Although a number of men may be occupied together at the same time on the same, or the same kind of work, yet the labour of each, as a part of the collective labour, maj'' corres- pond to a distinct phase of the labour-process, through all whose phases, in consequence of co-operation, the subject of their labour passes with greater speed. For instance, if a dozen masons place themselves in a row, so as to pass stones from the short, which cannot be done unless a great many pairs of hands help each other in the same undivided employment and at the same time " (E. G. Wakefield: "A View of the Art of Colonisation." London: 1849, p. 168).
1 " As one man cannot, and ten men must strain to lift a tun of weight, yet 100 men can do it only by the strength of a finger of each of them. " (John Bellers: *' Pro- posals for raising a CoUedge of Industry." London, 1696, p. 21.)
'^ " There is also " (when the same number of men are employed by one farmer on 300 acres, instead of by ten farmers with 30 acres a piece) ' ' an advantage in the pro- portion of servants, which will not so easily be understood but by practical men; for it is natural to say, as 1 is to 4, so are 3: to 12: but this will not hold good in practice; for in harvest time and many other operations which require that kind of despatch by the throwing many hands together, the work is better and more expeditiously done: f. i. in harvest, 2 drivers, 2 loaders, 2 pitchers, 2 rakers, and the rest at the rick, or in the barn, will despatch double the work that the same number of hands would do if divided into different gangs on different farms." ("An Inquiry into tlie connection between the present Price of Provisions and the Size of Farms." By a 3 Strictly, Aristotle's definition is that man is by nature a town -citizen. This is quite as characteristic of ancient classical society as Franklin's definition of man, as a tool-making animal, is characteristic of Yankeedom.
foot of a ladder to its summit, each of tliem does the same thing; nevertheless, their separate acts form connected parts of one total operation; they are particular phases, which must be gone through by each stone; and the stones are thus carried up quicker by the 24 hands of the row of men than they could be if each man went separately up and down the ladder with his burden.^ The object is carried over the same distance in a shorter time. Again, a combination of labour occurs whenever a building, for instance, is taken in hand on different sides simultaneously; although here also the co- operating masons are doing the same, or the same kind of work. The 12 masons, in their collective working day of 144 hours, make much more progress with the building than one mason could make working for 12 days, or 144 hours. The reason is, that a body of men working in concert has hands and eyes both before and behind, and is, to a certain degree, omni- present. The various parts of the work progress simul- taneously.
In the above instances we have laid stress upon the point that the men do the same, or the same kind of work, because this, the most simple form of labour in common, plays a great part in co-operation, even in its most fully developed stage. If the work be complicated, then the mere number of the men who co-operate allows of the various operations being appor- tioned to different hands, and, consequently, of being carried on simultaneously. The time necessary for the completion of the whole work is thereby shortened.^ 1 " On doit encore remarquer que cette division partielle de travail pent se fairc quand merae les ouvriers sont occupes d'une meme besogne. Des masons par exemple, occupes ^ faire passer de mains en mains des briques k un echafaudage sui^erieur, font tons la m^me besogne, et pourtantil existe i>armi eux une espece de division de travail, qui consiste en ce que chaoun d'eux fait passer la brique par un espace donne, et que tons ensemble la font parvenir beaucoup plus promptement k I'endroit marque qu'ils ne le feraient si chaoun d'eux portait sa brique s^parcment jusqu '^ I'echafaudago sup^rieur," (F. Skarbek: "Theorie des richesses sociales." Paris, 1829. t. I.
2 ** Est-il question d'executer un travail complique, plusieurs choses doivent 6tre faites simultan^ment. L'un en fait une pendant que I'autre en fait une autre, et tous contribuent k I'effet qu'un seal homme n'aurait pu produire. L'un rame pendant que I'autre tient le gouvernail, et qu'un troisieme jette le filet ou harponne le poisson, et la p^che a uu succes impossible sans ce concours." (Destutt de Tracy, 1. c.)
