 Chapter 7, Section 1 of Capital, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to find out how to volunteer, please contact LibriVox.org. Capital. A critical analysis of capitalist production. Volume 1 by Karl Marx. Translated from the 3rd German edition by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling. And edited by Frederick Engels. Part 3, The Production of Absolute Surplus Value. Chapter 7, The Labor Process and the Process of Producing Surplus Value. Section 1, The Labor Process or the Production of Use Values. The capitalist buys labor power in order to use it. And labor power in use is labor itself. The purchaser of labor power consumes it by setting the seller of it to work. By working, the latter becomes actually what before he was only potentially. Labor power in action. A laborer. In order that his labor may reappear in a commodity, he must, before all things, expend it on something useful. On something capable of satisfying a want of some sort. Hence, what the capitalist sets the laborer to produce is a particular use value, a specified article. The fact that the production of use values, or goods, is carried on under the control of a capitalist and on his behalf does not alter the general character of that production. We shall, therefore, in the first place, have to consider labor process independently of the particular form it assumes under given social conditions. Labor is, in the first place, a process in which both man and nature participate. Which man, of his own accord, starts, regulates, and controls the material reactions between himself and nature. He opposes himself to nature as one of her own forces. Setting in motion arms and legs, head and hands, the natural forces of his body, in order to appropriate nature's productions in a form adapted to his own wants. By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops his slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway. We are not now dealing with those primitive, instinctive forms of labor that remind us of the mere animal. An immeasurable interval of time separates the state of things in which a man brings his labor power to market for sale as a commodity from that state in which human labor was still in its first instinctive stage. We presuppose labor in a form that stamps it as exclusively human. A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure and imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labor process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the laborer at its commencement. He not only affects a change of form in the material on which he works, but he also realizes a purpose of his own that gives the law to his modus operandi, and to which he must subordinate his will. And this subordination is no mere momentary act. Besides the exertion of the bodily organs, the process demands that, during the whole operation, the workman's will be steadily in consonance with his purpose. This means close attention. The less he is attracted by the nature of the work, and the mode in which it is carried on, and the less, therefore, he enjoys it as something which gives play to his bodily and mental powers, the more close his attention is forced to be. The elementary factors of the labor process are, one, the personal activity of man, i.e. work itself, two, the subject of that work, and three, its instruments. The soil, and this, economically speaking, includes water in the virgin state in which it supplies man with necessities or the means of subsistence ready to hand, exists independently of him, and is the universal subject of human labor. Footnote, the earth's spontaneous productions, being in small quantity and quite independent of man, appear, as it were, to be furnished by nature, in the same way as a small sum is given to a young man. In order to put him in a way of industry, and of making his fortune, James Stewart, Principles of Political Economics, Edition Dublin, 1770, Volume 1, Page 116, and Footnote. All those things which labor merely separates from immediate connection with their environment are subjects of labor, spontaneously provided by nature. Such are fish which we catch and take from their element, water, timber which we fell in the virgin forest, and ores which we extract from their veins. If, on the other hand, the subject of labor has, so to say, been filtered through previous labor, we call it raw material. Such is ore already extracted and ready for washing. All raw material is the subject of labor. But not every subject of labor is raw material. It can only become so after it has undergone some alteration by means of labor. An instrument of labor is a thing, or a complex of things, which labor interposes between himself and the subject of his labor, and which serves as the conductor of his activity. He makes use of the mechanical, physical, and chemical properties of some substances in order to make other substances subservient to his aims. Footnote. Reason is just as cunning as she is powerful. Her cunning consists principally in her mediating activity, which, by causing objects to act and react on each other in accordance with their own nature, in this way, without any direct interference in the process, carries out reason's intentions. Leaving out of consideration such ready-made means of subsistence as fruits, in gathering which a man's own limbs serve as the instruments of his labor, the first thing of which the labor possesses himself is not the subject of labor, but its instrument. Thus nature becomes one of the organs of his activity, one that he annexes to his own bodily organs, adding stature to himself in spite of the Bible. As the earth is his original larder, so too is it his original toolhouse. It supplies him, for instance, with stones for throwing, grinding, pressing, cutting, etc. The earth itself is an instrument of labor, but when used as such in agriculture, implies a whole series of other instruments at a comparatively high development of labor. Footnote. In his otherwise miserable work, Theorie de l'economie politique, Paris, 1815, Ganyel enumerates in a striking manner in opposition to the physiocrats, the long series of previous processes necessary before agriculture, properly so called, can commence. And footnote. No sooner does labor undergo the least development than it requires specially prepared instruments. Thus, in the oldest caves we find stone implements and weapons. In the earliest period of human history, domesticated animals, i.e. animals which have been bred for the purpose and have undergone modifications by means of labor, play the chief part as instruments of labor, along with specially prepared stones, wood, bones, and shells. Footnote. Turgo, in his reflection sur la formation et la distribution des richesses, 1766 brings well into prominence the importance of domesticated animals to early civilization. And footnote. The use and fabrication of instruments of labor, although existing in the germ, among certain species of animals, is specifically characteristic of the human labor process. And Franklin therefore defines man as a toolmaking animal. Relics of bygone instruments of labor possess the same importance for the investigation of extinct economic forms of society, as do fossil bones for the determination of extinct species of animals. It is not the articles made, but how they are made, and by what instruments, that enables us to distinguish different economic epics. Footnote. The least important commodities of all for the technological comparison of different epics of production are articles of luxury, and the strict meaning of the term. However little are written histories up to this time notice the development of material production, which is the basis of all social life, and therefore of all real history. Yet prehistoric times have been classified in accordance with the results not of so-called historical, but of materialistic investigations. These periods have been divided to correspond with the materials from which their implements and weapons were made, vis, into the stone, the bronze, and the iron ages. And footnote. Instruments of labor not only supply a standard of the degree of development to which human labor has attained, but they are also indicators of the social conditions under which that labor is carried on. Among the instruments of labor, those of a mechanical nature, which, taken as a whole, we may call the bone and muscles of production, offer much more decided characteristics of a given epic of production than those which, like pipes, rubs, baskets, jars, etc., serve only to hold the materials for labor, which latter class, we may in a general way call the vascular system of production. The latter first begins to play an important part in the chemical industries. In a wider sense, we may include among the instruments of labor, in addition to those things that are used for directly transferring labor to its subject, and which, therefore, in one way or another, serve as conductors of activity, all such objects as are necessary for carrying on the labor process. These do not enter directly into the process, but without them, it is either impossible for it to take place at all, or possible only to a partial extent. Once more, we find the earth to be a universal instrument of this sort, for it furnishes a locus stand-eye to the laborer and a field of employment for his activity. Among instruments that are the result of previous labor, and also belong to this class, we find workshops, canals, roads, and so forth. In the labor process, therefore, man's activity with the help of the instruments of labor affects an alteration, designed from the commencement and the material worked upon. The process disappears in the product. The latter is a use value. Nature's material adapted by a change of form to the wants of man. Labor has incorporated itself with its subject. The former is materialized, the latter transformed. That which, in the laborer, appeared as movement, now appears in the product as a fixed quality without motion. The blacksmith forges, and the product is a forging. If we examine the whole process from the point of view of its result, the product, it is plain that both the instruments and the subject of labor are means of production. Footnote. It appears paradoxical to assert that uncaught fish, for instance, are a means of production in the fishing industry. But hitherto, no one has discovered the art of catching fish in waters that contain none. And footnote. And that the labor itself is productive labor. Footnote. This method of determining from the standpoint of the labor process alone what is productive labor is by no means directly applicable to the case of the capitalist process of production. And footnote. Though a use value in the form of a product issues from the labor process, yet other use values, products of previous labor enter into it as means of production. The same use value is both the product of a previous process and a means of production in a later process. Products are therefore not only results, but also essential conditions of labor. With the exception of the extractive industries in which the material for labor is provided immediately by nature, such as mining, hunting, fishing, and agriculture, so far as the ladder is confined to breaking up virgin soil, all branches