portion of the public, who, about 12 years ago, were struck by the assurance with which, under the sanction of high authority, it was publicly and most earnestly pro- claimed, that the whole net profit of the manufacturer flows from the labour of the last hour, and that, therefore, the reduction of the working day by one hour, would destroy his net profit, that portion of the public, we say, will hardly believe its own eyes, when it now finds, that the original discovery of the virtues of " the last hour " has si ce been so far improved, as to include morals as well as profit; so that, if the duration of the labour of children, is reduced to a full 10 hours, their morals, together with the net profits of their employers, will vanish, both being dependent on this last, this fatal hour. (See Repts., Insp. of Fact., for 31st Oct., 1848, p. 101.) The same report then gives some examples of the morality and virtue of these same pure-minded manufacturers, of the tricks, the artifices, the cajoling, the threats, and the falsifica- tions, they made use of, in order, first, to compel a few defenceless workmen to sign petitions of such a kind, and then to impose them upon Parliament as the petitions of a whole branch of industry, or a whole country. It is highly characteristic of the present status of so called economical science, that neither Senior himself, who, at a later period, to his honour be it said, energetically supported the factory legislation, nor his opponents, from first to last, have ever been able to explain the false con- clusions of the '* original discovery." They appeal to actual experience, but the why and wherefore remains a mystery.
I Nevertheless, the learnel professor was not without some benefit from his journey to Manchester. In the " Letters on the Factory Act," he makes the whole net gains including " profit " and " interest, "and even "something more," depend upon a single unpaid hour's work of the labourer. One year previously, in his "Outlines of Political Economy," written for the instruction of Oxford students and cultivated Philistines, ho had also " discovered, in opposition to Ricardo's determination of value by labour, that profit is derived from the labour of the capitalist, and interest from his asceticism, The Rate of Siirplus-valiie. 213 In the London Fconoraist of the 15th April, 1848, the same cry was again raised by James Wilson, an economical mandarin of high standing: this time in opposition to the 10 hours' bill.
The position of the product that represents the surplus-value, (one* tenth of the 20 lbs,, or 2 lbs. of yarn, in the example given in Sec. 2.) we call " surplus-produce," Just as the rate of surplus-value is determined by its relation, not to the sum total of the capital, but to its variable part; in like manner, the re- lative quantity of surplus-produce is determined by the ratio that this produce bears, not to the remaining part of the total product, but to that part of it in which is incorporated the necessary labour. Since the production of surplus- value is the chief end and aim of capitalist production, it is clear, that the greatness of a man's or a nation's wealth should be measured, not by the absolute quantity produced, but by the relative magnitude of the surplus-produce.'^ The sum of the necessary labour and the surplus-labour, i.e.y of the periods of time during which the workman replaces the value of his labour-power, and produces the surplus-value, this sum constitutes the actual time during which he works, i.e., the working da}'.
in other words, from hw "abstinence,'* The dodge was an old one, but the word * * abstinence " was new. Herr Roscher tra slates it rightly by " Enthaltung. " Some of his countrymen, the Browns, Jones, and Robinsons, of Germany, not so well versed in Latin as he, have, monk-like, rendered it by "Entsagung" (renunciation).
I '* To an individual with a capital of £20,000, whose profits were £2000 per annum, it would be a matter quite indifferent whether his ca})ital would employ a 100 or 1030 men, whether the commodity produced sold for £10,000 or £20,000, provided, in all cases, his profit were not diminished below £2000. Is not the real interest of the nation similar? Provided its net real income, its rent and profits, be the same, it is of no importance whether the nation consists of 10 or of 12 millions of inhabitants.'* (Rio. 1. c, p. 416.) Long before Ricardo, Arthur Young, a fanatical upholder of surplus produce, for the rest, a rambling, uncritical writer, whose reputation is in the inverse ratio of his merit, says, "Of what use, in a modern kingdom, would be a whole pro- vince thus divided [in the old Roman manner, by small independent peasants], however well cultivated, except for the mere purpose of breeding men, which taken singly is a moat useless purpose?*' (Arthur Young; Political Arithmetic, &c. London, 1774, Very curious is " the strong inclination...to represent net wealth as beneficial to the labouring class...though it is evidently not on account of being net." (Th. Hopkins, On Rent of Land, &c. London, 1823, p. 126.)
214 Capitalist Production, CHAPTER X.
THE WORKING DAY.