3i8 Capitalist Production, In many industries, there are critical periods, determined by the nature of the process, during which certain definite results must be obtained. For instance, if a flock of sheep has to be shorn, or a field of wheat to be cut and harvested, the quantity and quality of the product depends on the work being begun and ended within a certain time. In these cases, the time that ought to be taken by the process is prescribed, just as it is in herring fishing. A single person cannot carve a working day of more than, say 12 hours, out of the natural day, but 100 men co-operating extend the working day to 1,200 hours. The shortness of the time allowed for the work is compensated for by the large mass of labour thrown upon the field of pro- duction at the decisive moment. The completion of the task within the proper time depends on the simultaneous applica- tion of numerous combined working days; the amount of use- ful effect depends on the number of labourers; this number, however, is always smaller than the number of isolated labourers required to do the same amount of work in the same period.^ It is owing to the absence of this kind of co-opera- tion that, in the western part of the United States, quantities of corn, and in those parts of East India where English rule has destroyed the old communities, quantities of cotton, are yearly wasted.2 On the one hand, co-operation allows of the work being carried on over an extended space; it is consequently impera- tively called for in certain undertakings, such as draining, con- structing dykes, irrigation works, and the making of canals, roads and railways. On the other hand, while extending the 1 "The doing of it (agricultural work) at the critical juncture is of so much the greater consequence." ("An Inquiry into the Connection between the Present Price," &c., p. 9.) "In agriculture, there is no more important factor than that of time." (Liebig: " Ueber Theorie und Praxis in der Landwirthschaft. " 1856. p. 23.)
2 " The next evil is one which one would scarcely expect to find in a country which exi)orts more labour than any other in the world, with the exception, perhaps, of China and England — the impossibility of procuring a sufficient number of hands to clean the cotton. The consequence of this is that large quantities of the crop are left uni)icked, while another portion is gathered from the ground when it has fallen, and is of course discoloured and partially rotted, so that for want of labour at the proper season the cultivator is actually forced to submit to the loss of a large part of that crop for which England is so anxiously looking." (Bengal Hurkaru. Bi-Monthly Overland Summary of News, 22nd July, 18ul.)
Co- Operation. 319 scale of production, it renders possible a relative contraction of the arena. This contraction of arena simultaneous with, and arising from, extension of scale, whereby a number of useless expenses are cut down, is owing to the conglomeration of labourers, to the aggregation of various processes, and to the concentration of the means of production.^ The combined working day produces, relatively to an equal sum of isolated working-days, a greater quantity of use-values, and, consequenth^, diminishes the labour-time necessary for the production of a given useful effect. Whether the combined working-day, in a given case, acquires this increased produc- tive power, because it heightens the mechanical force of labour, or extends its sphere of action over a greater space, or con- tracts the field of production relatively to the scale of produc- tion, or at the critical moment sets large masses of labour to work, or excites emulation between individuals and raises their animal spirits, or impresses on the similar operations carried on by a number of men the stamp of continuity and many-sided- ness, or performs simultaneously different operations, or econo- mises the means of production by use in common, or lends to individual labour the character of average social labour — which- ever of these be the cause of the increase, the special produc- tive power of the combined working day is, under all circum- stances, the social productive power of labour, or the productive power of social labour. This power is due to co-operation itself. When the labourer co-operates systematically with others, he strips off the fetters of his individuality, and developes the capabilities of his species.^ As a general rule, labourers cannot co-operate without being brought together: their assemblage in one place is a necessary 1 In the progress of culture "all, and perhaps more than all, the capital and labour which once loosely occupied 500 acres, are now concentrated for the more complete tillage of 100." Although '* relatively to the amount of capital and labour employed, space is concentrated, it is an enlarged sphere of production, as compared to the sphere of i^roduction formerly occupied or worked upon by one single independent agent of production." (R. Jones: "An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth," part I.
2 '* La forza di ciascuno uomo e m'uima, ma la riunione delle minime forze forma una forza totale maggiore anche della somma delle forze medesime fino a die le forze per essere riunite possono dirainuere il tempo ed accrescerelo sjmzio della loro azione." (G. R. Carli, Note to P. Verri, 1. c. t., xv. p. 196.)
320 Capitalist Prodtiction, condition of their co-operation. Hence wage labourers cannot co-operate, unless they are employed simultaneously by the same capital, the same capitalist, and unless therefore their labour-powers are bought simultaneously by him. The total value of these labour-powers, or the amount of the wages of these labourers for a day, or a week, as the case may be, must be ready in the pocket of the capitalist, before the workmen are assembled for the process of production. The payment of 300 workmen at once, though only for one day, requires a greater outlay of capital, than does the payment of a smaller number of men, week by week, during a whole year. Hence the number of the labourers that co-operate, or the scale of co-operation, depends, in the first instance, on the amount of capital that the individual capitalist can spare for the purchase of labour-power; in other words, on the extent to which a single capitalist has command over the means of subsistence of a number of labourers.