of industry manipulate raw material. Objects already filtered through labor, already products of labor, such as seed and agriculture. Animals and plants, which we are accustomed to consider as products of nature, are in their present form, not only products of, say, last year's labor, but as a result of a gradual transformation, continued through many generations, under man's superintendents, and by means of his labor. But in the great majority of cases, instruments of labor show even to the most superficial observer, traces of the labor of past ages. Raw material may either form the principal substance of a product, or it may enter into its formation only as an accessory. An accessory may be consumed by the instruments of labor, as coal under a boiler, oil by a wheel, hay by draft horses, or it may be mixed with the raw material in order to produce some modification thereof, as chlorine into unbleached linen, coal with iron, dye stuff with wool, or again, it may help to carry on the work itself, as in the case of the materials leading in lighting workshops. The distinction between principal substance and accessory vanishes in the true chemical industries, because there, none of the raw material reappears in its original composition in the substance of the product. Footnote. Storch calls true raw materials matia, and accessory material, materiu, and boullier describes accessories as mater instrumentale, and footnote. Every object possesses various properties, and is thus capable of being applied to different uses. One in the same product may therefore serve as raw material in very different processes. Corn, for example, is a raw material for millers, starch manufacturers, distillers, and cattle breeders. It also enters as raw material into its own production in the shape of seed. Coal, too, is at the same time the product of, and a means of production in, coal mining. Again, a particular product may be used in one in the same process, both as an instrument of labor and as raw material. Take, for instance, the fattening of cattle, where the animal is the raw material, and at the same time, an instrument for the production of manure. A product, though ready for immediate consumption, may yet serve as raw material for further product, as grapes when they become the raw material for wine. On the other hand, labor may give us its product that we can use it only as raw material, as is the case with cotton, thread, and yarn. Such a raw material, though itself a product, may have to go through a whole series of different processes. In each of these, in turn, it serves with constantly varying form as raw material, until the last process of the series leaves it a perfect product, ready for individual consumption or for use as an instrument of labor. Hence, we see that whether a use value is to be regarded as raw material, as instrument of labor, or as product, this is determined entirely by its function in the labor process. By the position, it there occupies. As this varies, so does its character. Therefore, a product enters as a means of production into a new labor process. It thereby loses its character of product, and becomes a mere factor in the process. A spinner treats spindles only as implements for spinning, and flaxs only as the material that he spins. Of course, it is impossible to spin without material and spindles, and therefore the existence of products at the commencement of the spinning operation must be presumed. But in the process itself, the fact that they are products of previous labor is a matter of utter indifference. Just as in the digestive process, it is of no importance whatever that bread is the produce of the previous labor of the farmer, the miller, and the baker. On the contrary, it is generally by their imperfections as products that these means of production in any process assert themselves in their character of products. A blunt knife or weak thread forcibly remind us of Mr. A, the Cutler, or Mr. B, the spinner. In the finished product, the labor by means of which it has acquired its useful qualities is not palpable, has apparently vanished. The machine, which does not serve the purposes of labor, is useless. In addition, it falls a prey to the destructive influence of natural forces. Iron rusts and wood rots. Yarn, with which we neither weave nor knit is caught and wasted. Living labor must seize upon these things and rouse them from their death sleep, change them from mere possible use-values into real and effective ones. Bathe in the fire of labor, appropriated as part and parcel of labor's organism, and, as it were, made alive for the performance of their functions in the process, they are in truth consumed, but consumed with a purpose as elementary constituents of new use-values, of new products, ever ready as means of subsistence for individual consumption or as means of production for some new labor process. If then, on the one hand, finished products are not only results, but also necessary conditions of the labor process. On the other hand, their assumption into that process, their contact with living labor, is the sole means by which they can be made to retain their character of use-values and be utilized. Labor uses up its material factors, its subject and its instruments, consumes them and is therefore a process of consumption. Such productive consumption is distinguished from individual consumption by this, that the latter uses up products as means of subsistence for the living individual. The former, as means whereby alone, labor, the labor power of the living individual is enabled to act. The product, therefore, of individual consumption is the consumer himself. The result of productive consumption is a product distinct from the consumer. In so far then, as its instruments and subjects are themselves products, labor consumes products in order to create products. Or, in other words, consumes one set of products by turning them into means of production for another set. But, just as in the beginning, the only participators in the labor process were man and the earth, which latter exists independently of man. So, even now, we still employ in the process many means of production provided directly by nature that do not represent any combination of natural substances with human labor. The labor process resolved as above into its simple elementary factors is human action with a view to the production of use values, appropriation of natural substances to human requirements. It is the necessary condition for affecting change of matter between man and nature. It is the everlasting nature-imposed condition of human existence, and therefore, is independent of every social phase of that existence, or rather, is common to every such phase. It was, therefore, not necessary to represent our laborer in connection with other laborers, man in his labor on one side, nature in its materials on the other, sufficed. As the taste of porridge does not tell you who grew the oats, no more does this simple process tell you of itself what are the social conditions under which it is taking place, whether under the slave owner's brutal lash or the anxious eye of the capitalist, whether Cincinnati carries it on untiling his modest farm or a savage in killing wild animals with stones. Footnote By a wonderful feat of logical acumen, Colonel Torrance has discovered in this stone of the savage the origin of capital. In the first stone which he, the savage, flings at the wild animal he pursues and the first stick that he seizes to strike down the fruit which hangs above his reach, we see the appropriation of one article for the purpose of aiding in the acquisition of another and thus discover the origin of capital, R. Torrance an essay on the production of wealth, etc. Pages 70 to 71 and footnote. Let us now return to our would-be capitalist. We left him just after he had purchased, in the open market, all the necessary factors of the labor process. Its objective factors, the means of production, as well as its subjective factor, labor power. With the keen eye of an expert, he has selected the means of production and the kind of labor power best adapted to his particular trade, be it spinning, boot making, or any other kind. He then proceeds to consume the commodity, the labor power that he has just bought by causing the laborer the impersonation of that labor power to consume the means of production by his laborer. The general character of the labor process is evidently not changed by the fact that the laborer works for the capitalist instead of for himself. Moreover, the particular methods and operations employed in boot making or spinning are not immediately changed by the intervention of the capitalist. He must begin by taking the labor power as he finds it in the market and consequently be satisfied with labor of such a kind as would be found in the period immediately preceding the rise of capitalists. Changes in the methods of production by the subordination of labor to capital can take place only at a later period and therefore will have to be treated of in a later chapter. The labor process turned into the process by which the capitalist consumes labor power exhibits two characteristic phenomena. First, the laborer works under the control of the capitalist to whom his labor belongs. The capitalist taking good care that the work is done in a proper manner and that the means of production are used with intelligence so that there is no unnecessary waste of raw material and nowhere in terror of the implements beyond what is necessarily caused by the work. Secondly, the product is the property of the capitalist and not that of the laborer. It's immediate producer. Suppose that a capitalist pays for a day's labor power at its value. Then the right to use that power for a day belongs to him. Just as much as the right to use any other commodity, such as a horse that he has hired for the day, to the purchaser of a commodity belongs its use and the seller of labor power by giving his labor does no more in reality than with the use value that he has sold. From the instant he steps into the workshop the use value of his labor power and therefore also its use which is labor belongs to the capitalist. By the purchase of labor power the capitalist incorporates labor as a living ferment with the lifeless constituents of the product. From his point of view labor process is nothing more than the consumption of the commodity purchased i.e. of labor power but this consumption cannot be affected except by supplying the labor power with the means of production. The labor process is a process between things that the capitalist has purchased things that have become his property. The product of this process belongs therefore to him just as much as does the wine which is the product of a process of fermentation completed in his seller. Footnote Products are appropriated before they are converted into capital. This conversion does not secure them from such appropriation. Chebulet Recess au poverty Edition Paris 1841 page 54 The proletarian by selling his labor for a definite quantity of the necessaries of life renounces all claim to a share in the product. The mode of appropriation of the products remains the same as before. It is in no way altered by the bargain we have mentioned. The product belongs exclusively to the