The owner of labour-power is mortal. If then his appear- ance in the market is to be continuous, and the continuous con- version of money into capital assumes this, the seller of labour- power must perpetuate himself, " in the way that every living individual perpetuates himself, by procreation."^ The labour- power withdrawn from the market by wear and tear and death, must be continually replaced by, at the very least, an equal amount of fresh labour-power. Hence the sum of the means of subsistence necessary for the production of labour- power must include the means necessary for the labourer's substitutes, i.e., his children, in order that this race of peculiar commodity-owners may perpetuate its appearance in the market.^ In order to modify the human organism, so that it may ac- quire skill and handiness in a given branch of industry, and become labour-power of a special kind, a special education or training is requisite, and this, on its part, costs an equivalent 1 Compare W. H. Thornton: " Overpopulation and its Remedy," Lond., 1846.
2 Petty.
3 " Its (labour's) natural price...consists in such a quantity of necessaries rind comforts of life, as, from the nature of the climate, and the habits of the coun- try, are necessary to support the labourer, and to enable him to rear such a family as may preserve, in the market, an undiminished supply of labour." (R. Torrens: "An Essay on the external Corn Trade." Lond., 1815, p. 62.) The word labour is here wrongly used for labour-power.
The Buying and Selling of Labour-Power. 1 5 1 in commodities of a greater or less amount. This amount varies according to the more or less complicated character of the labour-power. The expenses of this education (excessively- small in the case of ordinary labour-power), enter pro tanto into the total value spent in its production. # The value of labour-power resolves itself into the value of a definite quantity of the means of subsistence. It therefore ^ varies with the value of these means or with the quantity of. -i labour requisite for their production. \\ Some of the means of subsistence, such as food and fuel, are ^ consumed daily, and a fresh supply must be provided '^si. daily. Others such as clothes and furniture last for ^^ longer periods and require to be replaced only at longer in- tervals. One article must be bought or paid for daily, another weekly, another quarterly, and so on. But in whatever way the sum total of these outlays may be spread over the year, they must be covered by the average income, taking one day with another. If the total of the commodities required daily for the production of labour-power=A, and those required weekly=B, and those required quarterly=C, and so on, the daily average of these commodities = ^^+^^^^^+^*'- Suppose that in this mass of commodities requisite for the average day there are embodied 6 hours of social labour, then there is incor- porated daily in labour-power half a day's average social labour, in other words, half a day's labour is requisite for the daily production of labour-power. This quantity of labour forms the value of a day's labour-power or the value of the labour- power daily reproduced. If half a day's average social labour is incorporated in three shillings, then three shillings is the price corresponding to the value of a day's labour-power. If its owner therefore offers it for sale at three shillings a day, its selling price is equal to its value, and according to our sup- position, our friend Moneybags, who is intent upon converting his three shillings into capital, pays this value.
The minimum limit of the value of labour-power is de- termined by the value of the commodities, without the daily supply of which the labourer cannot renew his vital energy, consequently by the value of those means of subsistence that 152 Capitalist Production, are physically indispensable. If the price of labour-power fall to this minimum, it falls below its value, since under such cir- cumstances it can be maintained and developed only in a crippled state. But the value of every commodity is deter- mined by the labour-time requisite to turn it out so as to be of normal quality.
It is a very cheap sort of sentimentality which declares this method of determining the value of labour-power, a method prescribed by the very nature of the case, to be a brutal method, and which wails with Rossi that, "To comprehend capacity for labour (puissance de travail) at the same time that we make abstraction from the means of subsistence of the labourers during the process of production, is to comprehend a phantom (^tre de raison). When we speak of labour, or capacity for labour, we speak at the same time of the labourer and his means of subsistence, of labourer and wages."^ When we speak of capacity for labour, we do not speak of labour, any more than when we speak of capacity for digestion, we speak of digestion. The latter process requires something more than a good stomach. When we speak of capacity for labour, we do not abstract from the necessary means of subsistence. On the contrary, their value is expressed in its value. If his capacity for labour remains unsold, the labourer derives no benefit from it, but rather he will feel it to be a cruel nature-imposed necessity that this capacity has cost for its production a de- finite amount of the means of subsistence and that it will con- tinue to do so for its reproduction. He will then agree with Sismondi: " that capacity for labour...is nothing unless it is sold.""
