of production, and were satisfied to live as a labourer, he need not work beyond the time necessary for the reproduction of his means of subsistence, say 8 hours a day. He would, besides, only require the means of production sufficient for 8 working hours. The capitalist, on the other hand, who makes him do, besides these 8 hours, say 4 hours' surplus-labour, requires an additional sum of money for furnishing the additional means of production. On our supposition, however, he would have to employ two labourers in order to live, on the surplus-value appropriated daily, as well as, and no better than a labourer, ^.e., to be able to satisfy his necessary wants. In this case the mere maintenance of life would be the end of his production, not the increase of wealth; but this latter is implied in capitalist production. That he may live only twice as well as an ordinary labourer, and besides turn half of the surplus- value produced into capital, he would have to raise, with the number of labourers, the minimum of the capital advanced 8 times. Of course he can, like his labourer, take to work him- self, participate directly in the process of production, but he is then only a hj^brid between capitalist and labourer, a " small master." A certain stage of capitalist production necessitates that the capitalist be able to devote the whole of the time during which he functions as a capitalist, i.e.y as personified capital, to the appropriation and therefore control of the labour of others, and to the selling of the products of this labour.^ The guilds of the middle ages therefore tried to prevent by force the transformation of the master of a trade into a capitalist, by limiting the number of labourers that could be 1 " The farmer cannot rely on his own labour, and if he does, I will maintain that he is a loser by it. His employment should be a general attention to the whole: his thresher must be watched, or he will soon lose his wages in corn not threshed out; his mowers, reapers, &c., must be looked after; he must constantly go round his fences; he must see there is no neglect; which would be the case if he was confined to any one spot." (" An Inquiry into the connection between the Price of Provisions and the Size of Farms, &c. By a Farmer." London, 1773, p. 12.) This book is very interesting. In it the genesis of the "capitalist farmer" or "merchant farmer," as he is explicitly called, may be studied, and his self-glorification at the expense of the small farmer who has only to do with bare subsistence, be noted. "The class of capitalists are from the first partially, and they become ultimately completely, dis- charged from the necessity of the manual labour." (" Text-book of Lectures on the Political Economy of Nations. By the Rev. Richard Jones." Hertford, 1852. Lecture III. p. 39.)
296 Capitalist Production.
employed by one master within a very small maximum. The possessor of money or commodities actually turns into a capitalist in such cases only where the minimum sum advanced for production greatly exceeds the maximum of the middle ages. Here, as in natural science, is shown the correctness of the law discovered by Hegel (in his "Logic"), that merely quantitative differences beyond a certain point pass into qualitative changes.^ The minimum of the sum of value that the individual pos- sessor of money or commodities must command, in order to metamorphose himself into a capitalist, changes with the dijfferent stages of development of capitalist production, and is at given stages different in different spheres of production, according to their special and technical conditions. Certain spheres of production demand, even at the very outset of capi- talist production, a minimum of capital that is not as yet found in the hands of single individuals. This gives rise partly to state subsidies to private persons, as in France in the time of Colbert, and as in many German states up to our own epoch; partly to the formation of societies with legal monopoly for the exploitation of certain branches of industry and commerce, the fore-runners of our modern joint-stock companies.^ Within the process of production, as we have §een, capital acquired the command over labour, i.e., over functioning labour- power or the labourer himself Personified capital, the capi- talist takes care that the labourer does his work regularly and with the proper degree of intensity.
Capital further developed into a coercive relation, which 1 The molecular theory of modern chemistry first scientifically worked out by Laurent and Gerhardt rests on no other law. (Addition to 3rd Edition, ) For the ex- planation of this statement, which is not very clear to non-chemists, we remark that the author speaks here of the homologous series of carbon compounds, first so named by C. Gerhardt in 1843, each series of which has its own general algebraic formula. Thus the series of paraffins: QP- H2n +2^ that of the normal alcohols: C^^ H2n + 2o; of the normal fatty acids: 0°- H2n 02 and many others. In the above examples, by the simply quantitative addition of C H^ to the molecular formula, a qualitatively different body is each time formed. On the share (overestimated by Marx) of Laurent and Gerhardt in the determination of this important fact see Kopp, "Entwicklung der Ohemle." Miinchen, 1873, pp, 709, 716, and Schorlemmer, ** Rise and Progress of Organic Chemistry," London, 1879, p. 54.— Ed.