SECTION 1. — THE LIMITS OF THE WORKING DAY.
We started with the supposition that labour-power is bought and sold at its value. Its value, like that of all other commo- dities, is determined by the working time necessary to its production. If the- prod-uction of the average daily means of subsistence of the labourer takes up 6 hours, he must work, on the average, G hours every day, to produce liis daily labour- power, or to reproduce the value received as the result of its sale. The necessary part of his working day amounts to 6 hours, and is, therefore, coeteris paribus, a given quantity. But with this, the extent of the working day itself is not yet given.
Let us assume that the line A B represents the length of the necessary working time, say 6 hours. If the labour be pro- longed 1, 3, or 6 hours beyond A B, we have 3 other lines: Working day I. Working day II. Working day III.
representing 3 different working days of 7, 9, and 12 hours. The extension B C of the line A B represents the length of the surplus labour. As the working day is A B4B C or A C, it varies with the variable quantity B C. Since A B is constant, the ratio of B C to A B can always be calculated. In working day I. it is J, in working day II, ~ in working day 111,-1 of A B. Since, further, the ratio i:£SL!p||J™|. deter- mines the rate of the surplus-value, the latter is given by the ratio of B C to A B. It amounts in the 3 different working days respectively to 16|, 50 and 100 per cent. On the other hand, the rate of surplus- value alone would not give us the extent of the working day. If this rate, e.g., were 100 per cent., the working day might be of 8, 10, 12, or more hours. It would indicate that the 2 constituent parts of the working The Working Day, 215 (lay, iiecessary-lahour and surplus-labour time, were equal in ex- tent, but not how long each of these two constituent parts was.
The working day is thus not a constant, but a variable quantity. One of its parts, certainly, is determined by the working time required for the reproduction of the labour- power of the labourer himself. But its total amount varies with the duration of the surplus-labour. The working day is, therefore, determinable, but is, 'per se, indeterminate. ^ Although the working day is not a fixed, but a fluent quantity, it can, on the other hand, only vary within certain limits. The minimum limit is, however, not determinable; of course, if we make the extension line BC or the surplus- labour =0, we have a minimum limit, i.e., the part of the day which the labourer must necessarily work for his own main- tenance. On the basis of capitalist production, however, this necessary labour can form a part only of the working day; the working day itself can never be reduced to this minimum. On the other hand, the working day has a maximum limit. It cannot be prolonged beyond a certain point. This maximum limit is conditioned by two things. First, by the physical bounds of labour-power. Within the 24 hours of the natural day a man can expend only a definite quantity of his vital force. A horse, in like manner, can only work from day to day, 8 hours. During part of the day this force must rest, sleep; during another part the man has to satisfy other physical needs, to feed, wash, and clothe himself Besides these purely physical limitations, the extension of the working day encounters moral ones. The labourer needs time for satisfying his intellec- tual and social wants, the extent and number of which are conditioned by the general state of social advancement. The variation of the working day fluctuates, therefore, within physical and social bounds. But both these limiting conditions are of a very elastic nature, and allow the greatest latitude. So we find working days of 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 hours, i.e., of the most diflerent lengths.
The capitalist has bought the labour-power at its day-rate.
1 "A day's labour is vague, it may be long or short." (*' An essay on Trade and Commerce, containi'ic observations on taxes," &c. London, 1770, p. 73.)
2x6 Capitalist Production, To him its use-value belongs during one working day. He has thus acquired the right to make the labourer work for him during one day. But, what is a working day?
At all events, less than a natural day. By how much? The capitalist has his own views of this ultima Thile, the necessary limit of the working day. As capitalist, he is only capital personified. His soul is the soul of capital. But capital has one single life impulse, the tendency to create value and surplus- value, to make its constant factor, the means of production, absorb the greatest possible amount of surplus- labour. ^ Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks. The time during which the labourer works, is the time during which the capitalist consumes the labour-power he has purchased of him. ^ If the labourer consumes his disposable time for himself, he robs the capitalist.
The capitalist then takes his stand on the law of the ex- change of commodities. He, like all other buyers, seeks to get the greatest possible benefit out of the use-value of his commo- dity. Suddenly the voice of the labourer, which had been stifled in the storm and stress of the process of production, rises: The commodity that 1 have sold to you differs from the crowd of other commodities, in that its use creates value, and 1 This question is far more important than the celebrated question of Sir Robert Peel to the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce: What is a pound? A question that could only have been proposed, because Peel was as much in the dark as to the nature of money as the " little shilling men " of Birmingham.