And as with the variable, so it is with the constant capital. For example, the outlay on raw material is 30 times as great, for the capitalist who employs 300 men, as it is for each of the 30 capitalists who employ 10 men. The value and quan- tity of the instruments of labour used in common do not, it is true, increase at the same rate as the number of workmen, but they do increase very considerably. Hence, concentration of large masses of the means of production in the hands of indi- vidual capitalists, is a material condition for the co-opej-ation of wage-labourers, and the extent of the co-operation or the scale of production, depends on the extent of this concentration.
We saw in a former chapter, that a certain minimum amount of capital was necessary, in order that the number of labourers simultaneously employed, and, consequently, the amount of surplus-value produced, might suffice to liberate the employer himself from manual labour, to convert him from a small master into a capitalist, and thus formally to establish capita- list production. We now see that a certain minimum amount is a necessary condition for the conversion of numerous isolated and independent processes into one combined social process.
We also saw that at first, the subjection of labour to capital \ Co- Operation, 321 was only a formal result of the fact, that the labourer, instead of working for himself, works for and consequently under the capitalist. By the co-operation of numerous wage- labourers, the sway of capital developes into a requisite for carrying on the labour-process itself, into a real requisite of production. That a capitalist should command on the field of production, is now as indispensable as that a general should command on the field of battle.
All combined labour on a large scale requires, more or less, a directing authority, in order to secure the harmonious working of the individual activities, and to perform the general func- tions that have their origin in the action of the combined organism, as distinguished from the action of its separate organs. A single violin player is his own conductor; an orchestra requires a separate one. The work of directing, superintending, and adjusting, becomes one of the functions of cajDital, from the moment that the labour under the control of capital, becomes co-operative. Once a function of capital, it acquires special characteristics.
The directing motive, the end and aim of capitalist produc- tion, is to extract the greatest possible amount of surplus- value,^ and consequently to exploit labour-power to the greatest possible extent. As the number of the co-operating labourers increases, so too does their resistance to the domination of capital, and with it, the necessity for capital to overcome this resistance by counter-pressure. The control exercised by the capitalist is not only a special function, due to the nature of the social labour-process, and peculiar to that process, but it is. at the same time, a function of the exploitation of a social labour-process, and is consequently rooted in the unavoidable antagonism between the exploiter and the living and labouring raw material he exploits.
Again, in proportion to the increasing mass of the means of production, now no longer the property of the labourer, but of the capitalist, the necessity increases for some eifective control over the proper application of those means.^ Moreover, 2 That Philistine paper, the Spectator^ states that after the introduction of a sort of partnership between capitalist and workmen in the " Wirework Company \ 322 Capitalist Production.
the co-operation of wage labourers is entirely brought about by the capital that employs them. Their union into one single productive body and the establishment of a connexion between their individual functions, are matters foreign and external to them, are not their own act, but the act of the capital that brings and keeps them together. Hence the con- nexion existing between their various labours appears to them, ideally, in the shape of a preconceived plan of the capitalist, and practically in the shape of the authority of the same capi- talist, in the shape of the powerful will of another, who sub- jects their activity to his aims. If, then, the control of the capitalist is in substance twofold by reason of the twofold nature of the process of production itself, — which, on the one hand, is a social process for producing use-values, on the other, a process for creating surplus-value — in form that con- trol is despotic. As co-operation extends its scale, this despot- ism takes forms peculiar to itself. Just as at first the capi- talist is relieved from actual labour so soon as his capital has reached that minimum amount with which capitalist pro- duction, as such, begins, so now, he hands over the work of direct and constant supervision of the individual workmen, and groups of workmen, to a special kind of wage labourer An industrial army of workmen, under the command of a capitalist, requires, like a real army, officers (managers), and sergeants (foremen, overlookers), who, while the work is being done, command in the name of the capitalist. The work of supervision becomes their established and exclusive function. When comparing the mode of production of isolated peasants and artizans with production by slave labour, the political economist counts this labour of superintendence among the faux frais of production. But, when considering the capitalof Manchester," "the first result was a sudden decrease in waste, the men not seeing why they should waste their own property any more than any other master's, and waste is, perhaps, next to bad debts, the greatest source of manufactur- ing loss." The same paper finds that the main defect in the Kochdale co-operative experiments is this: * * They showed that associations of workmen could manage shops, mills, and almost all forms of industry with success, and they immediately improved the condition of the men; but then they did not leave a clear place for jnasters, " Quelle horreur!
