</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>would,
therefore, amount to thirty-six hours of realized labour, and be
equal to eighteen shillings. But as the value of labour, or the wages
paid to the workman, would be three shillings only, no equivalent
would have been paid by the capitalist for the six hours of surplus
labour worked by the workman, and realized in the value of the
commodity. By selling this commodity at its value for eighteen
shillings, the capitalist would, therefore, realize a value of three
shillings, for which had paid no equivalent. These three shillings
would constitute the surplus value or profit pocketed by him. The
capitalist would consequently realize the profit of three shillings,
not by selling his commodity at a price<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">over
and above</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>its value, but by
selling it<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">at
its real value</span></em>.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
The value of a commodity is determined by the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">total quantity of labour</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>contained in it. But part of that quantity of labour is
realized in a value for which and equivalent has been paid in the
form of wages; part of it is realized in a value for which NO
equivalent has been paid. Part of the labour contained in the
commodity is<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">paid</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>labour; part is<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">unpaid</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>labour. By selling, therefore, the commodity<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">at its value</span></em>, that is,
as the crystallization of the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">total
quantity of labour</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>bestowed
upon it, the capitalist must necessarily sell it at a profit. He
sells not only what has cost him an equivalent, but he sells also
what has cost him nothing, although it has cost his workman labour.
The cost of the commodity to the capitalist and its real cost are
different things.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
I repeat, therefore, that normal and average profits are made by
selling commodities not<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">above</span></em>,
but<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">at their
real values</span></em>.</div>
<h3 class="western" lang="en-AU">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3867928748033007720" name="c11"></a>XI. The Different
Parts into which Surplus Value is Decomposed</h3>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
The<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">surplus
value</span></em>, or that part of the total value of the commodity
in which the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">surplus
labour</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>or<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">unpaid labour</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of the working man is realized, I call<em><span style="color: black;">profit</span></em>.
The whole of that profit is not pocketed by the employing capitalist.
The monopoly of land enables the landlord to take one part of that<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">surplus value</span></em>, under the
name of<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">rent</span></em>,
whether the land is used for agricultural buildings or railways, or
for any other productive purpose. On the other hand, the very fact
that the possession of the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">instruments
of labour</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>enables the
employing capitalist to produce a<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">surplus
value</span></em>, or, what comes to the same, to<em><span style="color: black;">appropriate
to himself a certain amount of unpaid labour</span></em>, enables the
owner of the means of labour, which he lends wholly or partly to the
employing capitalist — enables, in one word, the money-lending
capitalist to claim for himself under the name of<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">interest</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>another part of that surplus value, so that there remains to
the employing capitalist<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">as
such</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>only what is called<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">industrial</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>or<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">commercial
profit</span></em>.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
By what laws this division of the total amount of surplus value
amongst the three categories of people is regulated is a question
quite foreign to our subject. This much, however, results from what
has been stated.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<em><span style="color: black;">Rent, interest, and industrial profit</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>are only different names for different parts of the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">surplus value</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of the commodity, or the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">unpaid
labour enclosed in it</span></em>, and they are<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">equally derived from this source and
from this source alone</span></em>. They are not derived from<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">land</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>as such or from<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">capital</span></em>as
such, but land and capital enable their owners to get their
respective shares out of the surplus value extracted by the employing
capitalist from the labourer. For the labourer himself it is a matter
of subordinate importance whether that surplus value, the result of
his surplus labour, or unpaid labour, is altogether pocketed by the
employing capitalist, or whether the latter is obliged to pay
portions of it, under the name of rent and interest, away to third
parties. Suppose the employing capitalist to use only his own capital
and to be his own landlord, then the whole surplus value would go
into his pocket.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
It is the employing capitalist who immediately extracts from the
labourer this surplus value, whatever part of it he may ultimately be
able to keep for himself. Upon this relation, therefore between the
employing capitalist and the wages labourer the whole wages system
and the whole present system of production hinge. Some of the
citizens who took part in our debate were, there, wrong in trying to
mince matters, and to treat this fundamental relation between the
employing capitalist and the working man as a secondary question,
although they were right in stating that, under given circumstances,
a rise of prices might affect in very unequal degrees the employing
capitalist, the landlord, the moneyed capitalist, and, if you please,
the tax-gatherer.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Another consequence follows from what has been stated.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
That part of the value of the commodity which represents only the
value of the raw materials, the machinery, in one word, the value of
the means of production used up, forms<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">no
revenue</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>at all, but replaces<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">only capital</span></em>. But, apart