2 It is the aim of the capitalist to obtain with his expended capital the greatest possible quantity of labour (d'obtenir du capital depens6 la plus forte somme de travail possible. ) J. G. Courcelle-Seneuil. Traite theorique et pratique des entre- prises industrielles. 2nd ed. Paris, 1857, p. 63.
3 "An hour's labour lost in a day is a prodigious injury to a commercial State...There is a very great consumption of luxuries among the labouring poor of this kingdom: particularly among the manufacturing populace, by which they also consume their time, the most fatal of consumptions." An Essay on Trade and 4 "Si le manouvrier libre prend un instant de reposjl'economie sordidequi le sixit des yeux avec inquietude, pretend qu'il la vole.'' N. Linguet. "Th^orie des loix civiles, &c. London, 17G7," t. II., p. 466.
The Working Day. 217 a value greater than its own. That is why you bought it. That which on your side appears a spontaneous expansion of capital, is on mine extra expenditure of labour-power. You and I know on the market only one law, that of the exchange of commodities. And the consumption of the commodity belongs not to the seller who parts with it, but to the buyer, who acquires it. To you, therefore, belongs the use of my daily labour-power. But by means of the price that you pay for it each day, I must be able to reproduce it daily, and to sell it again. Apart from natural exhaustion through age, &c., I must be able on the morrow to work with the same normal amount of force, health and freshness as to-day. You preach to me constantly the gospel of "saving" and "abstinence." Good! I will, like a sensible saving owner, husband my sole wealth, labour-power, and abstain from all foolish waste of it. I will each day spend, set in motion, put into action only as much of it as is compatible with its normal duration, and healthy development. By an unlimited extension of the working day, you may in one day use up a quantity of labour- power greater than I can restore in three. What you gain in labour I lose in substance. The use of my labour-power and the spoliation of it are quite different things. If the average time that (doing a reasonable amount of work) an average labourer can live, is 80 years, the value of my labour-power, which you pay me from c^ay to day is g—^ or -^ of its total value. But if you consume it in 10 years, you pay me daily jjjgg- instead of -—■ of its total value, i.e., only J of its daily value, and you rob me, therefore, every day of f of the value of my commodity. You pay me for one day's labour-power, whilst you use that of 3 days. That is against our contract and the law of exchanges. I demand, therefore, a working day of normal length, and I demand it without any appeal to your heart, for in money matters sentiment is out of place. You may be a model citizen, perhaps a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and in the odour of sanctity to boot; but the thing that you represent face to face with me has no heart in its breast. That which seems to throb there is my own heart-beating. I demand the normal 2i8 Capitalist Production.
working day because I, like every other seller, demand tlie value of my commodity. ^ We see then, that, apart from extremely elastic bounds, the nature of the exchange of commodities itself imposes no limit to the working day, no limit to surplus-labour. The capitalist main- tains his rights as a purchaser when he tries to make the work- ing day as long as possible, and to make, whenever possible, two working days out of one. On the other hand, the j)ecu]iar nature of the commodity sold implies a limit to its consump- tion by the purchaser, and the labourer maintains his right as seller when he wishes to reduce the working day to one of definite normal duration. There is here, therefore, an anti- nomy, right against right, both equally bearing the seal of the law of exchanges. Between equal rights force decides. Hence is it that in the history of capitalist production, the determin- ation of what is a working day, presents itself as the result of a struggle, a struggle between collective capital, i.e., the class of capitalists, and collective labour i.e., the working class.
SECTION 2. —THE GREED FOR SURPLUS-LABOUR. MANUFACTURER AND BOYARD.
Capital has not invented surplus-labour. Wherever a part of society possesses the monopoly of the means of production, the labourer, free or not free, must add to the working time necessary for his own maintenance an extra working time in order to produce the means of subsistence for the owners of the means of production,^ whether this proprietor be the Athenian «ax«,- KayuSo;, Etruscau tlicocrat, civis Romanus, Norman baron, American slave owner, Wallachian Boyard, modern landlord or capitalist.^ It is, however, clear that in any given economic 1 During the great strike of the London builders, 1860-61, for the reduction of the working day to 9 hours, their Commitlae published a manifesto that contained, to some extent, the plea of our worker. The manifesto alludes, not without irony, to the fact, that the greatest profit-monger amongst the building masters, a certain Sir M. Peto, was in the odour of sanctity. (This same Peto, after 1867, came to an end k la Strousberg.)