> Professor Cairns, after stating that the superintendence of labour is a leading \^ Co-Operation, 323 ist mode of production, he, on the contrary, treats the work of control made necessary by the co-operative character of the labour process as identical with the different work of control, necessitated by the capitalist character of that process and the antagonism of interests between capitalist and labourer/ It is not because he is a leader of industry that a man is a capitalist; on the contrary, he is a leader of industry because be is a capitalist. The leadership of industry is an attribute of capital, just as in feudal times the functions of general and judge were attributes of landed property.^ The labourer is the owner of his labour-power until he has done bargaining for its sale with the capitalist; and he can sell no more than what he has — -i.e., his individual, iso- lated labour-power. This state of things is in no way altered by the fact that the capitalist, instead of buying the labour- power of one man, buys that of 100, and enters into separate contracts with 100 unconnected men instead of with one. He is at liberty to set the 100 men to work, without letting them co-operate. He pays them the value of 100 independent ■Jabour-powers, but he does not pay for the combined labour- /power of the hundred. Being independent of each other, the labourers are isolated persons, who enter into relations with the capitalist, but not with one another. This co-operation begins only with the labour process, but they have then ceased to belong to themselves. On entering that process, they be- come incorporated with capital. As co-operators, as members of a working organism, they are but special modes of existence of capital. Hence, the productive power developed by the labourer when working in co-operation, is the productive feature of production by slaves in the Southern States of North America, continues: " The peasant proprietor (of the North), appropriating the whole produce of his toil, needs no other stimulus to exertion. Superintendence is here completely dispensed with." (Cairnes, 1. c, pp. 48, 49.)
1 Sir James Steuart, a writer altogether remarkable for his quick eye for the characteristic social distinctions between different modes of production, says: "Why do large undertakings in the manufacturing way ruin private industry, but by coming nearer to the simplicity of slaves? " (" Prin. of Pol. Econ.," London, 1767, v. I., p.
2 Auguste Comte and his school might therefore have shown that feudal lords are an eternal necessity in the same way that they have done in the case of the lords of capital., 324 Capitalist Production.
power of capital. This power is developed gratuitously, when- ever the workmen are placed under given conditions, and it is capital that places them under such conditions. Because this power costs capital nothing, and because, on the other hand, the labourer himself does not develop it before his labour belongs to capital, it appears as a power with which capital is endowed by Nature — a productive power that is immanent in ca])ital.
The colossal effects of simple co-operation are to be seen in the gigantic structures of the ancient Asiatics, Egyptians, Etruscans, &c. "It has happened in times past that these Oriental States, after supplying the expenses of their civil and military establishments, have found themselves in possession of a surplus which they could apply to works of magnificence or utility, and in the construction of these their command over the hands and arms of almost the entire non-agricultural population has produced stupendous monuments which still indicate their power. The teeming valley of the Nile...produced food for a swarming non-agricultural population, and this food, belonging to the monarch and the priesthood, afforded the means of erecting the mighty monuments which filled the land...In moving the colossal statues and vast masses of which the transport creates wonder, human labour almost alone, was prodigally used...The number of the labourers and the concentration of their eflTorts sufiiced. We see mighty coral reefs rising from the depths of the ocean into islands and firm land, yet each individual depositor is puny, weak, and con- temptible. The non-agricultural labourers of an Asiatic monarchy have little but their individual bodily exertions to bring to the task, but their number is their strength, and the power of directing these masses gave rise to the palaces and temples, the pyramids, and the armies of gigantic statues of which the remains astonish and perplex us. It is that con- finement of the revenues which feed them, to one or a few hands, which makes such undertakings possible." ^ This power 1 R. Jones. "Text-book of Lectures," &c., pp. 77, 78. The ancient Assyrian, Egyptian, and other collections in London, and in other European capitals, make us eye-witnesses of the modes of carrying on that co-operative labour.