from this, it is false that the other part of the value of the
commodity<em><span style="color: black;">which forms revenue</span></em>,
or may be spent in the form of wages, profits, rent, interest, is<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">constituted</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>by the value of wages, the value of rent, the value of
profits, and so forth. We shall, in the first instance, discard
wages, and only treat industrial profits, interest, and rent. We have
just seen that the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">surplus
value</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>contained in the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">commodity</span></em>, or that part
of its value in which<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">unpaid
labour</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>is realized, resolves
itself into different fractions, bearing three different names.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
But it would be quite the reverse of the truth to say that its value
is<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">composed</span></em><span style="color: black;"><i>
</i></span>of, or<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">formed</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>by, the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">addition</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">independent
values of these three constituents</span></em>.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
If one hour of labour realizes itself in a value of sixpence, if the
working day of the labourer comprises twelve hours, if half of this
time is unpaid labour, that surplus labour will add to the commodity
a<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">surplus
value</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>of three shillings,
that is of value for which no equivalent has been paid. This surplus
value of three shillings constitutes the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">whole
fund</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>which the employing
capitalist may divide, in whatever proportions, with the landlord and
the money-lender. The value of these three shillings constitutes the
limit of the value they have to divide amongst them. But it is not
the employing capitalist who adds to the value of the commodity an
arbitrary value for his profit, to which another value is added for
the landlord, and so forth, so that the addition of these arbitrarily
fixed values would constitute the total value. You see, therefore,
the fallacy of the popular notion, which confounds the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">decomposition of a given value</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>into three parts, with the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">formation</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of that value by the addition of three<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">independent</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>values, thus converting the aggregate value, from which rent,
profit, and interest are derived, into an arbitrary magnitude.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
If the total profit realized by a capitalist is equal to 100 Pounds,
we call this sum, considered as<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">absolute</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>magnitude, the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">amount
of profit</span></em>. But if we calculate the ratio which those 100
Pounds bear to the capital advanced, we call this<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">relative</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>magnitude, the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">rate
of profit</span></em>. It is evident that this rate of profit may be
expressed in a double way.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Suppose 100 Pounds to be the capital<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">advanced
in wages</span></em>. If the surplus value created is also 100 Pounds
— and this would show us that half the working day of the labourer
consists of<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">unpaid</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>labour — and if we measured this profit by the value of the
capital advanced in wages, we should say that the<em><span style="color: black;">rate
of profit</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>amounted to one
hundred percent, because the value advanced would be one hundred and
the value realized would be two hundred.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
If, on the other hand, we should not only consider the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">capital advanced in wages</span></em>,
but the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">total
capital</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>advanced, say, for
example, 500 Pounds, of which 400 Pounds represented the value of raw
materials, machinery, and so forth, we should say that the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">rate of profit</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>amounted only to twenty percent, because the profit of one
hundred would be but the fifth part of the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">total</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>capital advanced.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
The first mode of expressing the rate of profit is the only one which
shows you the real ratio between paid and unpaid labour, the real
degree of the<em><span style="color: black;">exploitation</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>(you must allow me this French word)<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">of
labour</span></em>. The other mode of expression is that in common
use, and is, indeed, appropriate for certain purposes. At all events,
it is very useful for concealing the degree in which the capitalist
extracts gratuitous labour from the workman.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
In the remarks I have still to make I shall use the word<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">profit</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>for the whole amount of the surplus value extracted by the
capitalist without any regard to the division of that surplus value
between different parties, and in using the words<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">rate of profit</span></em>, I shall
always measure profits by the value of the capital advanced in wages.</div>
<h3 class="western" lang="en-AU">
XII. General Relation of Profits,
Wages, and Prices</h3>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Deduct from the value of a commodity the value replacing the value of
the raw materials and other means of production used upon it, that is
to say, deduct the value representing the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">past</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>labour contained in it, and the remainder of its value will
resolve into the quantity of labour added by the working man<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">last</span></em>employed. If that
working man works twelve hours daily, if twelve hours of average
labour crystallize themselves in an amount of gold equal to six
shillings, this additional value of six shillings is the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">only</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>value his labour will have created. This given value,
determined by the time of his labour, is the only fund from which
both he and the capitalist have to draw their respective shares or
dividends, the only value to be divided into wages and profits. It is
evident that this value itself will not be altered by the variable
