 But, insists the capitalists, you couldn't materialize your labor, you couldn't spin without my cotton and my spindles, you must pay extra for that. Well, says the laborer, the cotton would have rotted and the spindles rusted if I hadn't used them for spinning. The three pounds of yarn which you are deducting do represent it is true only the value of your cotton and your spindles which were used up and are therefore contained in the five pounds of yarn. But it is only my labor that has maintained the value of cotton and spindles unchanged by using these means of production as means of production. I'm not charging you anything for this value-maintaining power of my labor because it didn't cost me any extra labor time beyond the spinning itself, for which I get the two pounds. It's a natural faculty of my labor which cost me nothing, though it maintains the value of the constant capital. As I don't charge you anything for it, you can't charge me for not being able to spin without spindles and cotton, for without spinning, your spindles and cotton wouldn't be worth a brass farthing. Driven into a corner, the capitalist says the two pounds of yarn are in fact worth two shillings. They represent that much labor time of yours, but am I to pay you for them before I have sold them? Perhaps I may not sell them at all. That is risk number one. Secondly, perhaps I may sell them at less than their price. That is risk number two. And thirdly, in any case, it takes time to sell them. Am I to take on both risks on your behalf without recompense and lose my time into the bargain? You can't expect something for nothing. Wait a bit, replies the worker. What's the relation between us? We face each other as owners of commodities. You as buyer, we as sellers. For you want to buy our share in the product, the two pounds, and it in fact contains nothing but our own materialized labor time. Now you assert that we must sell you our commodity below its value, so that as a result, you would be getting more value in commodity than you now have in money. The value of our commodity is equal to two shillings. You want to give only one shilling for it, so that, since one shilling contains as much labor time as one pound of yarn, you would get from the exchange twice as much value as you give in return. We, on the other hand, would get instead of an equivalent only half of an equivalent, an equivalent for only one pound of yarn instead of two. And on what do you base this demand, which is contrary to the law of value and the exchange of commodities in proportion to their value? On what? On the fact that you are a buyer and we are a seller, that our value is in the form of yarn, of a commodity and your value is in the form of money. That the same value in the form of yarn confronts the same value in the form of money. But my good friend, that is in fact a mere change of form, which affects the way in which the value is expressed, but leaves the amount of value unaltered. Or do you hold to the childish view that every commodity must be sold under its price, that is to say, for less than the sum of money which represents its value, because in the form of money it gets an increased value. But no, good friend, it does not get any increased value. The magnitude of its value does not change. It merely takes the shape of exchange value in its pure form. Besides, my good friend, think of the troubles you are laying up for yourself by taking this line. For what you assert amounts to this, that the seller must always sell his commodity to the buyer below its value. Indeed, as far as you are concerned, this was the case earlier when we sold you not a commodity we produced, but our labor power itself. It is true that you bought it at its value, but you bought our actual labor below the value in which it is expressed. However, that's an unpleasant memory. Let's say no more about it. We've gone beyond that. Thank goodness. Since, by your own decision, we are no longer to sell you our labor power as a commodity, but the commodity itself which is the product of our labor. Let's look at the troubles you're laying out for yourself. The new law you have set up, that the seller pays for the conversion of his commodity into money, not with his commodity through the exchange of his commodity for money, but that he pays for it by selling the commodity below its price. This law, which the buyer always fleeces and defrauds the seller, must hold good in like measure for every buyer and seller. Let's suppose that we accept your offer, but on the condition that you yourself submit to the law just created by you. Namely, the law that the seller must surrender to the buyer a part of his commodity for nothing, in return for the buyer changing it into money for him. Then you buy our two pounds, which are worth two shillings, for one shilling, and thus make a profit of one shilling, or 100%. But now you have five pounds of yarn of a value of five shillings, after you have bought the two pounds belonging to us. Now you think you're going to do a good stroke of business. The five pounds cost you only four shillings, and you're going to sell them for five shillings. Wait a