capitalist who supplied the raw material and the necessaries of life and this is a rigorous consequence of the law of appropriation a law whose fundamental principle was the very opposite namely that every laborer has an exclusive right to the ownership of what he produces. LC page 58 When the laborers receive wages for their labor the capitalist is then the owner not of the capital only means the production but of the labor also if what is paid as wages is included as it commonly is and the term capital it is absurd to talk of labor separately from capital the word capital as thus employed includes labor and capital both James mill elements of political economics et cetera edition 1821 pages 70 and 71 and part 3 chapter 7 section 1 of capital volume 1 by Carl Marx this recording is in the public domain this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to find out how to volunteer please contact LibriVox.org capital a critical analysis of capitalist production volume 1 by Carl Marx translated from the third German edition by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling and edited by Frederick Engels part 3 the production of absolute surplus value chapter 7 the labor process and the process of producing surplus value section 2 the production of surplus value the product appropriated by the capitalist is a use value as yarn for example or boots but although boots are in one sense the basis of all social progress and our capitalist is a decided progressist yet he does not manufacture boots for their own sake use value is by no means the thing in the production of commodities use values are only produced by capitalists because and in so far as they are the material substratum the depositories of exchange value our capitalist has two objects in view in the first place he wants to produce a use value in exchange that is to say an article destined to be sold a commodity and secondly he desires to produce a commodity whose value shall be greater than the sum of the values of the commodities used in its production that is of the means of production and the labor power that he purchased with his good money in the open market his aim is to produce not only a use value but a commodity also not only a use value but value not only value but at the same time surplus value it must be born in mind that we are now dealing with the production of commodities and that up to this point we have only considered one aspect of the process just as commodities are at the same time use values and values so the process of producing them must be a labor process and at the same time a process of creating value footnote as has been stated in a previous note the English language has two different expressions for these two different aspects of labor in the simple labor process the process of producing use values it is work in the process of creation of value it is labor taking the term in its strictly economic sense Frederick Engels and footnote let us now examine production as a creation of value we know that the value of each commodity is determined by the quantity of labor expended on and materialized in it by the working time necessary under given social conditions for its production this rule also holds good in the case of the product that accrued to our capitalist as the result of the labor process carried on for him assuming this product to be 10 pounds of yarn our first step is to calculate the quantity of labor realized in it for spinning the yarn raw material is required suppose in this case 10 pounds of cotton we have no need at present to investigate the value of this cotton capitalist has we will assume bought it at its full value say of 10 shillings in this price the labor required for the production of the cotton is already expressed in terms of the average labor of society we will further assume that the wear and tear of the spindle which for our present purpose may represent all other instruments of labor employed amounts to the value of twos if then 24 hours labor or 2 working days are required to produce the quantity of gold represented by 12 shillings we have here to begin with 2 days labor already incorporated in the yarn we must not let ourselves be misled by the circumstance that the cotton has taken a new shape while the substance of the spindle has to a certain extent by the general law of value if the value of 40 pounds of yarn equals the value of 40 pounds of cotton plus the value of a whole spindle i.e. if the same working time is required to produce the commodities on either side of this equation then 10 pounds of yarn are an equal equivalent for 10 pounds of cotton together with 1 fourth of a spindle in the case we are considering the same working time is materialized in the 10 pounds of yarn on the one hand and in the 10 pounds of cotton and the fraction of a spindle on the other therefore whether value appears in cotton in a spindle or in yarn makes no difference in the amount of that value the spindle and cotton instead of resting quietly side by side join together in the process their forms are altered and they are turned into yarn but their value is no more affected by this fact than it would be if they had been simply exchanged for their equivalent in yarn the labor required for the production of the cotton the raw material of the yarn is part of the labor necessary to produce the yarn and is therefore contained in the yarn the same applies to the labor embodied in the spindle without whose wear and tear the cotton could not be spun hence in determining the value of the yarn or the labor time required for its production all the special processes carried on at various times and in different places which were necessary first to produce the cotton and the wasted portion of the spindle and then with the cotton and spindle to spin the yarn may together be looked on as different and successive phases of one and the same process the whole of the labor and the yarn is passed labor and it is a matter of no importance that the operations necessary for the production of its constituent elements were carried on at times which referred to the present are more remote than the final operation of spinning if a definite quantity of labor say 30 days is requisite to build a house the total amount of labor incorporated in it is not altered by the fact that the work of the last day is done 29 days later than that of the first therefore the labor contained in the raw material and the instruments of labor can be treated just as if it were labor expended in an earlier stage of the spinning process before the labor of actual spinning commenced the values of the means of production i.e. the cotton and the needle which values are expressed in the price of 12 shillings are therefore constituent parts of the value of the yarn or in other words of the value of the product two conditions must nevertheless be fulfilled first the cotton and spindle must concur in the production of a use value they must in the present case become yarn value is independent of the particular use value by which it is born but it must be embodied in a use value of some kind secondly the time occupied in the labor of production must not exceed the time really necessary under the given social conditions in this case therefore if no more than one pound of cotton be requisite to spin 11 pounds of yarn care must be taken that no more than this weight of cotton is consumed in the production of 11 pounds of yarn and similarly with regard to the spindle though the capitalists have a hobby and use a gold instead of a steel spindle yet the only labor that counts the value of the yarn is that which would be required to produce a steel spindle because no more is necessary under the given social conditions we now know what portion of the value of the yarn is owing to the cotton and the spindle it amounts to 12 shillings or the value of two days work the next point for our consideration is what portion of the value of the yarn is added by the labor of the spinner we have now to consider this labor under a very different aspect from that which it had during the labor process there we viewed it solely as that particular kind of human activity which changes cotton into yarn there the more the labor was suited to the work the better the yarn other circumstances remaining the same the labor of the spinner was then viewed as specifically different from other kinds of productive labor different on the one hand in its special aim vis spinning different on the other hand in the special character of its operations in the special nature of its means of production and in the special use value of its product for the operation of spinning cotton and spindles are a necessity for making rifled cannon they would be of no use whatever here on the contrary where we consider the labor of the spinner only so far as it is value creating i.e. a source of value his labor differs in no respect from the labor of the cotton planter and spindle maker incorporated in the means of production it is solely by reason of this identity that cotton planting spindle making and spinning are capable of forming the component parts differing only quantitatively from each other of one whole namely the value of the yarn here we have nothing more to do with the quality the nature and the specific character of the labor but merely with its quantity and this simply requires to be calculated we proceed upon the assumption that spinning is simple unskilled labor the average labor of a given state of society hereafter we shall see that the contrary assumption would make no difference while the laborer is at work his labor constantly undergoes a transformation from being motion it becomes an object without motion from being the laborer working it becomes the thing produced at the end of at the end of one hour's spinning that act is represented by a definite quantity of yarn in other words a definite quantity of labor namely that of one hour has become embodied in the cotton we say labor i.e. the expenditure of his vital force by the spinner and not spinning labor because the special work of spinning counts here only so far as it is the expenditure power in general and not in so far as it is the specific work of the spinner in the process we are now considering it is of extreme importance that no more time be consumed in the work of transforming the cotton into yarn than is necessary under the given social conditions if under normal i.e. average social conditions of production a pounds of cotton ought to be made into b pounds of yarn by one hour's labor than a day's labor does not count as 12 hours labor unless 12 a pounds of cotton have been made into 12 b pounds of yarn for in the creation of value the time that is socially necessary alone counts not only the labor but also the raw material in the product now appear in quite a new light very different from that in which we viewed them in the labor process the raw material serves now merely as an absorbent of a definite quantity of labor by this absorption it is in fact changed into yarn because it is spun because labor power in the form of spinning is added to it but the product the yarn is now nothing more than a measure of the labor absorbed by the cotton if in one hour one and two thirds pounds of cotton can be spun into one and two thirds pounds of yarn