proportions in which it may be divided amongst the two parties. There
will also be nothing changed if in the place of one working man you
put the whole working population, twelve million working days, for
example, instead of one.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Since the capitalist and workman have only to divide this limited
value, that is, the value measured by the total labour of the working
man, the more the one gets the less will the other get, and<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">vice versa</span></em>. Whenever a
quantity is given, one part of it will increase inversely as the
other decreases. If the wages change, profits will change in an
opposite direction. If wages fall, profits will rise; and if wages
rise, profits will fall. If the working man, on our former
supposition, gets three shillings, equal to one half of the value he
has created, or if his whole working day consists half of paid, half
of unpaid labour, the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">rate
of profit</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>will be 100
percent, because the capitalist would also get three shillings. If
the working man receives only two shillings, or works only one third
of the whole day for himself, the capitalist will get four shillings,
and the rate of profit will be 200 per cent. If the working man
receives four shillings, the capitalist will only receive two, and
the rate of profit would sink to 50 percent, but all these variations
will not affect the value of the commodity. A general rise of wages
would, therefore, result in a fall of the general rate of profit, but
not affect values.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
But although the values of commodities, which must ultimately
regulate their market prices, are exclusively determined by the total
quantities of labour fixed in them, and not by the division of that
quantity into paid and unpaid labour, it by no means follows that the
values of the single commodities, or lots of commodities, produced
during twelve hours, for example, will remain constant. The<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">number</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>or mass of commodities produced in a given time of labour, or
by a given quantity of labour, depends upon the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">productive power</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of the labour employed, and not upon its<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">extent</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>or length. With one degree of the productive power of spinning
labour, for example, a working day of twelve hours may produce twelve
pounds of yarn, with a lesser degree of productive power only two
pounds. If then twelve hours' average labour were realized in the
value of six shillings in the one case, the twelve pounds of yarn
would cost six shillings, in the other case the two pounds of yarn
would also cost six shillings. One pound of yarn would, therefore,
cost sixpence in the one case, and three shillings in the other. The
difference of price would result from the difference in the
productive powers of labour employed. One hour of labour would be
realized in one pound of yarn with the greater productive power,
while with the smaller productive power, six hours of labour would be
realized in one pound of yarn. The price of a pound of yarn would, in
the one instance, be only sixpence, although wages were relatively
high and the rate of profit low; it would be three shillings in the
other instance, although wages were low and the rate of profit high.
This would be so because the price of the pound of yarn is regulated
by the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">total
amount of labour worked up in it</span></em>, and not by the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">proportional division of that total
amount into paid and unpaid labour</span></em>. The fact I have
mentioned before that high-price labour may produce cheap, and
low-priced labour may produce dear commodities, loses, therefore, its
paradoxical appearance. It is only the expression of the general law
that the value of a commodity is regulated by the quantity of labour
worked up in it, and the the quantity of labour worked up in it
depends altogether upon the productive powers of labour employed, and
will therefore, vary with every variation in the productivity of
labour.</div>
<h3 class="western" lang="en-AU">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3867928748033007720" name="c13"></a>XIII. Main Cases
of Attempts at Raising Wages or Resisting their Fall</h3>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Let us now seriously consider the main cases in which a rise of wages
is attempted or a reduction of wages resisted.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span style="color: #000033;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>1.</b></span></span><span style="color: black;">
</span>We have seen that the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value
of the labouring power</span></em>, or in more popular parlance, the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">value of labour</span></em>, is
determined by the value of necessaries, or the quantity of labour
required to produce them.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
If, then, in a given country the value of the daily average
necessaries of the labourer represented six hours of labour expressed
in three shillings, the labourer would have to work six hours daily
to produce an equivalent for this daily maintenance. If the whole
working day was twelve hours, the capitalist would pay him the value
of his labour by paying him three shillings. Half the working day
would be unpaid labour, and the rate of profit would amount to 100
percent. But now suppose that, consequent upon a decrease of
productivity, more labour should be wanted to produce, say, the same
amount of agricultural produce, so that the price of the average
daily necessaries should rise from three to four shillings. In that
case the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of labour would rise by one third, or 33 1/3 percent. Eight
hours of the working day would be required to produce an equivalent
for the daily maintenance of the labourer, according to his old
standard of living. The surplus labour would therefore sink from six
hours to four, and the rate of profit from 100 to 50 percent. But in
insisting upon a rise of wages, the labourer would only insist upon
getting the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">increased
value of his labour</span></em>, like every other seller of a
commodity, who, the costs of his commodities having increased, tries
to get its increased value paid. If wages did not rise, or not
sufficiently rise, to compensate for the increased values of
necessaries, the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">price</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of labour would sink below the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value
of labour</span></em>, and the labourer's standard of life would
deteriorate.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
But a change might also take place in an opposite direction. By
virtue of the increased productivity of labour, the same amount of
the average daily necessaries might sink from three to two shillings,
or only four hours out of the working day, instead of six, be wanted
to reproduce an equivalent for the value of the daily necessaries.
The working man would now be able to buy with two shillings as many
necessaries as he did before with three shillings. Indeed, the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">value of labour</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>would have sunk, but diminished value would command the same
amount of commodities as before. Then profits would rise from three
to four shillings, and the rate of profit from 100 to 200 percent.