2 Martin Luther calls these kinds of institutions: "The Company Monopolia."
\ Rate and Mass of Surplus- Value, 297 compels the working class to do more work than the narrow round of its own life- wants prescribes. As a producer of the activity of others, as a pumper-out of surplus-labour and ex- ploiter of labour-power, it surpasses in energy, disregard of bounds, recklessness and eflB.ciency, all earlier systems of pro- duction based on directly compulsory labour.
At first, capital subordinates labour on the basis of the tech- nical conditions in which it historically finds it. It does not, therefore, change immediately the mode of production. The production of surplus-value — in the form hitherto considered by us — by means of simple extension of the working-day, proved, therefore, to be independent of any change in the mode of production itself. It was not less active in the old- fashioned bakeries than in the modern cotton factories.
If we consider the process of production from the point of view of the simple labour-process, the labourer stands in relation to the means of production, not in their quality as capital, but as the mere means and material of his own intelligent pro- ductive activity. In tanning, e.g.^ he deals with the skins as his simple object of labour. It is not the capitalist whose skin he tans. But it is different as soon as we deal with the process of production from the point of view of the process of creation of surplus-value. The means of production are at once changed into means for the absorption of the labour of others. It is now no longer the labourer that employs the means of production, but the means of production that employ ^e labourer] In^ \ stead of being consumed by him as material elements of his productive activity, they consume him as the ferment neces- sary to their own life-process, and the life-process of capital consists only in its movement as value constantly expanding, constantly multiplying itself. Furnaces and workshops that stand idle by night, and absorb no living labour, are " a mere loss" to the capitalist. Hence, furnaces and workshops con- stitute lawful claims upon the night-labour of the workpeople.
The simple transformation of money into the material factors of the process of production, into means of production, trans- forms the latter into a title and a right to the labour and surplus-labour of others. An example will show, in conclusion.
298 Capitalist Production.
how this sophistication, peculiarto and characteristic of capitalist production, this complete inversion of the relation between dead and living labour, between value and the force that creates value, mirrors itself in the consciousness of capitalists. During the revolt of the English factory lords between 1848 and 1850, " the head of one of the oldest and most respectable houses in the West of Scotland, Messrs. Carlile Sons k> Co., of the linen and cotton thread factory at Paisley, a company which has now existed for about a century, which was in operation in 1752, and four generations of the same family have conducted it "...this " very intelligent gentleman " then wrote a letter^ in the "Glasgow Daily Mail" of April 25th, 1849, with the title, "The relay system," in which among other things the following grotesquely naive passage occurs: " Let us now...see what evils will attend the limiting to 10 hours the working of the factory...They amount to the most serious damage to the mill-owner's prospects and property. If he {i.e., his "hands ") worked 12 hours before, and is limited to 10, then every 12 machines or spindles in his establishment shrink to 10, and should the works be disposed of, they v/ill be valued only as 10, so that a sixth part would thus be deducted from the value of every factory in the country." ^ To tliis West of Scotland bourgeois brain, inheriting the accumulated capitalistic qualities of "four generations," the value of the means of production, spindles, &;c. is so inseparably mixed up with their property, as capital, to expand their own value, and to swallow up daily a definite quantity of the un- paid labour of others, that the head of the firm of Carlile & Co. actually imagines that if he sells his factory, not only will the value of the spindles be paid to him, but, in addition, their power of annexing surplus- value, not only the labour which is embodied in them, and is necessary to the production of spindles i Reports of Insp. of Fact., April 30th, 1849, p. 59.