then ten pounds of yarn indicate the absorption of six hours labor definite quantities of product these quantities being determined by experience now represent nothing but definite quantities of labor definite masses of crystallized labor time they are nothing more than the materialization of so many hours or so many days of social labor we are here no more concerned about the facts that the labor is the specific work of spinning then its subject is cotton and its product yarn then we are about the fact that the subject itself is already a product and therefore raw material if the spinner instead of spinning we're working in a coal mine the subject of his labor the coal would be supplied by nature nevertheless a definite quantity of extracted coal a hundred weight for example would represent a definite quantity of absorbed labor we assume on the occasion of its sale that the value of a day's labor power is three shillings and that six hours labor is incorporated in that sum and consequently that this amount of labor is requisite to produce the necessaries of life daily acquired on an average by the laborer if now our spinner by working for one hour can convert one and two-third pounds of cotton into one and two-third pounds of yarn it follows that in six hours he will convert ten pounds of cotton into ten pounds of yarn footnote these figures are quite arbitrary and footnote hence during the spinning process the cotton absorbs six hours of labor the same quantity of labor is also embodied in a piece of gold of the value of three shillings consequently by mere labor of spinning a value of three shillings is added to the cotton let us now consider the total value of the product the ten pounds of yarn two and a half days labor has been embodied in it which two days were contained in the cotton and in the substance of the spindle worn away and half a day was absorbed during the process of spinning these two and a half days labor is also represented by a piece of gold of the value of 15 shillings hence 15 shillings is an adequate price for the ten pounds of yarn or the price of one pound is 18 pence our capitalist stares in astonishment the value of the product is exactly equal to the value of the capital advanced the value so advanced has not expanded no surplus value has been created and consequently money has not been converted into capital the price of the yarn is 15 shillings and 15 shillings were spent in the open market upon the constituent elements of the product or what amounts to the same thing upon the factors of the labor process ten shillings were paid for the cotton two shillings for the substance of the spindle worn away and three shillings for the labor power the swollen value of the yarn is of no avail for it is merely the sum of the values formerly existing in the cotton the spindle and the labor power out of such a simple addition of existing values no surplus value can possibly arise footnote this is the fundamental proposition on which is based the doctrine of the physiocrats as to the unproductiveness of all labor that is not agriculture it is irrefutable for the orthodox economist this way of importer to a certain value the value of pleasure e.g. along the consumption of the yarn the application of this idea the value of pleasure on one hand and on the other the term of the edition the meaning of the term the price of labor the total price of the value of pleasure addition is not multiple this method of adding to one particular object the value of a number of others for example adding the living costs of the weaver to the flax of, as it were keeping up various values in layers on top of one single value has the result that this value grows to the same extent the expression addition gives a very clear picture of the way in which the price of a manufactured product is formed this price is only the sum of a number of values which have been consumed and it is arrived at by adding them together however addition is not the same as multiplication merci de la rivière lc page 599 and footnote these separate values are now all concentrated in one thing but so they were also in the sum of 15 shillings before it was split up into three parts by the purchase of the commodities there is in reality nothing very strange in this result the value of one pound of yarn being 18 pence if our capitalist buys 10 pounds of yarn in the market he must pay 15 shillings for them it is clear that the house ready built or gets it built for him and neither case will the mode of acquisition increase the amount of money laid out on the house our capitalist who is at home in his vulgar economy exclaims oh but i advance my money for the express purpose of making more money the way to hell is paved with good intentions and he might just as easily have intended to make money by producing it all footnote thus from 1844 to 47 he withdrew part of his capital from productive employment in order to throw it away in railway speculations and so also during the american civil war he closed his factory and turned his work people into the streets in order to gamble on the liver pool cotton exchange and footnote he threatens all sorts of things he won't be caught napping again in future he will buy the commodities in the market instead of manufacturing them himself but if all his brother capitalists were to do the same where would he find his commodities in the market and his money cannot eat he tries persuasion consider my abstinence i might have played ducks and drakes with the 15 shillings but instead of that i consumed it productively and made yarn with it very well and by way of reward he is now in possession of good yarn instead of a bad conscience and as for playing the part of a miser it would never do for him to relapse into such bad ways as that we have seen before to what results such asceticism leads besides where nothing is his rights whatever may be the merit of his abstinence there is nothing wherewith specially to renumerate it because the value of the product is merely the sum of the values of the commodities that were thrown into the process of production let him therefore console himself with the reflection that virtue is its own reward but no he becomes importinent he says in his of no use to me i produced it for sale in that case let him sell it or still better let him for the future produce only things for satisfying his personal wants a remedy that his physician McCulloch has already prescribed as infallible against an epidemic of overproduction he now gets obstinate can the laborer he asks merely with his arms and legs produce commodities out of nothing did i not supply him with the materials by means of which and in which alone his labor could be embodied and as the greater part of society consists of such narrow duels have i not rendered society incalculable service by my instruments of production my cotton and my spindle and not only society but the laborer also whom in addition and am i to be allowed nothing in return for all this service well but has not the laborer rendered him the equivalent service of changing his cotton and spindle into yarn moreover there is here no question of service footnote extol thyself put on finery and adorn thyself but whoever takes more or better than he gives that is usury and is not service but wrong done to his neighbor as when one steals and robs all is not service and benefit to a neighbor that is called service and benefit for an adulteress and an adulterer do one another great service and pleasure a horseman does an incendiary a great service by helping him to rob on the highway and pillage land and houses the papists do ours a great service and that they don't drown burn murder all of them or let them all rot in prison but let some live and only drive them out or take from them what they have the devil himself does his servants inestimable service to sum up the world is full of great excellent and daily service and benefit martin looter andy faran veerdan voohersu reading 1540 and footnote a service is nothing more than the useful effect of a use value be it of a commodity or be it of labor footnote in zorkritik der poel uek page 14 I make the following remark on this point it is not difficult to understand that a service the category service must render to a class of economists like jb say and f bestia and footnote but here we are dealing with exchange value the capital is paid to the laborer a value of three shillings and the laborer gave back to him an exact equivalent in the value of three shillings he gave him value for value our friend up to this time so purse proud suddenly assumes the modest demeanor of his own workman and exclaims have I myself not worked have I not performed the labor of superintendents and of overlooking the spinner and does not this labor too create value his overlooker and his manager try to hide their smiles meanwhile after a hearty laugh he re-assumes his usual mean though he chanted to us the whole creed of the economists in reality he says he would not give a brass farthing for it he leaves this and all such like subterfuges and juggling tricks to the professors of political economy who are paid for it he himself is a practical man and though he does not always consider what he says outside his business yet in his business he knows what he is about let us examine the matter more closely the value of a day's labor power amounts to three shillings because on our assumption half a day's labor is embodied in that quantity of labor power i.e. because the means of subsistence that are daily required for the production of labor power cost half a day's labor but the past labor that is embodied in the labor power and the living labor that it can call into action the daily cost of maintaining it and its daily expenditure and work are two totally different things the former determines the exchange value of the labor power the latter is its use value the fact that half a day's labor is necessary to keep the laborer alive during 24 hours does not in any way prevent him from working a whole day therefore the value of labor power and the value which that labor power creates in the labor process are two entirely different magnitudes and this difference of the two values was what the capitalist had in view when he was purchasing the labor power the useful qualities that labor power possesses and by virtue of which makes it yarn or boots were to him nothing more than a conditio sin a qua non for in order to create value labor must be expended in a useful manner what really influenced him was the specific use value which this commodity possesses of being a source not only of value but of more value than it has itself this is the special service that the capitalist expects of labor power and in this transaction he acts in accordance with the eternal laws of the exchange of commodities the seller of labor power like the seller of any other commodity realizes its exchange value and parts with its use value he cannot take one without giving the other the use value of labor power or in other words labor the use value of its seller as the use value of oil after it has been sold belongs to the dealer who has sold it the owner of the money has paid the value of a day's labor power his therefore is the use of it for a day a day's labor belongs to him the circumstance