Although the labourer's absolute standard of life would have remained
the same, his<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">relative</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>wages, and therewith his relative social position, as compared
with that of the capitalist, would have been lowered. If the working
man should resist that reduction of relative wages, he would only try
to get some share in the increased productive powers of his own
labour, and to maintain his former relative position in the social
scale. Thus, after the abolition of the Corn Laws, and in flagrant
violation of the most solemn pledges given during the anti-corn law
agitation, the English factory lords generally reduced wages ten per
cent. The resistance of the workmen was at first baffled, but,
consequent upon circumstances I cannot now enter upon, the ten per
cent lost were afterwards regained.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span style="color: #000033;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>2.</b></span></span><span style="color: black;">
</span>The<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">values</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of necessaries, and consequently the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">value of labour</span></em>, might
remain the same, but a change might occur in their<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">money prices</span></em>, consequent
upon a previous change in the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value
of money</span></em>. By the discovery of more fertile mines and so
forth, two ounces of gold might, for example, cost no more labour to
produce than one ounce did before. The<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of gold would then be depreciated by one half, or fifty per
cent. As the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">values</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of all other commodities would then be expressed in twice
their former<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">money
prices</span></em>, so also the same with the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">value of labour</span></em>. Twelve
hours of labour, formerly expressed in six shillings, would now be
expressed in twelve shillings. If the working man's wages should
remain three shillings, instead of rising to six shillings, the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">money price of his labour</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>would only be equal to<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">half
the value of his labour</span></em>, and his standard of life would
fearfully deteriorate. This would also happen in a greater or lesser
degree if his wages should rise, but not proportionately to the fall
in the value of gold. In such a case nothing would have been changed,
either in the productive powers of labour, or in supply and demand,
or in values.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Nothing would have changed except the money<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">names</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of those values. To say that in such a case the workman ought
not to insist upon a proportionate rise of wages, is to say that he
must be content to be paid with names, instead of with things. All
past history proves that whenever such a depreciation of money
occurs, the capitalists are on the alert to seize this opportunity
for defrauding the workman. A very large school of political
economists assert that, consequent upon the new discoveries of gold
lands, the better working of silver mines, and the cheaper supply of
quicksilver, the value of precious metals has again depreciated. This
would explain the general and simultaneous attempts on the Continent
at a rise of wages.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span style="color: #000033;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>3.</b></span></span><span style="color: black;">
</span>We have till now supposed that the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">working day</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>has given limits. The working day, however, has, by itself, no
constant limits. It is the constant tendency of capital to stretch it
to its utmost physically possible length, because in the same degree
surplus labour, and consequently the profit resulting therefrom, will
be increased. The more capital succeeds in prolonging the working
day, the greater the amount of other peoples' labour it will
appropriate.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
During the seventeenth and even the first two thirds of the
eighteenth century a ten hours' working day was the normal working
day all over England. During the anti-Jacobin war, which was in fact
a war waged by the British barons against the British working masses,
capital celebrated its bacchanalia, and prolonged the working day
from ten to twelve, fourteen, eighteen hours. Malthus, by no means a
man whom you would suspect of a maudlin sentimentalism declared in a
pamphlet, published about 1815, that if this sort of thing was to go
on the life of the nation would be attacked at its very source. A few
years before the general introduction of newly-invented machinery,
about 1765, a pamphlet appeared in England under the title,<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">An Essay On Trade</span></em>. The
anonymous author, an avowed enemy of the working classes, declaims on
the necessity of expanding the limits of the working day. Amongst
other means to this end, he proposes<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">working
houses</span></em>, which, he says, ought to be “Houses of Terror.”
And what is the length of the working he prescribes for these “Houses
of Terror"?<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">Twelve
hours</span></em>, the very same time which in 1832 was declared by
capitalists, political economists, and ministers to be not only the
existing but the necessary time of labour for a child under twelve
years.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
By selling his labouring power, and he must do so under the present
system, the working man makes over to the capitalist the consumption
of that power, but within certain rational limits. He sells his
labouring power in order to maintain it, apart from its natural wear
and tear, but not to destroy it. In selling his labouring power at
its daily or weekly value, it is understood that in one day or one
week that labouring power shall not be submitted to two days' or two
weeks' waste or wear and tear. Take a machine worth 1000 Pounds. If
it is used up in ten years it will add to the value of the
commodities in whose production it assists 100 Pounds yearly. If it
is used up in five years it will add 200 Pounds yearly, or the value
of its annual wear and tear is in inverse ratio to the quickness with
which it is consumed. But this distinguishes the working man from the
machine. Machinery does not wear out exactly in the same ratio in
which it is used. Man, on the contrary, decays in a greater ratio
than would be visible from the mere numerical addition of work.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
In their attempts at reducing the working day to its former rational
dimensions, or, where they cannot enforce a legal fixation of a
normal working day, at checking overwork by a rise of wages, a rise
not only in proportion to the surplus time exacted, but in a greater
proportion, working men fulfill only a duty to themselves and their
race. They only set limits to the tyrannical usurpations of capital.