One consequence of the peculiar nature of labour-power as a commodity is, that its use-value does not, on the conclusion of the contract between the buyer and seller, immediately pass into the hands of the former. Its value, like that of every other commodity, is already fixed before it goes into circula- tion, since a definite quantity of social labour has been spent upon it; but its use- value consists in the subsequent exercise of The Buying and Selling of Labour-Power, 153 its force. The alienation of labour-power and its actual appro- priation by the buyer, its employment as a use-value, are separated by an interval of time. But in those cases in which the formal alienation by sale of the use-value of a commodity, is not simultaneous with its actual delivery to the buyer, the money of the latter usually functions as means of payment.^ In every country in which the capitalist mode of production reigns, it is the custom not to pay for labour-power before it has been exercised for the period fixed by the contract, as for example, the end of each week. In all cases, therefore, the use- value of the labour-power is advanced to the capitalist: the labourer allows the buyer to consume it before he receives pay- ment of the price; he everywhere gives credit to the capitalist. That this credit is no mere fiction, is shown not only by the occasional loss of wages on the bankruptcy of the capitalist, ^ but also by a series of more enduring conse- quences.^ Nevertheless, whether money serves as a means of ^ " All labour is paid after it has ceased." (" An Inquiry into those Principles re- specting the Nature of Demand," &c., p. 104.) " Le credit commercial a du commencer au moment od I'ouvrier, premier artisan de la production, a pu, au moyen de ses Economies, attendre le salaire de son travail jusqu, si la fin de la semaine, de la quinzaine, du mois, du trimestre, &c. (Ch. Ganilh: '* Des Systemes de I'Econ. Polit." 2eme. edit. Paris, 1821, t. I. p. 150.)
2 " L'ouvrier prete son industrie," but adds Storch slyly: he " risks nothing " ex- cept "de perdre son salaire...l'ouvrier ne transmet rien de materiel." (Storch: " Cours d'Econ. Polit. Econ." Petersbourg, 1815, t. II., p., 37.)
3 One example. In London there are two sorts of bakers, the *' full priced," who sell bread at its full value, and the " undersellers," who sell it under its value. The latter class comprises more than three-fourths of the total number of bakers, (p. xxxii in the Eepoi t of H. S. Tremenheere, commissioner to examine into ' ' the griev- ances complained of by the journeymen bakers," &c.. Loud. 1862.) The undersellers, almost without exception, sell bread adulterated with alum, soap, pearl ashes, chalk, Derbyshire stone-dust, and such like agreeable nourishing and wholesome ingredients. (See the above cited blue book, as also the report of " the committee of 1855 on the adulteration of bread," and Dr Hassall's " Adulterations detected," 2nd Ed. Lond. 1862.) Sir JohnOordon stated before the committee of 1855, that '*in consequence of these adulterations, the poor man, who lives on two pounds of bread a day, docs not now get one fourth part of nourishing matter, let alone the deleterious effects on his health." Tremenheere states (1. c. p. xlviii), as the reason, why a very large part of the working class, although well aware of this adulteration, nevertheless accept the alum, stone-dust, &c., as part of their purchase: that it is for them *' a matter of necessity to take from their baker or from the chandler's shop, such bread as they choose to supply. " As they are not paid their wages before the end of the week, they in their turn are unable " to pay for the bread consumed by their families, dur- ing the week, before the end of the week," and Tremenheere adds on the evidence of witnesses, " it is notorious that bread composed of those mixtures, is made expressly 154 Capitalist Prodtiction, purchase or as a means of payment, this makes no alteration in the nature of the exchange of commodities. The price of the labour-power is fixed by the contract, although it is not realised till later, like the rent of a house. The labour-power is sold, although it is only paid for at a later period. It will, therefore, be useful, for a clear comprehension of the relation of the parties, to assume provisionally, that the possessor of labour-power, on the occasion of each sale, immediately re- ceives the price stipulated to be paid for it.