that on the one hand the daily sustenance of labor power costs only a half day's labor while on the other hand it can work during a whole day that consequently the value which its use during one day creates is double what he pays for that use this circumstance is without doubt a piece of good luck for the buyer but by no means an injury to the seller our capitalist foresaw this state of things and that was the cause of his laughter the laborer therefore finds in the workshop the means of production necessary for working not only during 6 but during 12 hours just as during the 6 hours process our 10 pounds of cotton absorbs 6 hours labor and became 10 pounds of yarn so now 20 pounds of cotton will absorb 12 hours labor and be changed into 20 pounds of yarn let us now examine the product of this prolonged process there is now materialized in this 20 pounds of yarn the labor of 5 days of which 4 days are due to the cotton and the lost steel of the spindle the remaining day having been absorbed by the cotton during the spinning process expressed in gold the labor of 5 days is 30 shillings this is therefore the price of 20 pounds of yarn giving as before 18 pence as the price of a pound but the sum of the values of the commodities that entered into the process amounts to 27 shillings the value of the yarn is 30 shillings therefore the value of the product is 1 ninth greater than the value advanced for its production 27 shillings have been transformed into 30 shillings a surplus value of 3 shillings has been created the trick has at last succeeded money has been converted into capital every condition of the problem is satisfied while the laws that regulate the exchange of commodities have been in no way violated equivalent has been exchanged for equivalent for the capitalist is buyer paid for each commodity for the cotton, the spindle and the labor power its full value is done by every purchaser of commodities he consume their use value the consumption of the labor power which was also the process of producing commodities resulted in 20 pounds of yarn having a value of 30 shillings the capitalist formerly a buyer now returns to the market as a seller of commodities he sells his yarn at 18 pence a pound which is its exact value yet for all that he withdraws 3 shillings more from circulation than he originally threw into it this metamorphosis this conversion of money into capital takes place both within the sphere of circulation and also outside it within the circulation because conditioned by the purchase of the labor power in the market outside the circulation because what is done within it is only a stepping stone to the production of surplus value a process which is entirely confined to the sphere of production thus everything is for the best and the best of all possible worlds Voltaire Candid by turning his money into commodities that serve as the material elements of a new product and as factors in the labor process by incorporating living labor into their dead substance the capitalist at the same time converts value i.e. past materialized and dead labor into capital into value big with value a live monster that is fruitful and multiplies if we now compare the two processes of producing value and of creating surplus value we see that the latter is nothing but the continuation of the former beyond a definite point if on the one hand the process be not carried beyond the point where the value paid by the capitalist for the labor power is replaced by an exact equivalent it is simply a process of producing value if on the other hand it be continued beyond that point it becomes a process of creating surplus value if we proceed further and compare the process of producing value with the labor process pure and simple labor consists of the useful labor the work that produces use values here we contemplate the labor as producing a particular article we view it under its quantitative aspect alone with regard to its end and aim but viewed as a value creating process the same labor process presents itself under its quantitative aspect alone here it is a question merely of the time occupied by the laborer and the work of the period during which the labor power is usefully expended here the commodities that take part in the process do not count any longer as necessary adjuncts of labor power in the production of a definite useful object they count merely as depositories of so much absorbed or materialized labor that labor whether previously embodied in the means of production or incorporated in them the first time during the process by the action of labor power counts in either case only according to its duration it amounts to so many hours or days as the case may be moreover only so much of the time spent in the production of any article is counted as under the given social conditions is necessary the consequences of this are various in the first place it becomes necessary that the labor would be carried on under normal conditions if a self acting mule is the implement in general use for spinning it would be absurd to supply the spinner with the disc staff and spinning wheel the cotton too must not be such rubbish as to cause extra waste in being worked but must be of suitable quality otherwise the spinner would be found to spend more time in producing a pound of yarn than is socially necessary in which case the excess of time would create neither value nor money but whether the material factors of the process are of normal quality or not depends not upon the laborer but entirely upon the capitalist then again the labor power itself must be of average efficacy in the trade in which it is being employed it must possess the average skill hardiness and quickness prevalent in that trade and our capitalist took good care to buy labor power of such normal goodness this power must be applied with the average amount of exertion and with the usual degree of intensity and the capitalist is as careful to see that this is done as that his workmen are not idle for a single moment he has bought the use of the labor power for a definite period and he insists upon his rights he has no intention of being robbed lastly and for this purpose our friend has a penal code of his own all wasteful consumption of raw material or instruments of labor is strictly forbidden because what is so wasted represents labor superfluously expended labor that does not count in the product or enter into its value footnote this is one of the circumstances that makes production by slave labor such a costly process the laborer here is to use a striking expression of the ancients distinguishable only as instrumentum vocale from an animal as instrumentum semi vocale and from an implement as instrumentum mutum but he himself takes care to let both beast and implement feel that he is none of them but he is a man he convinces himself with immense satisfaction that he is a different being by treating the one unmercifully and damaging the other conamori hence the principle universally applied in this method of production only to employ the rudest and heaviest implements and such as are difficult to damage owing to their sheer clumsiness bordering on the gulf of mexico down to the date of the civil war plows constructed on old chinese models which turned up the soil like a hog or a mole instead of making furrows were alone to be found conf j e cairns the slave power london 1862 page 46 sqq in his seaboard slave states almsted tells us i am here shown tools that no man in his senses with us would allow a laborer for whom he was paying wages to be encumbered with and the excessive weight and clumsiness of which i would judge would make work at least 10% greater than with those ordinarily used with us and i am assured that in the careless and clumsy way they must be used by the slaves anything lighter or less rude could not be furnished them with good economy and that such tools as we constantly give our laborers and find our profit in giving them would not last out a day in a virginia cornfield much lighter and more free from stones though it be than ours so too when i ask why mules are so universally substituted by horses on the farm the first reason given and confessedly the most conclusive one is that horses cannot bear the treatment that they always must get from negroes horses are always soon founded or crippled by them while mules will bear cuddling or lose a meal or two now and then and not be materially injured and they do not take cold or get sick if neglected or overworked but i do not need to go further than to the window of the room in which i am riding to see at almost any time treatment of cattle that would ensure the immediate discharge of the driver by almost any farmer owning them in the north and footnote we now see that the difference between labor considered on the one hand is producing utilities and on the other hand as creating value a difference which we discovered by our analysis of a commodity resolves itself into a distinction between two aspects of the process of production the process of production considered on the one hand as the unity of the labor process and the process of creating value is production of commodities considered on the other hand as the unity of the labor process and the process of producing surplus value it is the capitalist process of production or capitalist production of commodities we stated on a previous page that in the creation of surplus value it does not in the least matter whether the labor appropriated by the capitalist be simple on skilled labor of average quality or more complicated skilled labor all labor of higher or more complicated character than average labor is expenditure of labor power is simply kind labor power whose production has cost more time and labor and which therefore has a higher value than unskilled or simple labor power this power being higher value its consumption is labor of a higher class labor that creates an equal times proportionally higher values than unskilled labor does whatever difference and skill there may be between the labor and that of a jeweler the portion of his labor by which the jeweler merely replaces the value of his own labor power does not in any way differ in the quantity from the additional portion by which he creates surplus value and the making of jewelry just as in spinning the surplus value rests only from a quantitative excess of labor from lengthening out of one and the same labor process in the one case of the process of making jewels and the other of the process of making yarn footnote the distinction between skilled and unskilled labor rests in part on pure illusion or to say the least on distinctions that have long since ceased to be real and that survive only by virtue of a traditional convention in part on the helpless condition of some groups of the working class a condition that prevents them from exacting equally with the rest of the value of their labor power accidental circumstances here play so great a part that these two forms of labor sometimes change places where for instance the physique of the working class has deteriorated and is relatively speaking exhausted which in the case in all countries with a well developed capitalist production the lower forms of labor which demand great expenditure of muscle are in general considered as skilled