Time is the room of human development. A man who has no free time to
dispose of, whose whole lifetime, apart from the mere physical
interruptions by sleep, meals, and so forth, is absorbed by his
labour for the capitalist, is less than a beast of burden. He is a
mere machine for producing Foreign Wealth, broken in body and
brutalized in mind. Yet the whole history of modern industry shows
that capital, if not checked, will recklessly and ruthlessly work to
cast down the whole working class to this utmost state of
degradation.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
In prolonging the working day the capitalist may pay<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">higher wages</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>and still lower the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value
of labor</span></em>, if the rise of wages does not correspond to the
greater amount of labour extracted, and the quicker decay of the
labouring power thus caused. This may be done in another way. Your
middle-class statisticians will tell you, for instance, that the
average wages of factory families in Lancashire has risen. They
forget that instead of the labour of the man, the head of the family,
his wife and perhaps three or four children are now thrown under the
Juggernaut wheels of capital, and that the rise of the aggregate
wages does not correspond to the aggregate surplus labour extracted
from the family.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Even with given limits of the working day, such as they now exist in
all branches of industry subjected to the factory laws, a rise of
wages may become necessary, if only to keep up the old standard<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">value of labour</span></em>. By
increasing the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">intensity</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of labour, a man may be made to expend as much vital force in
one hour as he formerly did in two. This has, to a certain degree,
been effected in the trades, placed under the Factory Acts, by the
acceleration of machinery, and the greater number of working machines
which a single individual has now to superintend. If the increase in
the intensity of labour or the mass of labour spent in an hour keeps
some fair proportion to the decrease in the extent of the working
day, the working man will still be the winner. If this limit is
overshot, he loses in one form what he has gained in another, and ten
hours of labour may then become as ruinous as twelve hours were
before. In checking this tendency of capital, by struggling for a
rise of wages corresponding to the rising intensity of labour, the
working man only resists the depreciation of his labour and the
deterioration of his race.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span style="color: #000033;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>4.</b></span></span><span style="color: black;">
</span>All of you know that, from reasons I have not now to explain,
capitalistic production moves through certain periodical cycles. It
moves through a state of quiescence, growing animation, prosperity,
overtrade, crisis, and stagnation. The market prices of commodities,
and the market rates of profit, follow these phases, now sinking
below their averages, now rising above them.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
Considering the whole cycle, you will find that one deviation of the
market price is being compensated by the other, and that, taking the
average of the cycle, the market prices of commodities are regulated
by their values. Well! During the phases of sinking market prices and
the phases of crisis and stagnation, the working man, if not thrown
out of employment altogether, is sure to have his wages lowered. Not
to be defrauded, he must, even with such a fall of market prices,
debate with the capitalist in what proportional degree a fall of
wages has become necessary. If, during the phases of prosperity, when
extra profits are made, he did not battle for a rise of wages, he
would, taking the average of one industrial cycle, not even receive
his<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">average
wages</span></em>, or the<em><span style="color: black;">value</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of his labour. It is the utmost height of folly to demand,
that while his wages are necessarily affected by the adverse phases
of the cycle, he should exclude himself from compensation during the
prosperous phases of the cycle. Generally, the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">values</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of all commodities are only realized by the compensation of
the continuously changing market prices, springing from the
continuous fluctuations of demand and supply. On the basis of the
present system labour is only a commodity like others. It must,
therefore, pass through the same fluctuations to fetch an average
price corresponding to its value.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
It would be absurd to treat it on the one hand as a commodity, and to
want on the other hand to exempt it from the laws which regulate the
prices of commodities. The slave receives a permanent and fixed
amount of maintenance; the wage-labourer does not. He must try to get
a rise of wages in the one instance, if only to compensate for a fall
of wages in the other. If he resigned himself to accept the will, the
dictates of the capitalist as a permanent economical law, he would
share in all the miseries of the slave, without the security of the
slave.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span style="color: #000033;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>5.</b></span></span><span style="color: black;">
</span>In all the cases I have considered, and they form ninety-nine
out of a hundred, you have seen that a struggle for a rise of wages
follows only in the track of<em><span style="color: black;">previous</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>changes, and is the necessary offspring of previous changes in
the amount of production, the productive powers of labour, the value
of labour, the value of money, the extent or the intensity of labour
extracted, the fluctuations of market prices, dependent upon the
fluctuations of demand and supply, and consistent with the different
phases of the industrial cycle; in one word, as reactions of labour
against the previous action of capital. By treating the struggle for
a rise of wages independently of all these circumstances, by looking
only upon the change of wages, and overlooking all other changes from
which they emanate, you proceed from a false premise in order to
arrive at false conclusions.</div>
<h3 class="western" lang="en-AU">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3867928748033007720" name="c14"></a>XIV. The Struggle
Between Capital and Labour and its Results</h3>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span style="color: #000033;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>1.</b></span></span><span style="color: black;">
</span>Having shown that the periodical resistance on the part of the
working men against a reduction of wages, and their periodical
attempts at getting a rise of wages, are inseparable from the wages
system, and dictated by the very fact of labour being assimilated to
commodities, and therefore subject to the laws, regulating the
general movement of prices; having furthermore, shown that a general
rise of wages would result in a fall in the general rate of profit,
but not affect the average prices of commodities, or their values,
the question now ultimately arises, how far, in this incessant
struggle between capital and labour, the latter is likely to prove
successful.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
I might answer by a generalization, and say that, as with all other
commodities, so with labour, its<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">market
price</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>will, in the long run,
adapt itself to its<em><span style="color: black;">value</span></em>; that,
therefore, despite all the ups and downs, and do what he may, the
working man will, on an average, only receive the value of his
labour, which resolves into the value of his labouring power, which
is determined by the value of the necessaries required for its
maintenance and reproduction, which value of necessaries finally is
regulated by the quantity of labour wanted to produce them.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
But there are some peculiar features which distinguish the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">value of the labouring power, or the
value of labour</span></em>, from the values of all other
commodities. The value of the labouring power is formed by two
elements -- the one merely physical, the other historical or social.