Co-Operation. ' 325 of Asiatic and Egyptian kings, Etruscan theocrats, &;c., has in modern society been transferred to the capitalist, whether he be an isolated, or as in joint stock companies, a collective capitalist.
Co-operation, such as we find it at the dawn of human development, among races who live by the chase,^ or, say, in the agriculture of Indian communities, is based, on the one band, on ownership in common of the means of production, and on the other hand, on the fact, that in those cases, each individual has no more torn himself ofi* from the navel- string of his tribe or community, than each bee has freed itself from connexion with the hive. Such co-operation is distinguished from capitalistic co-operation by both of the above characteristics. The sporadic application of co-operation on a large scale in ancient times, in the middle ages, and in modern colonies, reposes on relations of dominion and servi- tude, principally on slavery. The capitalistic form, on the contrary, presupposes from first to last, the free wage labourer, who sells his labour-power to capital. Historically, however, this form is developed in opposition to peasant agriculture and to the carrying on of independent handicrafts whether in guilds or not." From the standpoint of these, capitalistic co- operation does not manifest itself as a particular historical form of co-operati(m, but co-operation itself appears to be a historical form peculiar to, and specifically distinguishing, the capitalist process of production.
Just as the social productive power of labour that is de- veloped by co-operation, appears to be the productive power of capital, so co-operation itself, contrasted with the process of production carried on by isolated independent labourers, or even by small employers, appears to be a specific form of the 1 Linguet is probably right, when in his "Theorie des Lois Civiles," he declares hunting to be the first form of co-operation, and man-hunting (war) one of the earliest forms of hunting.
2 Peasant agriculture on a small scale, and the carrying on of independent handi- crafts, which together form the basis of the feudal mode of production, and after the dissolution of that system, continue side by side with the capitalist mode, also form the economic foundation of the classical communities at their best, after the primitive form of ownership of land in common had disappeared, and before slavery had seized on production in earnest.
capitalist process of production. It is the first change experi- enced by the actual labour-process, when subjected to capi tal This change takes place spontaneously. The simultaneous employment of a large number of wage-labourers, in one and the same process, which is a necessary condition of this change, also forms the starting point of capitalist production. This point coincides with the birth of capital itself. If then, on the one hand, the capitalist mode of production presents itself to us historically, as a necessary condition to the transformation of the labour-process into a social process, so, on the other hand, this social form of the labour-process presents itself, as a method employed by capital for the more profitable exploitation of labour, by increasing that labour's productiveness.
In the elementary form, under which we have hitherto viewed it, co-operation is a necessary concomitant of all pro- duction on a large scale, but it does not, in itself, represent a fixed form characteristic of a particular epoch in the develop- ment of the capitalist mode of production. At the most it appears to do so, and that only approximately, in the handi- craft-like beginnings of manufacture,^ and in that kind of agriculture on a large scale, which corresponds to the epoch of manufacture, and is distinguished from peasant agriculture, mainly by the number of the labourers simultaneously em- ployed, and by the mass of the means of production con- centrated for their use. Simple co-operation is always the prevailing form, in those branches of production in which capital operates on a large scale, and division of labour and machinery play but a subordinate part.
Co-operation ever constitutes the fundamental form of the capitalist mode of production; nevertheless, the elementary form of co-operation continues to subsist as a particular form of capitalist production side by side with the more developed forms of that mode of production.
** Whether the united skill, industry, and emulation of many together on the same work be not the way to advance it? And whether it had been otherwise I>ossible for England, to have carried on her Woollen Manufacture to so great a per- fection?" (Berkeley. **The Querist." London, 1750, p. 56, par. 521.)
Division of Labour and Manufacture, 327 CHAPTER XIV.
DIVISION OF LABOUR AND MANUFACTURE.
SECTION 1. — TWOFOLD ORIGIN OF MANUFACTURE.
That co-operation which is based on division of labour, assumes its typical form in manufacture, and is the prevalent character- istic form of the capitalist process of production throughout the manufacturing period properly so called. That period, roughly speaking, extends from the middle of the 16th to the last third of the 18th century.
Manufacture takes its rise in two ways: —