compared with much more delicate forms of labor take as an example the labor of a brick layer which in England occupies a much higher level than that of a damask weaver again although the labor of a fustion cutter demands great bodily exertion and is at the same time unhealthy yet it counts only as unskilled labor and then we must not forget that the so called skilled labor does not occupy a large space in the field of national labor laying estimates that in England and Wales the livelihood of 11,300,000 people depends on unskilled labor if from the total population of 18 million living at the time when he wrote we deduct a million for the gen heal population and 1,500,000 for poppers vagrants, criminals prostitutes, etc and 4,650,000 who compose the middle class there remain the above a mentioned 11 million but in his middle class he includes people that live on the interest of small investments officials men of letters school masters and the like and in order to swell the number he also includes in these 4,650,000 the better paid portion of the factory operatives the bricklayers too figure amongst them S. Lang national distress etc London 1844 the great class who have nothing to give for food but ordinary labor are the great bulk of the people James mill in article colony supplement to the encyclopedia Britannica 1831 and footnote but on the other hand in every process of creating value the reduction of skilled labor to average social labor e.g. one day of skilled to 6 days of unskilled labor is unavoidable footnote where reference is made to labor as a measure of value it necessarily implies labor of one particular kind the proportion which the other kinds bear to it being easily ascertained outlines of political economy London 1832 printed pages 22 and 23 and footnote we therefore save ourselves a superfluous operation and simplify our analysis by the assumption that the labor of the workmen employed by the capitalist is unskilled average labor and part 3 the production of absolute surplus value chapter 7 the labor process and the process of producing surplus value section 2 the production of surplus value this recording is in the public domain chapter 8 of capital volume 1 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Anna Simon capital a critical analysis of capitalist production volume 1 by Karl Marx translated from the third German edition by Samuel Moore and Edward Eveling and edited by Frederick Engels part 3 the production of absolute surplus surplus value chapter 8 constant capital and variable capital the various factors of the labor process play different parts in forming the value of the product the labor adds fresh value to the subject of his labor by expending upon it a given amount of additional labor no matter what the specific character and utility of that labor may be on the other hand the values of the means of production used up in the process are preserved and themselves are fresh as constituent parts of the value of the product the values of the cotton and the spindle for instance reappear again in the value of the yarn the value of the means of production is therefore preserved by being transferred to the product this transfer takes place during the conversion of those means into a product or in other words during the labor process it is brought about by labor but how? the laborer does not perform two operations at once one in order to add value to the cotton the other in order to preserve the value of the means of production or what amounts to the same thing to transfer to the yarn to the product the value of the cotton on which he works and part of the value of the spindle with which he works but by the very act of adding new value he preserves their former values since however the addition of new value to the subject of his labor and the preservation of its former value are two entirely distinct results produced simultaneously by the laborer during one operation it is plain that this two-fold nature of the result can be explained only by the two-fold nature of its labor at one at the same time it must in one character create value and in another character preserve or transfer value now in what manner does every laborer add new labor and consequently new value evidently only by laboring productively in a particular way the spinner by spinning the weaver by weaving the smith by forging but while thus incorporating labor generally that is value it is by the particular form alone of the labor by the spinning, the weaving and the forging respectively that the means of production the cotton and spindle, the yarn and loom and the iron and anvil become constituent elements of the product of a new use value footnote quote labor gives a new creation for one extinguished an essay on the political economy of nations London, 1821 page 13 and footnote each use value disappears but only to reappear under a new form in a new use value now we saw when we were considering the process of creating value that if a use value be effectively consumed in the production of a new use value the quantity of labor expended in the production of the consumed article forms a portion of the quantity of labor necessary to produce a new use value this portion is therefore labor transferred from the means of production to the new product hence the labor preserves the values of the consumed means of production or transfers them as portions of its value to the product not by virtue of its additional labor considered but by virtue of the particular useful character of that labor by virtue of its special productive form insofar then as labor is such specific productive activity insofar as it is spinning, weaving or forging it raises, by mere contact the means of production from the dead makes them living factors of the labor process and combines with them to form the new products if the special productive labor of the workmen were not spinning would not convert the cotton into yarn and therefore could not transfer the values of the cotton and spindle to the yarn suppose the same workmen were to change his occupation to that of a joiner he would still by a day's labor add value to the material he works upon consequently we see first that the addition of new value takes place not by virtue of his labor being spinning in particular or joinering in particular but because it is labor in the abstract a portion of the total labor of society and we see next that the value added is of a given definite amount not because his labor has a special utility but because it is exerted for a definite time on the one hand then it is by virtue of its general character as being expenditure of human labor power in the abstract that spinning adds new value to the values of the cotton and the spindle and on the other hand it is by virtue of its special character as being a concrete useful process that the same labor of spinning both transfers the values of the means of production to the product and preserves them in the product hence at one at the same time there is produced a two fold result by the simple addition of a certain quantity of labor new value is added and by the quality of this added labor the original values of the means of production are preserved in the product this two fold effect resulting from the two fold character of labor may be traced in various phenomena let us assume that some invention enables the spinner to spin as much cotton in six hours as he was able to spin before in 36 hours his labor is now six times as effective as it was for the purposes of useful production the product of six hours work has increased six fold from six pounds to 36 pounds but now the 36 pounds of cotton absorb only the same amount of labor as formerly did the six pounds one sixth as much new labor is absorbed by each pound of cotton and consequently the value added by the labor to each pound is only one sixth of what it formerly was on the other hand in the product in the 36 pounds of yarn the value transferred from the cotton is six times as great as before by the six hours spinning the value of the raw material preserved and transferred to the product is six times as great as before although the new value added by the labor of the spinner to each pound of the very same raw material is one sixth what it was formerly this shows that the two properties of labor by virtue of which it is enabled in one case to preserve value and in the other to create value are essentially different on the one hand the longer the time necessary to spin a given weight of cotton into yarn the greater is the new value added to the material on the other hand the greater the weight of the cotton spun in the given time the greater is the value preserved by being transferred from it to the product let us now assume that the productiveness of the spinner's labor instead of varying remains constant that he therefore requires the same time as he formerly did to convert one pound of cotton into yarn but that the exchange value of the cotton varies either by rising to six times its former value or falling to one sixth of that value in both these cases the spinner puts the same quantity of labor into a pound of cotton and therefore adds as much value as he did before the change in the value he also produces a given weight of yarn in the same time as he did before nevertheless the value that it transfers from the cotton to the yarn is either one sixth of what it was before the variation or as the case may be, six times as much as before the same result occurs again, if the technical conditions of the spinning process remain unchanged and no change of value takes place in the means of production the spinner continues to consume in equal working times equal quantities of raw material and equal quantities of machinery of unvarying value the value that he preserves in the product is directly proportional to the new value that he adds to the product in two weeks in two weeks he incorporates twice as much labor and therefore twice as much value as in one week and during the same time he consumes twice as much material and wears out twice as much machinery of double the value in each case he therefore preserves in the product of two weeks, twice as much value as in the product of one week so long as the conditions of production remain the same the more value the labor adds by fresh labor the more value he transfers and preserves but he does so mainly because this addition of new value takes place and the conditions that have not varied and are independent of his own labor of course it may be said in one sense that the laborer preserves old value always in proportion to the quantity of new value that he adds whether the value of cotton rise from one shilling to two shillings or fall to sixpence the workman invariably preserves in the product of one hour only half as much value as he preserves in two hours in like manner if the productiveness of his own labor varies by rising or falling he will in one hour spin either more or less cotton as the case may be than he did before and will consequently preserve in the product of one hour more or less value of cotton but all the same he will preserve by two hours labor twice as much value as he will by one value exists only in articles of utility in objects we leave out of consideration its purely symbolical representation by tokens man