Its<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">ultimate
limit</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>is determined by the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">physical</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>element, that is to say, to maintain and reproduce itself, to
perpetuate its physical existence, the working class must receive the
necessaries absolutely indispensable for living and multiplying. The<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">value</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of those indispensable necessaries forms, therefore, the
ultimate limit of the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value
of labour</span></em>. On the other hand, the length of the working
day is also limited by ultimate, although very elastic boundaries.
Its ultimate limit is given by the physical force of the labouring
man. If the daily exhaustion of his vital forces exceeds a certain
degree, it cannot be exerted anew, day by day.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
However, as I said, this limit is very elastic. A quick succession of
unhealthy and short-lived generations will keep the labour market as
well supplied as a series of vigorous and long-lived generations.
Besides this mere physical element, the value of labour is in every
country determined by a<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">traditional
standard of life</span></em>. It is not mere physical life, but it is
the satisfaction of certain wants springing from the social
conditions in which people are placed and reared up. The English
standard of life may be reduced to the Irish standard; the standard
of life of a German peasant to that of a Livonian peasant. The
important part which historical tradition and social habitude play in
this respect, you may learn from Mr. Thornton's work on<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">over-population</span></em>, where
he shows that the average wages in different agricultural districts
of England still nowadays differ more or less according to the more
or less favourable circumstances under which the districts have
emerged from the state of serfdom.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
This historical or social element, entering into the value of labour,
may be expanded, or contracted, or altogether extinguished, so that
nothing remains but the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">physical
limit</span></em>. During the time of the anti-Jacobin war,
undertaken, as the incorrigible tax-eater and sinecurist, old George
Rose, used to say, to save the comforts of our holy religion from the
inroads of the French infidels, the honest English farmers, so
tenderly handled in a former chapter of ours, depressed the wages of
the agricultural labourers even beneath that<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">mere physical minimum</span></em>,
but made up by Poor Laws the remainder necessary for the physical
perpetuation of the race. This was a glorious way to convert the
wages labourer into a slave, and Shakespeare's proud yeoman into a
pauper.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
By comparing the standard wages or values of labour in different
countries, and by comparing them in different historical epochs of
the same country, you will find that the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value
of labour</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>itself is not a
fixed but a variable magnitude, even supposing the values of all
other commodities to remain constant.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
A similar comparison would prove that not only the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">market rates</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of profit change, but its<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">average</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>rates.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
But as to<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">profits</span></em>,
there exists no law which determines their<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">minimum</span></em>. We cannot say
what is the ultimate limit of their decrease. And why cannot we fix
that limit? Because, although we can fix the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">minimum</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of wages, we cannot fix their<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">maximum</span></em>.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
We can only say that, the limits of the working day being given, the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">maximum of profit</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>corresponds to the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">physical
minimum of wages</span></em>; and that wages being given, the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">maximum of profit</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>corresponds to such a prolongation of the working day as is
compatible with the physical forces of the labourer. The maximum of
profit is therefore limited by the physical minimum of wages and the
physical maximum of the working day. It is evident that between the
two limits of the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">maximum
rate of profit</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>and immense
scale of variations is possible. The fixation of its actual degree is
only settled by the continuous struggle between capital and labour,
the capitalist constantly tending to reduce wages to their physical
minimum, and to extend the working day to its physical maximum, while
the working man constantly presses in the opposite direction.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
The matter resolves itself into a question of the respective powers
of the combatants.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<span style="color: #000033;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>2.</b></span></span><span style="color: black;">
</span>As to the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">limitation
of the working day</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>in
England, as in all other countries, it has never been settled except
by<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">legislative
interference</span></em>. Without the working men's continuous
pressure from without that interference would never have taken place.
