buys the commodities at their
value and sells them at their value,
he gets more value out than he
put in. How does this happen?
Under
present
social
conditions the capitalist finds on
the commodity market a
commodity which has the peculiar
property that its use is a source
of new value, is a creation of new
value. This commodity is labour-
power.
What is the value of labour-
power? The value of every
commodity is measured by the
labour required for its production.
Labour-power exists in the shape
of the living worker who needs a
definite amount of means of
subsistence for himself and for his
family, which ensures the
continuance of a labour-power
even after his death. Hence the
labour-time necessary for
producing these means of
subsistence represents the value
of labour-power. The capitalist
pays him weekly and thereby
purchases the use of one week’s
labour of the worker. So far
Messers. the economists will
pretty well agree with us as to the
value of labour power.
The capitalist now sets his
worker to work. In a certain time
the worker will have delivered as
much labour as was represented
by his weekly wage. Supposing
that the weekly wage of a worker
represents three labour days,
then, if the worker begins on
Monday he has by Wednesday
evening replaced for the capitalist
the full value of the wage paid. But
does he then stop working? By no
means. The capitalist has bought
his week’s labour and the worker
must go on working during the last
three days of the week too. This
surplus-labour of the worker, over
and above the time necessary to
replace his wage, is the source of
6
surplus-value, of profit, of the
continually growing accumulation
of capital.
Do not say it is an arbitrary
assumption that the worker earns
in three days the wages he has
received and works the remaining
three days for the capitalist.
Whether he takes exactly three
days to replace his wages, or two
or four, is, of course, quite
immaterial here and depends
upon circumstances; the main
point is that the capitalist, besides
the labour he pays for, also extracts
labour that he does not pay for,
and this is no arbitrary assumption,
for if the capitalist extracted from
the worker over a long period only
as much labour as he paid him for
in wages, he would shut down his
workshops, since indeed his
whole profit would come to nought.
Here we have the solution of
all those, contradictions. The origin
of surplus-value(of which the
capitalist’s profit forms an
important part) is now quite clear
and natural. The value of the
labour-power is paid for, but this
value is far less than that which
the capitalist can extract from the
labour-power, and it is precisely
the difference, the unpaid labour,
that constitutes the share of the
capitalist, or more accurately, of
the capitalist class. For even the
profit that the cotton dealer made
on his cotton in the above example
must consist of unpaid labour; if
cotton prices have not risen. The
trader must have sold it to a cotton
manufacturer, who is able to
extract from his product a profit for
himself besides the original 100
talers, and therefore shares with
him the unpaid labour he has
pocketed. In general, it is this
unpaid labour which maintains all
the non-working members of
society. The state and municipal
taxes, as far as they affect the
capitalist class, the rent of the
landowners, etc., are paid from it.
On it rests the whole existing
social system.
It would be absurd to assume
that unpaid labour arose only
under present conditions, where
production is carried on by
capitalists on the one hand and
wage-workers on the other. On the
contrary, the oppressed class at
all times has had to perform unpaid
labour. During the whole long
period when slavery was the
prevailing form of the organization
of labour, the slaves had to
perform much more labour than
was returned to them in the form
of means of subsistence. The
same was the case under the rule
of serfdom and right up to the
abolition of peasant corvee labour;
here in fact the difference stands
out palpably because the latter is
carried out separately from the
former. The form has now been
changed, but the substance
remains and as long as “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.”
II
In the previous article we saw
that every worker employed by the
capitalist performs a twofold
labour: during one part of his
working-time he replaces the
wages advanced to him by the
capitalist, and this part of his
labour Marx terms necessary
labour. But afterwards he has to
go on working and during that time
he produces surplus-value for the
capitalist, a significant portion of
which constitutes profit. That part
of the labour is called surplus-
labour.
Class Struggle