himself viewed as the impersonation of labor power is a natural object a thing although a living conscious thing and labor is the manifestation of this power residing in him if therefore an article loses its utility it also loses its value the reason why means of production do not lose their value at the same time that they lose their use value is this they lose in the labor process the original form of their use value only to assume in the product the form of a new use value but however important it may be to value that it should have some object of utility to embody itself in yet it is a matter of complete indifference what particular object serves this purpose this we saw when treating of the metamorphosis of commodities hence it follows the labor process the means of production transfer their value to the product only so far as along with their use value they lose also their exchange value they give up to the product that value alone which they themselves lose as means of production but in this respect the material factors of the labor process do not all behave alike the coal burned under the boiler vanishes without leaving a trace so too the tello with which the axles of wheels are greased dye stuffs and other auxiliary substances also vanish but reappear as properties of the product raw material forms the substance of the product but only after it has changed its form hence raw material and auxiliary substances lose the characteristic form with which they are clothed on entering the labor process it is otherwise with the instruments of labor tools, machines, workshops and vessels are of use in the labor process only so long as they retain their original shape and already each morning to renew the process with our shape unchanged and just as during their lifetime that is to say during the continued labor process in which they serve they retain their shape independent of the product so too they do after their death the corpses of machines tools, workshops etc are always separate and distinct from the product they help to turn out if we now consider the case of any instrument of labor during the whole period of its surface from the day of its entry into the workshop till the day of its banishment into the lumber room we find that during this period its use value has been completely consumed and therefore its exchange value completely transferred to the product for instance if a spinning machine lasts for 10 years it is plain that during that working period its total value is gradually transferred to the product of the 10 years the lifetime of an instrument of labor therefore is spent in the repetition of greater or less number of similar operations its life may be compared with that of a human being every day brings a man 24 hours near to his grave but how many days he has still to travel on that road no man can tell accurately by merely looking at him this difficulty however does not prevent life insurance offices from drawing by means of the theory of averages very accurate and at the same time very profitable conclusions so it is with the instruments of labor it is known by experience how long on the average a machine of a particular kind will last suppose its use value in the labor process to last only six days then on the average it loses each day one sixth of its use value and therefore parts with one sixth of its value to the daily product the wear and tear of all instruments their daily loss of use value and the corresponding quantity of value they part with to the product are accordingly calculated upon this basis it is thus strikingly clear that means of production never transfer more value to the product than they themselves lose during the labor process by the destruction of their own use value if such an instrument has no value to lose if in other words it is not the product of human labor it transfers no value to the product it helps to create use value without contributing to the formation of exchange value in this class are included all means of production supplied by nature without human assistance such as land, wind, water, metals in situ and timber in virgin forests yet another interesting phenomenon here presents itself suppose a machine to be worth one thousand pounds and to wear out in one thousand days then one thousandth part of the value of the machine is daily transferred to the day's product at the same time there with diminishing volatility the machine as a whole continues to take part in the labor process thus it appears that one factor of the labor process a means of production continually enters as a whole into that process while it enters into the process of the formation of value by fractions only the difference between the two processes is here reflected in their material factors by the same instrument of production taking part as a whole in the labor process while at the same time as an element in the formation of value it enters only by fractions footnote the subject of repairs of the implements of labor does not concern us here a machine that is undergoing repair no longer plays the part of an instrument but that of a subject of labor work is no longer done with it but upon it it is quite permissible for our purpose to assume that the labor expended on the repairs of instruments is included in the labor necessary for the original production but in the text we deal with that wear and tear which no doctor can cure and which little by little brings about death with quote that kind of wear which cannot be repaired from time to time and which in the case of a knife would ultimately reduce it to a state in which the cutler would say of it it is not worth a new blade end quote that a machine takes part in every labor process as an integral machine but that into the simultaneous process of creating value it enters only bit by bit how great then is the confusion of ideas exhibited in the following extract quote Mr Ricardo says a portion of the labor of the engineer in making stocking machines end quote is contained for example in the value of a pair of stockings yet the total labor of each single pair of stockings includes the whole labor of the engineer not a portion for one machine makes many pairs and none of those pairs could have been done without any part of the machine end quote observations on certain verbal disputes in political economy particularly relating to value page 54 the author an uncommonly self-satisfied Weiziger is right in his confusion and therefore in his contention to this extent only that neither Ricardo nor any other economist before or since him has accurately distinguished the two aspects of labor and still less therefore the part played by it under each of these aspects in the formation of value end footnote on the other hand a means of production may take part as a whole in the formation of value while into the labor process it enters only bit by bit proposing that in spinning cotton the waste for every 115 pounds used amounts to 15 pounds which is converted not into yarn but into devil's dust now although this 15 pounds of cotton never becomes a constituent element of the yarn yet assuming this amount of waste be normal and inevitable under average conditions of spinning its value is just as surely transferred to the value of the yarn as is the value of the 100 pounds that form the substance of the yarn the use value of 15 pounds of cotton must vanish into dust before 100 pounds of yarn can be made the destruction of this cotton is therefore a necessary condition in the production of the yarn and because it is a necessary condition and for no other reason the value of that cotton is transferred to the product the same holds good for every kind of refuse resulting from a labor process or at least as such refuse cannot be further employed as a means in the production of new and independent use values such an employment of refuse may be seen in the large machine works at Manchester where mountains of iron turnings are carted away to the foundry in the evening in order the next morning to reappear in the workshops as solid masses of iron we have seen that the means of production transfer value to the new product so far only as during the labor process they lose value in the shape of their old use value the maximum loss of value that they can suffer in the process is plainly limited by the amount of the original value with which they came into the process or in other words by the labor time necessary for their production therefore the means of production can never add more value to the product than they themselves possess independently of the process in which they assist however useful a given kind of raw material or machine or other means of production may be though it may cost one hundred and fifty pounds or say five hundred days labor yet it cannot under any circumstances add to the value of the product more than one hundred and fifty pounds its value is determined not by the labor process into which it enters as a means of production but by that out of which it is issued as a product in the labor process it only serves as a mere use value a thing with useful properties and could not therefore transfer any value to the product unless it possessed such value previously footnote from this we may judge of the absurdity of J.B. Sey who pretends to account for surplus value, interest profit, rent by the service productif which the means of production, soil instruments and raw material render in the labor process the means of their use values Mr. William Rosher who seldom loses an occasion of registering in black and white ingenious apologetic fancies recalls the following specimen quote J.B. Sey Treté volume one chapter four very truly remarks the value produced by an oil mill after a deduction of all costs is something new something quite different from the labor which the oil mill itself was erected page 82 very true Mr. Professor the oil produced by the oil mill is indeed something very different from the labor expended in constructing the mill by value Mr. Rosher understands such stuff as oil because oil has value notwithstanding that nature produces petroleum though relatively in small quantities effect to which he seems to refer in his further observation quote produces scarcely any exchange value end quote Mr. Rosher's nature and the exchange value it produces are rather like the foolish version who admitted indeed that she had had a child but it was such a little one this in continuation remarks quote Ricardo's school is in the habit of including capital as accumulated labor under the head of labor this is unskillful work because indeed the owner of capital after all does something more than the merely creating and preserving of the same namely the abstention from the enjoyment of it for which he demands for example interest end quote how very skillful is this anatomico physiological method of political economy which indeed converts a mere desire after all into a source of value and footnote while productive labor is changing the means of production into constituent elements of a new product their value undergoes a metemps psychosis it deserts the consumed body to occupy the newly created one but this transpiration takes place as it were behind the back of the laborer he is unable to add labor to create new value without at the same time preserving