minute, says the man who buys from you. Your five pounds of yarn is a commodity, and you are a seller. I have the same value in money and I am a buyer. Consequently, by the law which you recognize, I must make 100% profit out of you. You must therefore sell me the five pounds of yarn at 50% below its value for two shilling sixpence. I'll give you then two shillings and sixpence, and get in exchange a commodity to the value of five shillings. And thus make 100% profit out of you, for what sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. So you see my good friend, continues the worker. Where you get with your new law, you would simply have diddled yourself, since although at one moment you are a buyer, the next you're in turn a seller. In this particular case, you would lose more as a seller than you gained as a buyer. And don't forget this too. Before the two pounds of yarn you want now to buy from us ever existed. Didn't you make other purchases in advance, but for which the five pounds of yarn would never have been there at all? Didn't you buy cotton and spindles in advance, which are now represented by three pounds of yarn? At that time, the cotton jobber in Liverpool and the spindle maker in Oldham faced you as sellers, and you faced them as a buyer. They represented commodity, you money. Exactly the same relationship as we have the honor or misfortune to stand into each other at this moment. Wouldn't the sharp cotton jobber and your jovial colleague from Oldham have had a good laugh at you if you had demanded that they hand over to you for nothing a part of the cotton and spindles, or what is the same thing, sell you these commodities below their price and their value. On the ground that you were transforming commodities for them into money, but they were transforming money into commodities for you, that they were sellers and you a buyer. They risked nothing, for they got ready money, exchange value in the pure independent form. You on the other hand, what a risk you were taking. First, you had to make spindles and cotton into yarn, run all the risks of the production process and then finally the risk of reselling the yarn, changing it back again into money. The risk, whether it would sell at its value or over or under its value. The risk of not selling it at all, of not transforming it back into money, and as to its quality as yarn. You didn't care straw for it. You did not eat yarn, nor drink it, nor have any use whatever for it except selling it. And in any case, the loss of time in transforming the yarn again into money, and that includes therefore the transformation of spindles and yarn into money. Old boy, your colleagues will reply, don't make a fool of yourself, don't talk nonsense. What the devil do we care what you propose turning our cotton and our spindles to? What use you destined them for? Burn them, hang them if you like, throw them to the dogs, but pay for them. The idea, we are to make you a present of our goods because you have set up as a cotton spinner and seem not to quite feel at ease in that line of business and magnify to yourself its risks and perilous chances. Give up cotton spinning or don't come into the market with such preposterous ideas. The capitalist with a supercilious smile replies to this tirade from the workers. Evidently, you people are a bit out of your depth. You're talking about things you don't understand. Do you imagine I've paid ready money to the Liverpool Ruffian and the man in Oldham? The devil I did. I've paid them in bills of exchange and the Liverpool Ruffian's cotton was in point of fact spun and sold before his bill fell due. With you, it's another affair altogether. You want to get ready money. Very well, say the laborers, and what did the Liverpool Ruffian and the Oldham man do with your bills? What they were doing with them, says the capitalist. Stupid question. They lodged them with their bankers and got them there discounted. How much did they pay the banker? Let me see. Money is now very cheap. I think they paid something like 3% discount. That is to say not 3% on the sum, but they paid so much on the sum for the time the bill was running as would have come up to 3% on the whole matter if the bill had run for a whole year. Still better, say the working men. Pay us two shillings, the value of our commodity, or say 12 shillings as we have dealt today per day, but we will deal per week. But take away from that sum 3% per annum for 14 days. But this bill is too small, says the capitalist, to be discounted by any banker. Well, reply the working men. We are 100 men, thus you have to pay to us 1200 shillings. Give us a bill for them. This makes 60 pounds and is not too small the sum to be discounted, but besides, as you discount it yourself, the sum must not be too small for you, since it is the identical sum once you pretend to derive your profit on us. The amount deducted wouldn't be worth mentioning, and since we would thus get the major part of our product in its entirety, we would soon reach the point when we didn't need you to discount it for us. Naturally, we will not give you any longer credit than the 14 days the stock-jobber gives you.