2 1. c, p. 60. Factory Inspector Stuart, himself a Scotchman, and in contrast to the English Factory Inspectors, quite taken captive by the capitalistic method of thinking, remarks expressly on this letter which he incorporates in his report that it is *' the most useful of the communications which any of the factory-owners working with relays have given to those engaged in the same trade, and which is the most calculated to remove the prejudices of such of them as have scruples respecting any change of the arrangement of the hours of work. " Rate and Mass of Surplus- Value. 299 of this kind, but also the surph.is-labour which they help to pump out daily from the brave Scots of Paisley, and for that very reason he thinks that with the shortening of the working- day by 2 hours, the selling-price of 12 spinning machines dwindles to that of 10 1 PART IV. PRODUCTION OF RELATIVE SURPLUS-VALUE.
CHAPTER XII.
THE CONCEPT OF RELATIVE SURPLUS-VALUE.
That portion of the working-day which merely produces an equivalent for the value paid by the capitalist for his labour-power, has, up to this point, been treated by us as a constant magnitude; and such in fact it is, under given conditions of production and at a given stage in the econo- mical development of society. Beyond this, his necessary labour-time, the labourer, we saw, could continue to work for 2, 3, 4, 6, &c., hours. The rate of surplus-value and the length of the working day depended on the magni- tude of this prolongation. Though the necessary labour- time was constant, we saw, on the other hand, that the total working-day was variable. Now suppose we have a working-day whose length, and whose apportionment be- tween necessary labour and surplus-labour, are given. Let the whole line a c, a b — c represent, for example, a working-day of 12 hours; the portion of a b 10 hours The Concept of Relative Stirplus-Vahte. 30 1 of necessary labour, and the portion b c 2 hours of surplus- labour. How now can the production of surplus-value be increased, i.e., how can the surplus-labour be prolonged, with- out, or independently of, any prolongation of a c?
Although the length of a c is given, b c appears to be capable of prolongation, if not by extension beyond its end c, which is also the end of the working day a c, yet, at all events, by push- ing back its starting point b in the direction of a. Assume that b' — b in the line a V b c is equal to half of b c a b' — b c a b' — b c or to one hour's labour-time. If now, in a c, the working day of 12 hours, we move the point b to V, b c becomes b' c; the surplus-labour increases by one half, from 2 hours to 3 hours, although the working day remains as before at 12 hours. This extension of the surplus labour-time from b c to b' c, from 2 hours to 3 liours, is, however, evidently impossible, without a simultaneous contraction of the necessary labour-time from a b into a V, from 10 hours to 9 hours. The prolongation of the surplus-labour would correspond to a shortening of the necessary labour; or a portion of the labour-time previously consumed, in reality, for the labourer's own benefit, would be converted into labour-time for the benefit of the capitalist. There would be an alteration, not in the length of the working day, but in its division into necessary labour-time and surplus labour-time.
On the other hand, it is evident that the duration of the surplus-labour is given, when the length of the working day, and the value of labour-power, are given. The value of labour-power, i.e., the labour-time requisite to produce labour- power, determines the ]i;bour-time necessary for the repro- duction of that value. If one working hour be embodied in sixpence, and the value of a day's labour-power be five shillings, the labourer must work 10 hours a day, in order to replace the value paid by capital for his labour-power, or to produce an equivalent for the value of his daily necessary means of sub- sistence. Given the value of these means of subsistence, the value of his labour-power is given;^ and given the value of his 1 The value of his average daily wages is determined by what the labourer requires 302 Capitalist Production.