We now know how the value paid by the purchaser to the possessor of this peculiar commodity, labour-power, is de- termined. The use-value which the former gets in exchange, manifests itself only in the actual usufruct, in the consump- tion of the labour-power. The money owner buys every- thing necessary for this purpose, such as raw material, in the market, and pays for it at its full value. The consumption of labour-power is at one and the same time the production of commodities and of surplus value. The consumption of labour- power is completed, as in the case of every other commodity, outside the limits of the market or of the sphere of circulation. Accompanied by Mr. Moneybags and by the possessor of labour- power, we therefore take leave for a time of this noisy sphere, where everything takes place on the surface and in view of all men, and follow them both into the hidden abode of production, for sale in this manner. " In many English and still more Scotch agricultural dis- tricts, wages are paid fortnightly and even monthly; with such long intervals between the payments, the agricultural labourer is obliged to buy on credit...He must pay higher prices, and is in fact tied to the shop which gives him credit. Thus at Horningham in Wilts, for example, where the wages are monthly, the same flour that he could buy elsewhere at Is lOd per stone, costs him 2s 4d per stone. {" Sixth Report" on "Public Health" by "The Medical Officer of the Privy Council. &c., 1864." p. 264.) " The block printers of Paisley and Kilmarnock enforced, by a strike, fortnightly, instead of monthly payment of wages." ("Eeports of the In- spectors of Factories for 31st Oct., 1853," p. 34). As a further pretty result of the credit given by the workmen to the capitalist, we may refer to the method current in many English coal mines, where the labourer is not paid till the end of the month, and in the meantime, receives sums on account from the capitalist, often in goods for which the miner is obliged to pay more than the market price (Truck-system.) " It is a common practice with the coal masters to pay once a month, and advance cash to their workmen at the end of each intermediate week. The cash is given in the shop" (i.e., the Tommy shop which belongs to the master); "the men take it on one side and lay it out on the other." ("Children's Employment Commission, III. Report," The Buying and Selling of Labour-Power, 155 on whose threshold there stares us in the face " No admittance except on business." Here we shall see, not only how capital produces, but how capital is produced. We shall at last force the secret of profit making.
This sphere that we are deserting, within whose boundaries the sale and purchase of labour-power goes on, is in fact a very- Eden of the innate rights of man. There alone rule Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham. Freedom, because both buyer and seller of a commodity, say of labour-power, are constrained only by their own free will. They contract as free agents, and the agreement they come to, is but the form in which they give legal expression to their common will. Equality, because each enters into relation with the other, as with a simple owner of commodities, and they exchange equivalent for equivalent. Property, because each disposes only of what is his own. And Bentham, because each looks only to himself. The only force that brings them together and puts them in relation with each other, is the selfishness, the gain and the private interests of each. Each looks to himself only, and no one troubles himself about the rest, and just because they do so, do they all, in accordance with the pre-established harmony of things, or under the auspices of an all-shrewd providence, work together to their mutual advantage, for the common weal and in the interest of all.
On leaving this sphere of simple circulation or of exchange of commodities, which furnishes the " Free-trader Vulgaris " with his views and ideas, and with the standard by which he judges a society based on capital and wages, we think we can perceive a change in the physiognomy of our dramatis personse. He, who before was the money owner, now strides in front as capitalist; the possessor of labour-power follows as his labourer. The one with an air of importance, smirking, intent on business; the other, timid and holding back, like one who is bringing his own hide to market and has nothing to expect but — a hiding.
PART III.
THE PRODUCTION OF ABSOLUTE SURPLUS- VALUE.
CHAPTER VII.
THE LABOUR-PSOCESS AND THE PROCESS OF PRODUCING SUR- PLUS-VALUK SECTION 1. — THE LABOUR- PKOCESS OR THE PRODUCTION OP USE- VALUES.
The capitalist buys labour-power in order to use it; and labour- power in use is labour itself. The purchaser of labour-power con- sumes it by setting the seller of it to work. By working, the latter becomes actually, what before he only was potentially, labour-power in action, a labourer. In order that his labour may reappear in a commodity, he must, before all things, expend it on something useful, on something capable of satisfying a want of some sort. Hence, what the capitalist sets the lab- ourer to produce, is a particular use- value, a specified article. The fact that the production of use- values, or goods, is carried on under the control of a capitalist and on his behalf, does not alter the general character of that production. We shall, therefore, in the first place, have to consider the labour-process independently of the particular form it assumes under given social conditions.