2 " Those who labour...in reality feed both the pensioners...[called the rich] and themselves." (Edmund Burke, 1. c, p. 2.)
•* Niebuhr in his " Roman History " says very naively: "It is evident that works like the Etruscan, which in their ruins astound us, presuppose in little (!) states lords and vassals." Sismondi says far more to the purpose that "Brussels lace" pre- supposes wage-lords and wage-slaves.
The Working Day, 219 formation of society, where not the exchange-value but the nse-vahie of the product predominates, surplus-labour will be limited by a given set of wants which may be greater or less, and that here no boundless thirst for surplus-labour arises from the nature of the production itself Hence in antiquity over- work becomes horrible only when the object is to obtain ex- change-value in its specific independent money-form; in the production of gold and silver. Compulsory working to death is here the recognised form of over-woik. Only read Diodorus Siculus/ Still these are exceptions in antiquity. But as soon as people, whose production still moves within the lower forms of slave-labour, corvee-labour, &c., are drawn into the whirlpool of an international market dominated by the capitalistic mode of production, the sale of their products for export becoming their principal interest, the civilized horrors of over-work are grafted on the barbaric horrors of slavery, serfdom, &;c. Hence the negro labour in the Southern States of the American Union preserved something of a patriarchal character, so long as pro- duction was chiefly directed to immediate local consumption. But in proportion, as the export of cotton became of vital interest to these states, the over- working of the negro and sometimes the using up of his life in 7 years of labour became a factor in a calculated and calculating system. It was no longer a question of obtaining from him a certain quantity of useful products. It was now a question of production of surplus- labour itself So was it also wdth the corvee, e.g.^ in the Danubian Principalities (now Roumania).
The comparison of the greed for surplus-labour in the Danubian Principalities with the same greed in English factories has a special interest, because surplus-labour in the corvee has an independent and palpable form.
Suppose the working day consists of 6 hours of necessary labour, and 6 hours of surplus-labour. Then the free labourer 1 " One cannot see these unfortunates (in the gold mines between Egypt, Ethiopia, and Arabia) who cannot even have their bodies clean, or their nakedness clothed, without pitying their miserable lot. There is no indulgence, no forbearance for the sick, the feeble, the aged, for woman's weakness. All must, forced by blows, work on until death puts an end to their sufferings and their distress." (** Diod. Sic. Bibl.
2 20 Capitalist ProduclioJl.
gives the capitalist every week 6 X 6 or 36 hours of surplus- labour. It is the same as if he worked 3 days in the week for himself, and 3 days in the week gratis for the capitalist. But this is not evident on the surface. Surplus-labour and necessary labour glide one into the other. I can, therefore, express the same relationship b}^ saying, e.g., that the labourer in every minute works 30 seconds for himself, and 30 for the capitalist, etc. It is otherwise with the corvee. The necessary labour which the Wallachian peasant does for his own maintenance is distinctly marked off from his surplus-labour on behalf of the Boyard. The one he does on his own field, the other on the seignorial estate. Both parts of the labour- time exist, there- fore, independently, side by side one with the other. In the corvee the surplus-labour is accurately marked off from the necessary labour. This, however, can make no difference with regard to the quantitative relation of surplus-labour to necessary labour. Three days' surplus-labour in the week remain three days that yield no equivalent to the labourer himself, whether it be called corvde or wage-labour. But in the capitalist the greed for surplus-labour appears in the straining after an unlimited extension of the working day, in the Boyard more simply in a direct hunting after days of corvde.^ In the Danubian Principalities the corvee was mixed up with rents in kind and other appurtenances of bondage, but it formed the most important tribute paid to the ruling class. Where this was the case, the coi'v^e rarely arose from serfdom; serfdom much more frequently on the other hand took origin from the corv^e.^ This is what took place in the Roumanian provinces.
1 That which follows refers to the situation in the Roumanian provinces before the change effected since the Crimean war.