labour-power, the duration of his necessary labour-time is given. The duration of the surplus-labour, however, is arrived at, by subtracting the necessary labour-time from the total working day. Ten hours subtracted from twelve, leave two, and it is not easy to see, how, under the given conditions, the surplus- labour can possibly be prolonged beyond two hours. No doubt, the capitalist can, instead of five shillings, pay the labourer four shillings and sixpence or even less. For the re- production of this value of four shillings and sixpence, nine hours labour-time would suffice; and consequently three hours of surplus-labour, instead of two, would accrue to the capitalist, and the surplus-value would rise from one shilling to eighteen- pence. This result, however, would be obtained only by lowering the wages of the labourer below the value of his labour-power. With the four shillings and sixpence which he produces in nine hours, he commands one-tenth less of the necessaries of life than before, and consequently the proper reproduction of his labour- power is crippled. The surplus-labour would in this case be prolonged only by an overstepping of its normal limits; its domain would be extended only by a usurpation of part of the domain of necessary labour-time. Despite the important part which this method plays in actual practice, we are excluded from considering it in this place, by our assumption, that all commodities, including labour-power, are bought and sold at their full value. Granted this, it follows that the labour-time necessary for the production of labour-power, or for the repro- duction of its value, cannot be lessened by a fall in the labourer's wages below the value of his labour-power, but only by a fall in this value itself. Given the length of the working day, the prolongation of the surplus-labour must of necessity *' so as to live, labour, and generate." (Wm. Petty: ' * Political Anatomy of Ireland, " 1672, p. 64.) " The price of Labour is always constituted of the price of necessaries...whenever...the labouring man's wages will not, suitably to his low rank and station, as a labouring man, support such a family as is often the lot of many of them to have," he does not receive proper wages. (J. Vanderlint, 1. c. p. 15.) *' Le simple ouvrier, qui n'a que ses bras et son Industrie, n'a rien qu'autant qu'il parvient ^ vendre £t d'autres sa peine...En tout genre de travail il doit arriver, et il arrive en effet, que le salaire de 1' ouvrier se borne a ce qui lui est necessaire pour lui procurer sa subsistance. " (Turgot, Reflexions, &c., Oeuvres ed. Dairet. I. p. 10). " The price of the necessaries of life is, in fact, the cost of producing labour," (Malthus, Inquiry into, &c., Rent, London, 1815, p. 48 note).
The Concept of Relative Surplus- Value. 303 originate in the curtailment of the necessary labour- time; the latter cannot arise from the former. In the example we have taken, it is necessary that the value of labour-power should actually fall by one-tenth, in order that the necessary labour- time may be diminished by one-tenth, i.e.^ from ten hours to nine, and in order that the surplus-labour may consequently be prolonged from two hours to three.
Such a fall in the value of labour-power implies, however, that the same necessaries of life which were formerly produced in ten hours, can now be produced in nine hours. But this is impossible without an increase in the productiveness of labour. ' For example, suppose a shoemaker, with given tools, makes in one working day of twelve hours, one pair of boots. If he must make two pairs in the same time, the productiveness of his labour must be doubled; and this cannot be done, except by an alteration in his tools or in his mode of working, or in both. Hence, the conditions of production, i.e., his mode of production, and the labour-process itself, must be revolu- tionised. By increase in the productiveness of labour, we mean, generally, an alteration in the labour-process, of such a kind as to shorten the labour- time socially necessary for the production of a commodity, and to endow a given quantity of labour with the power of producing a greater quantity of use- value.^ Hitherto in treating of surplus-value, arising from a simple prolongation of the working day, we have assumed the mode of production to be given and invariable. But when surplus-value has to be produced by the conversion of necessary labour into surplus-labour, it by no means suffices for capital to take over the labour-process in the form under which it has been historically handed down, and then simply to prolong the duration of that process. The technical and social conditions of the process, and consequently the very mode of production must be revolutionised, before the productiveness of labour can be increased. By that means alone can the value of labour- 1 "Quando si perfezionano le arti, chenon d altro che la scoperta dinuove vie, onde si possa compiere una manufattura con meno gente o (che e lo stesso) in minor tempo di prima." (Galiani 1. c. p. 159.) "L'economie sur les frais de production ne peu done 6tre autre chose que I'ficonomie sur la quantity de travail employe pour produire." (Sismondi Etudes t. I. p. 22.)
304 Capitalist Production.
power be made to sink, and the portion of the working day necessary for the reproduction of that value, be shortened.
The surplus-value produced by prolongation of the working day, I call absolute surplus-value. On the other hand, the surplus-value arising from the curtailment of the necessary labour-time, and from the corresponding alteration in the re- spective lengths of the two components of the working day, I call relative surplus-value.