But at all events, the result was not to be attained by private
settlement between the working men and the capitalists. This very
necessity of<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">general
political action</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>affords the
proof that in its merely economical action capital is the stronger
side.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
As to the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">limits</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>of the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">value
of labour</span></em>, its actual settlement always depends upon
supply and demand, I mean the demand for labour on the part of
capital, and the supply of labour by the working men. In colonial
countries the law of supply and demand favours the working man. Hence
the relatively high standard of wages in the United States. Capital
may there try its utmost. It cannot prevent the labour market from
being continuously emptied by the continuous conversion of wages
labourers into independent, self-sustaining peasants. The position of
a wages labourer is for a very large part of the American people but
a probational state, which they are sure to leave within a longer or
shorter term. To mend this colonial state of things the paternal
British Government accepted for some time what is called the modern
colonization theory, which consists in putting an artificial high
price upon colonial land, in order to prevent the too quick
conversion of the wages labourer into the independent peasant.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
But let us now come to old civilized countries, in which capital
domineers over the whole process of production. Take, for example,
the rise in England of agricultural wages from 1849 to 1859. What was
its consequence? The farmers could not, as our friend Weston would
have advised them, raise the value of wheat, nor even its market
prices. They had, on the contrary, to submit to their fall. But
during these eleven years they introduced machinery of all sorts,
adopted more scientific methods, converted part of arable land into
pasture, increased the size of farms, and with this the scale of
production, and by these and other processes diminishing the demand
for labour by increasing its productive power, made the agricultural
population again relatively redundant. This is the general method in
which a reaction, quicker or slower, of capital against a rise of
wages takes place in old, settled countries. Ricardo has justly
remarked that machinery is in constant competition with labour, and
can often be only introduced when the price of labour has reached a
certain height, but the appliance of machinery is but one of the many
methods for increasing the productive powers of labour. The very same
development which makes common labour relatively redundant
simplifies, on the other hand, skilled labour, and thus depreciates
it.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
The same law obtains in another form. With the development of the
productive powers of labour the accumulation of capital will be
accelerated, even despite a relatively high rate of wages. Hence, one
might infer, as Adam Smith, in whose days modern industry was still
in its infancy, did infer, that the accelerated accumulation of
capital must turn the balance in favour of the working man, by
securing a growing demand for his labour. From this same standpoint
many contemporary writers have wondered that English capital having
grown in that last twenty years so much quicker than English
population, wages should not have been more enhanced. But
simultaneously with the progress of accumulation there takes place a<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">progressive change in the
composition of capital</span></em>. That part of the aggregate
capital which consists of fixed capital, machinery, raw materials,
means of production in all possible forms, progressively increases as
compared with the other part of capital, which is laid out in wages
or in the purchase of labour. This law has been stated in a more or
less accurate manner by Mr. Barton, Ricardo, Sismondi, Professor
Richard Jones, Professor Ramsey, Cherbuilliez, and others.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
If the proportion of these two elements of capital was originally one
to one, it will, in the progress of industry, become five to one, and
so forth. If of a total capital of 600, 300 is laid out in
instruments, raw materials, and so forth, and 300 in wages, the total
capital wants only to be doubled to create a demand for 600 working
men instead of for 300. But if of a capital of 600, 500 is laid out
in machinery, materials, and so forth and 100 only in wages, the same
capital must increase from 600 to 3,600 in order to create a demand
for 600 workmen instead of 300. In the progress of industry the
demand for labour keeps, therefore, no pace with the accumulation of
capital. It will still increase, but increase in a constantly
diminishing ratio as compared with the increase of capital.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
These few hints will suffice to show that the very development of
modern industry must progressively turn the scale in favour of the
capitalist against the working man, and that consequently the general
tendency of capitalistic production is not to raise, but to sink the
average standard of wages, or to push the<em><span style="color: black;">value
of labour</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>more or less to
its<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">minimum
limit</span></em>. Such being the tendency of<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">things</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>in this system, is this saying that the working class ought to
renounce their resistance against the encroachments of capital, and
abandon their attempts at making the best of the occasional chances
for their temporary improvement? If they did, they would be degraded
to one level mass of broken wretches past salvation. I think I have
shown that their struggles for the standard of wages are incidents
inseparable from the whole wages system, that in 99 cases out of 100
their efforts at raising wages are only efforts at maintaining the