old values and this because the labor he adds must be of a specific useful kind and he cannot do work of a useful kind without employing products as the means of production of a new product and thereby transferring their value to the new product the property therefore with labor power in action living labor possesses of preserving value at the same time that it adds it is a gift of nature which costs the laborer nothing but which is very advantageous to the capitalist in as much as it preserves the existing value of his capital footnote quote quote so long as trade is good the capitalist is too much absorbed in money-grubbing to take notice of this gratuitous gift of labor a violent interruption of the labor process by a crisis makes him inevitably aware of it footnote in the times of 26th November 1862 a manufacturer whose mill employed 800 hands and consumed on the average 150 bales of East Indian or 130 bales of American cotton complains in doleful manner of the standing expenses of his factory when not working he estimates them at £6000 a year among them are a number of items of concern is here such as rent rates and taxes insurance, salaries of the manager bookkeeper, engineer and others then he reckons £150 for coal used to heat the mill occasionally and run the engine now and then besides this he includes the wages of the people employed at all times to keep the machinery in working order lastly he puts down £1,200 for depreciation of machinery because quote he says he says he does not estimate his depreciation at more than the small sum of £1,200 because his machinery is already nearly worn out and footnote as regards the means of production what has really consumed their use value and the consumption of this use value by labor results in the product there is no consumption of their value and it would therefore be inaccurate to say that it is reproduced footnote quote product of consumption where the consumption of commodity is a part of the process of production in these instances there is no consumption of value and quote page 296 and footnote it is rather preserved for the reason of any operation it undergoes itself in the process but because the article in which it originally exists vanishes it is true but vanishes into some other article hence in the value of the product there is a reappearance of the value of the means of production but there is strictly speaking no reproduction of that value that which is produced is a new use value in which the old exchange value reappears footnote the second compendium that has gone through perhaps twenty editions this passage occurs quote it matters not in what form capital reappears end quote then after a lengthy enumeration of all the possible ingredients of production whose value reappears in the product the passage concludes thus quote the various kinds of food clothing and shelter necessary for the existence and comfort of the human being are also changed from time to time and their value reappears in that new vigor imparted to his body and mind forming fresh capital to be employed again in the work of production end quote F. Weyland, loco citato pages thirty-one and thirty-two without noticing any other oddities it suffices to observe that what reappears in the fresh vigor is not the bread's price but its blood-forming substances what on the other hand reappears the value of that vigor is not the means of subsistence but their value the same necessaries of life at half the price would form just as much muscle and bone just as much vigor but not vigor of the same value this confusion of value and vigor coupled with our author's farisacal indefiniteness mark an attempt, futile for all that to thresh out an explanation of surplus value from a mere reappearance of pre-existing values end footnote it is otherwise with the subjective factor of the labor process with labor power in action while the laborer by virtue of his labor being of a specialized kind that has a special object preserves and transfers to the product the value of the means of production he at the same time by the mere act of working creates each instant an additional or new value suppose the process of production to be stopped just when the workman has produced an equivalent for the value of his own labor power when, for example by six hours labor he has added a value of three shillings this value is a surplus of the total value of the product over the portion of its value that is due to the means of production it is the only original bit of value formed during this process the only portion of the value of the product created by this process of course we do not forget the new value only replaces the money advanced by the capitalist in the purchase of the labor power and spent by the laborer on the necessaries of life with regard to the money spent the new value is merely reproduction but nevertheless it is an actual and not as in the case of the value of the means of production only an apparent reproduction the substitution of one value for another is here affected by the creation of new value we know however from what is gone before the labor process may continue beyond the time necessary to reproduce and incorporate in the product a mere equivalent for the value of the labor power instead of the six hours that are sufficient for the latter purpose the process may continue for twelve hours the action of labor power therefore not only reproduces its own value but produces value over and above it this surplus value is a difference between the value of the product and the value of the elements consumed in the formation of that product in other words of the means of production and the labor power by our explanation of the different parts played by the various factors of the labor process in the formation of the product's value we have in fact disclosed the characters of the different functions allotted to the different elements of capital in the process of expanding its own value the surplus of the total value of the product over the sum of the values is a surplus of the expanded capital over the capital originally advanced the means of production on the one hand labor power on the other are merely the different modes of existence which the value of the original capital assumed when from being money it was transformed into the various factors of the labor process that part of capital then which is represented by the means of production by the raw material auxiliary material and the instruments of labor not in the process of production undergo any quantitative alteration of value I therefore call it the constant part of capital or more shortly constant capital on the other hand that part of capital represented by labor power does in the process of production undergo an alteration of value it both reproduces the equivalent of its own value and also produces an excess a surplus value which may itself vary more or less according to circumstances this part of capital is continually being transformed from a constant into a variable magnitude I therefore call it the variable part of capital or shortly variable capital the same elements of capital which from the point of view of the labor process present themselves respectively as the objective and subjective factors as means of production and labor power present themselves from the point of view of the process of creating surplus value as constant and variable capital the definition of constant capital given above by no means excludes the possibility of a change of value in its elements suppose the price of cotton to be one day sixpence a pound and the next day in consequence of a failure of the cotton crop a shilling a pound each pound of the cotton bought at sixpence and worked up after the rise in value transfers to the product a value of one shilling the cotton already spun before the rise and perhaps circulating in the market as yarn likewise transfers to the product twice its original value it is plain however that these changes of value are independent of the increment or surplus value added to the value of the cotton by the spinning itself if the old cotton had never been spun it could after the rise be resold at a shilling a pound instead of at sixpence further the fewer the processes the cotton is gone through and certain is this result we therefore find that speculators make it a rule when such sudden changes in value occur to speculate in that material on which the least possible quantity of labour has been spent to speculate therefore in yarn rather than in cloth in cotton itself rather than in yarn the change of value in the case we've been considering originates not in the process in which the cotton plays the part of a means of production and in which it therefore functions as constant capital but in the process in which the cotton itself is produced the value of a commodity it is true is determined by the quantity of labour contained in it but this quantity is itself limited by social conditions if the time socially necessary for the production of any commodity alters and a given weight of cotton represents after a bad harvest more labour than after a good one all previously existing commodities of the same class are affected because they are, as it were, only individuals of the species and their value at any given time is measured by the labour socially necessary that is, by the labour necessary for the production under the then existing social conditions footnote quote quote quote footnote as the value of the raw material may change so too may that of the instruments of labour of the machinery etc. employed in the process and consequently that portion of the value of the product transferred to it from them them may also change. If in consequence of a new invention machinery of a particular kind can be produced by a diminished expenditure of labour, the old machinery becomes depreciated more or less and consequently transfers so much less value to the product. But here again the change in value originates outside the process in which the machine is acting as a means of production. Once engaged in this process the machine cannot transfer more value than it possesses apart from the process. Just as a change in the value of the means of production, even after they have commenced to take a part in the labour process, does not alter their character as constant capital, so too, a change in the proportion of constant to variable capital does not affect the respective functions of these two kinds of capital. The technical conditions of the labour process may be revolutionised to such an extent that where formerly 10 men using 10 implements of small value worked up a relatively small quantity of raw material, one man may now, with the aid of one expensive machine, work up 100 times as much raw material. In the latter case we have an enormous increase in the constant capital that is represented by the total value of the means of production used, at the same time a great reduction in the variable capital invested in labour power. Such a revolution, however, alters only the quantitative relation between the constant and the variable capital, or the proportions in which the total capital is split up into its constant and variable constituents. It has not in a least degree affected the essential difference between the two. End of chapter 8