In order to effect a fall in the value of labour-power, the in- crease in the productiveness of labour must seize upon those branches of industry, whose products determine the value of labour-power, and consequently either belong to the class of customary means of subsistence, or are capable of supplying the place of those means. But the value of a commodity is de- termined, not only by the quantity of labour which the labourer directly bestows upon that commodity, but also by the labour contained in the means of production. For instance, the value of a pair of boots depends, not only on the cobbler's labour, but also on the value of the leather, wax, thread, &c. Hence, a fall in the value of labour-power is also brought about by an increase in the productiveness of labour, and by a corres- ponding cheapening of commodities in those industries which supply the instruments of labour and the raw material, that form the material elements of the constant capital required for producing the necessaries of life. But an increase in the pro- ductiveness of labour in those branches of industry which supply neither the necessaries of life, nor the means of produc- tion for such necessaries, leaves the value of labour-power un- disturbed.
The cheapened commodity, of course, causes only a pro tanto fall in the value of labour-power, a fall proportional to the extent of that commodity's employment in the reproduc- tion of labour-power. Shirts, for instance, are a necessary means of subsistence, but are only one out of many. The totality of the necessaries of life consists, however, of various commodities, each the product of a distinct industry; and the value of each of those commodities enters as a component part into the value of labour-power. This latter value decreases The Concept of Relative Surplus- Vahce, 305 with the decrease of the labour-time necessary for its reproduc- tion; the total decrease being the sum of all the different cur- tailments of labour-time effected in those various and distinct industries. This general result is treated, here, as if it were the immediate result directly aimed at in each individual case. Whenever an individual capitalist cheapens shirts, for instance, by increasing the productiveness of labour, he by no means necessarily aims at reducing the value of labour-power and shortening, pro tanto, the necessary labour-time. But it is only in so far as he ultimately contributes to this result, that he assists in raising the general rate of surplus-value.^ The general and necessary tendencies of capital must be distin- guished from their forms of manifestation.
It is not our intention to consider, here, the way in which the laws, immanent in capitalist production, manifest them- selves in the movements of individual masses of capital, where they assert themselves as coercive laws of competition, and are brought home to the mind and consciousness of the individual capitalist as the directing motives of his operations. But this much is clear; a scientific analysis of competition is not possible, before we have a conception of the inner nature of capital, just as the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies are not intelligible to any but him, who is acquainted with their real motions, motions which are not directly perceptible by the senses. Nevertheless, for the better comprehension of the production of relative surplus-value, we may add the following remarks, in which we assume nothing more than the results we have already obtained.
If one hour's labour is embodied in sixpence, a value of six shillings will be produced in a working day of 12 hours. Suppose, that with the prevailing productiveness of labour, 12 articles are produced in these 12 hours. Let the value of the means of production used up in each article be sixpence. Under these circumstances, each article costs one shilling: sixpence for the value of the means of production, and sixpence for the 1 " Let us suppose the products...of the manufacturer are doubled by improvement in machinery...he will be able to clothe his workmen by means of a smaller proportion of the entire return...and thus his profit will be raised. But in no other way will it be influenced." (Ramsay, 1. c. p. 168, 169.)
U 3o6 Capitalist Production.
value newly added in working with those means. Now let some one capitalist contrive to double the productiveness of labour, and to produce in the working day of 12 hours, 24 in- stead of 12 such articles. The value of the means of produc- tion remaining the same, the value of each article will fall to niiiepence, made up of sixpence for the value of the means of production and threepence for the value newly added by the labour. Despite the doubled productiveness of labour, the day's labour creates, as before, a new value of six shillings and no more, which, however, is now spread over twice as many articles. Of this value each article now has embodied in it ^V^h, instead of y^th, threepence instead of sixpence; or, what amounts to the same thing, only half an hour's instead of a whole hour's labour-time, is now added to the means of pro- duction while they are being transformed into each article. The individual value of these articles is now below their social value; in other words, they have cost less labour-time than the great bulk of the same article produced under the average social conditions. Each article costs, on an average, one shilling, and represents 2 hours of social labour; but under the altered mode of production it costs only ninepence, or contains only 1 J