given value of labour, and that the necessity of debating their price
with the capitalist is inherent to their condition of having to sell
themselves as commodities. By cowardly giving way in their everyday
conflict with capital, they would certainly disqualify themselves for
the initiating of any larger movement.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
At the same time, and quite apart from the general servitude involved
in the wages system, the working class ought not to exaggerate to
themselves the ultimate working of these everyday struggles. They
ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects, but not with
the causes of those effects; that they are retarding the downward
movement, but not changing its direction; that they are applying
palliatives, not curing the malady. They ought, therefore, not to be
exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly
springing up from the never ceasing encroachments of capital or
changes of the market. They ought to understand that, with all the
miseries it imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously
engenders the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">material
conditions</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>and the<em><span style="color: black;">social
forms</span></em><span style="color: black;"> </span>necessary for an
economical reconstruction of society. Instead of the<span style="color: black;">
</span><em><span style="color: black;">conservative</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>motto: “<em><span style="color: black;">A fair day's wage for a
fair day's work!</span></em>” they ought to inscribe on their
banner the<span style="color: black;"> </span><em><span style="color: black;">revolutionary</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>watchword: “<em><span style="color: black;">Abolition of the wages
system!</span></em>"</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
After this very long and, I fear, tedious exposition, which I was
obliged to enter into to do some justice to the subject matter, I
shall conclude by proposing the following resolutions:</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<em><span style="color: black;">Firstly.</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>A general rise in the rate of wages would result in a fall of
the general rate of profit, but, broadly speaking, not affect the
prices of commodities.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<em><span style="color: black;">Secondly.</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>The general tendency of capitalist production is not to raise,
but to sink the average standard of wages.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-AU" style="margin-bottom: 0.04in; margin-top: 0.04in;">
<em><span style="color: black;">Thirdly.</span></em><span style="color: black;">
</span>Trades Unions work well as centers of resistance against the
encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use
of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a
guerilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of
simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized
forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class
that is to say the ultimate abolition of the wages system.</div>
<div id="sdendnote1">
<div class="sdendnote-western" lang="en-AU">
<a class="sdendnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3867928748033007720#sdendnote1anc" name="sdendnote1sym"></a><span lang="en-GB"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div id="sdendnote2">
<div class="sdendnote-western" lang="en-AU">
<a class="sdendnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3867928748033007720#sdendnote2anc" name="sdendnote2sym">1</a>
This phrase was written in English. – Ed.</div>
</div>
<div id="sdendnote3">
<div class="sdendnote-western" lang="en-AU">
<a class="sdendnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3867928748033007720#sdendnote3anc" name="sdendnote3sym">2</a>
<i>Capital</i>. – Ed.</div>
</div>
<div id="sdendnote4">
<div class="sdendnote-western" lang="en-AU">
<a class="sdendnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3867928748033007720#sdendnote4anc" name="sdendnote4sym">3</a>
K. Marx and F. Engels, Correspondence 1846-1895 – Ed.</div>
</div>
<div id="sdendnote5">
<div class="sdendnote-western" lang="en-AU">
<a class="sdendnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3867928748033007720#sdendnote5anc" name="sdendnote5sym">4</a>
One sheet is 16 printed pages. – Ed.</div>
</div>
<div id="sdendnote6">
<div class="sdendnote-western" lang="en-AU">
<a class="sdendnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3867928748033007720#sdendnote6anc" name="sdendnote6sym">1</a>
The aristocracy was the upper class of Great Britain, while the
capitalists composed what was known to Marx as the middle class
</div>
</div>
<div id="sdendnote7">
<div class="sdendnote-western" lang="en-AU">
<a class="sdendnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3867928748033007720#sdendnote7anc" name="sdendnote7sym">2</a>
The Maximum Law was introduced during the Great French Revolution in
1792, fixing definite price limits for commodities and standard
rates of wages. The chief supporters of the Maximum Law were the
so-called “madmen” who represented the interests of the urban
and village poor. Robespierre, the leader of the Jacobin Party,
introduced this law at a time when the Jacobins as a result of
tactical considerations had formed a bloc with the “madmen.” –
Ed.</div>
</div>
<div id="sdendnote8">
<div class="sdendnote-western" lang="en-AU">
<a class="sdendnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3867928748033007720#sdendnote8anc" name="sdendnote8sym">3</a>
Robert Owen (1771-1858) was a British manufacturer who became a
utopian socialist. He introduced in his factory the ten-hour day,
and also organised sickness insurance, consumers' co-operative
societies, etc. – Ed.</div>
</div>
<div id="sdendnote9">
<div class="sdendnote-western" lang="en-AU">
<a class="sdendnotesym" href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3867928748033007720#sdendnote9anc" name="sdendnote9sym">4</a>
These figures, 55s.-70s., refer to the total wages of the group of
five men. The wage of each man in the group would increase from 11s.
to 14s. – Ed.</div>
</div>
Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.com0