Labour is, in the first place, a process in which both man and Nature participate, and in which man of his own accord starts, regulates, and controls the material re-actions between himself and Nature. He opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, head and The Labour Process, hands, the natural forces of his body, in order to appropriate Nature's productions in a form adapted to his own wants. By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops his slumber- ing powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway. We are not now dealing with those primitive instinctive forms of labour that remind us of the mere animal. An immeasur- able interval of time separates the state of things in which a man brings his labour-power to market for sale as a commodity, from that state in which human labour was still in its first in- stinctive stage. We presuppose labour in a form that stamps it as exclusively human. A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distin- guishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a re- sult that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement. He not only effects a change of form in the material on which he works, but he also realises a purpose of his own that gives the law to his modus operandi, and to which he must subordinate his will. And this subordination is no mere momentary act. Besides the exertion of the bodily organs, the process demands that, during the whole operation, the workman's will be steadily in consonance with his purpose. This means close attention. The less he is attracted by the nature of the work, and the mode in which it is carried on, and the less, therefore, he enjoys it as something which gives play to his bodily and mental powers, the more close his atten- tion is forced to be.
The elementary factors of the labour-process are l,the personal activity of man, i.6., work itself, 2, the subject of that work, and 3, its instruments.
The soil (and this, economically speaking, includes water) in the virgin state in which it supplies ^ man with necessaries or 1 "The earth's spontaneous productions being in small quantity, and quite indepen- dent of man, appear, as it were, to be furnished by Nature, in the same way as a small sum is given to a young man, in order to i^ut him in a way of industry, and of mak- ing his fortune. " (James Steuart: "Principles of Polit. Econ." edit. Dublin, 1770, 158 Capitalist Production, the means of subsistence ready to hand, exists independently of him, and is the universal subject of human labour. All those things which labour merely separates from immediate connection with their environment, are subjects of labour spontaneously provided by Nature. Such are fish which we catch and take from their element, water, timber which we fell in the virgin forest, and ores which we extract from their veins. If, on the other hand, the subject of labour has, so to say, been filtered through previous labour, we call it raw material; such is ore already extracted and ready for wash- ing. All raw material is the subject of labour, but not everj'- subject of labour is raw material; it can only become so, after it has undergone some alteration by means of labour.
An instrument of labour is a thing, or a complex of things, which the labourer interposes between himself and the subject of his labour, and which serves as the conductor of his activity. He makes use of the mechanical, physical, and chemical pro- perties of some substances in order to make other substances subservient to his aims.^ Leaving out of consideration such ready-made means of subsistence as fruits, in gathering which a man's own limbs serve as the instruments of his labour, the first thing of which the labourer possesses himself is not the subject of labour but its instrument. Thus Nature becomes one of the organs of his activity, one that he annexes to his own bodily organs, adding stature to himself in spite of the Bible. As the earth is his original larder, so too it is his original tool house. It supplies him, for instance, with stones for throwing, grinding, pressing, cutting, &c. The earth itself is an instru- ment of labour, but when used as such in agriculture implies a whole series of other instruments and a comparatively high development of labour.^ No sooner does labour undergo the 1 ' ' Reason is just as cunning as she is powerful. Her cunning consists principally in her mediating activity, which, by causing objects to act and re-acfc on each other in accordance with their own nature, in this way, without any direct interference in the process, carries out reason's intentions." (Hegel: " Encyklopadie, Erster Theil. Die 2 In his otherwise miserable work, (" Theorie de I'Econ. Polit.'" Paris, 1819), Ganilh enumerates in a striking manner in opposition to the " Physiocrats " the long series of previous processes necessary before agriculture properly so called can com- mence.
The Labour Process, 159 least development, than it requires specially prepared instru- ments. Thus in the oldest caves we find stone implements and weapons. In the earliest period of human history domesticated animals, i.e., animals which have been bred for the purpose, and have undergone modifications by means of labour, play the chief part as instruments of labour along with specially pre- pared stones, wood, bones, and shells.^ The use and fabrication of instruments of labour, although existing in the germ among certain species of animals, is specifically characteristic of the human labour-process, and Franklin therefore defines man as a tool-making animal. Relics of by-gone instruments of labour possess the same importance for the investigation of extinct economical forms of society, as do fossil bones for the determina- tion of extinct species of animals. It is not the articles made, but how they are made, and by what instruments, that enables us to distinguish different economical epochs.^ Instruments of labour not only supply a standard of the degree of develop- ment to which human labour has attained, but they are also indicators of the social conditions under which that labour is carried on. Among the instruments of labour, those of a mechanical nature, which, taken as a whole, we may call the bone and muscles of production, ofi^er much more decided characteristics of a given epoch of production, than those which, like pipes, tubs, baskets, jars, &;c., serve only to hold the materials for labour, which latter class, we may in a general way, call the vascular system of production. The latter first begins to play an important part in the chemical industries.