2 This holds likewise for Germany, and especially for Prussia east of the Elbe. In the 15th century the German peasant was nearly everywhere a man, who, whilst subject to certain rents paid in produce and labour was otherwise at least practically free. The German colonists in Brandenburg, Pomerania, Silesia, and Eastern Prussia, were even legally acknowledged as free men. The victory of the nobility in the peasants' war put an end to that. Not only were the conquered South German peasants again enslaved. From the middle of the 16th century the peasants of Eastern Prussia, Brandenburg, Pomerania, and Silesia, and soon after the free peasants of Schleswig-Holstein were degraded to the condition of serfs. (Maurer, Fronhofe iv. vol, — Meitzen, der Boden des preussischen Staats. — Hansen, Leibeigenschaft in Schleswig-Holstein. — Ed.)
The Working Day, 221 Their original mode c£ production was based on community of the soil, but not in the Slavonic or Indian form. Part of the land was cultivated in severalty as freehold by the members of the community, another part — ager puhlicus — was cultivated by them in common. The products of this common labour served partly as a reserve fund against bad harvests and other accidents, partly as a public store for providing the costs of war, religion, and other common expenses. In course of time military and clerical dignitaries usurped, along with the com- mon land, the labour spent upon it. The labour of the free peasants on their common land was transformed into corvee for the thieves of the common land. This corvee soon developed into a servile relationship existing in point of fact, not in point of law, until Russia, the liberator of the world, made it legal under pretence of abolishing serfdom. The code of the corvee, Avhich the Russian General KisselefF proclaimed in 1831, was of course dictated by the Boyards themselves. Thus Russia con- quered with one blow the magnates of the Danubian provinces, and the applause of liberal cretins throughout Europe.
According to the " Reglement organique," as this code of the corvee is called, every Wallachian peasant owes to the so-called landlord, besides a mass of detailed payments in kind: (1), 12 days of general labour; (2), one day of field labour; (3), one day of wood carrying. In all, 14 days in the year. With deep insight into political economy, however, the working day is not taken in its ordinary sense, but as the working day necessary to the production of an average daily product; and that average daily product is determined in so crafty a way that no Cyclops would be done with it in 24 hours. In dry words, the Regle- ment itself declares with true Russian irony that by 12 working days one must understand the product of the manual labour of 36 days, by 1 day of field labour 3 days, and by 1 day of wood carrying in like manner three times as much. In all, 42 corvee days. To this had to be added the so-called jobagie, service due to the lord for extraordinary occasions. In propor- tion to the size of its population, every village has to furnish annually a definite contingent to the jobagie. This additional corvee is estimated at 14 days for each Wallachian peasant 22 2 Capitalist Production.
Thus the prescribed corvee amounts to 56 working days yearly. Ijut the agricultural year in Wallachia numbers in consequence of the severe climate only 210 days, of which 40 for Sundays and holidays, 30 on an average for bad weather, together 70 days, do not count. 1-10 working days remain. The ratio of the corvee to the necessary labour g- or ^Qi | 7o gives a much smaller rate of surplus-value than that which regulates the labour of the English agricultural or factory labourer. This is, however, only the legally prescribed corvee. And in a spirit yet more " liberal " than the English Factory Acts, the " Kegle- ment organique " has known how to facilitate its own evasion. After it has made h^ days out of 12, the nominal days work of each of the o^ corvee days is again so arranged that a portion of it must fall on the ensuing day. In one day, e.g., must be weeded an extent of land, which, for this work, especially in maize plantations, needs twice as much time. The legal da3^'s work for some kinds of agricultural labour is interpretable in such a way that the day begins in May and ends in October. \vi Moldavia conditions are still harder. " The 12 corvee days of the ' K^glement organique ' cried a Boyard drunk with victory, amount to 3G5 days in the year."^ If the Reglement organique of the Danubian provinces was a positive expression of the greed for surplus-labour which every paragraph legalised, the English Factory Acts are the negative expression of the same greed. These acts curb the passion of capital for a limitless draining of labour-power, by forcibly limiting the working day by state regulations, made by a state tliat is ruled by capitalist and landlord. Apart from the working-class movement that daily grew more threatening, the limiting of factory labour was dictated by the same necessity which spread guano over the English fields. The same blind eagerness for plunder that in the one case exhausted the soil, had, in the other, torn up by the roots the living force of the nation. Periodical epidemics speak on this point as clearly as the diminishing military standard in Germany and France.^ 1 Further details are to be found in E. Regnault's " Histoire politique et sociale des Principautes Danubiennes Pai is, 1855 2 "In general and within certain limits, exceeding the medium size of their kind, is evidence of the prosperity of organic beings. As to man, his bodily height lessens if The Working Day. 223