The People's Marx, Abridged Popular Edition of the the Three Volumes of Capital, Borchardt 1921

Chapter 8


Methods by which Surplus-Value is increased.

(Extracted from vol. I. cli. 10. 11. 12.)

Surplus-value is produced by the employment of labour power. Capital buys the labour power and pays the wages for it. By means of his work the labourer creates new value which does not belong to him, but to the capitalist. He must work a certain time merely in order to reproduce the equivalent value of his wages. But when this equivalent value has been returned, he does not cease work, but continues to do so for some further hours. The new value which he produces during this extra time, and which exceeds in con- sequence the amount of his wage, constitutes surplus-value.

Capital thus extorts surplus-value in the first place simply by prolonging the duration of the working day beyond the?necessary working-time (necessary in so far as the reproduction of the wages paid for labour power is concerned). Capital at first subordinates labour on the basis of those technical conditions in which it historically finds it. Consequently it does not alter immediately the mode of production. The creation of surplus-value by means of the simple prolongation of the duration of the working day was not less active in an old-fashioned bakery, than it is in a modern cotton- spinning-mill.

But the working day has a maximum limit. It cannot be prolonged beyond a certain point. This maximum limit is conditioned by two things. First, by the physical bounds of labour power. Within 24 hours a human being can only expend a definite quantity of his vital force. A horse in like manner, can only work, on an average, 8 hours daily. During part of the day the vital force must rest, sleep; during another part the human being must feed, wash, clothe himself, etc. Besides these purely physical limitations, the prolongation of the working day encounters moral ones. The labourer needs time for satisfying his intellectual and social wants, the extend and number of which are conditioned by the general state of social advancement. But both the physical and social limiting conditions are of a very elastic nature, and allow the greatest latitude. So we find working days of 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 hours, i. e. of the most different lengths.

The constant efforts made by capital to prolong the working-day roused the opposition of the labouring class, and led in England - in the country in which capitalist production was first established - to bitter social and political struggles, which lasted for centuries.

But there are also other methods of increasing surplus-value - in the first place, the more intense utilisation of labour power, in view of obtaining more from the latter within a specified time. In the second place, by lowering the wages of the labourer below the value of his labour power. Despite the important part which this method plays in actual practice, we are excluded from considering it in this place by our assumption that all commodities, including labour power, are bought and sold at their full value.

There remains, finally, the increase of the so-called relative surplus-value. In this case, the following is the position of affairs:

If the working-day, let us say, lasts 10 hours, of which 6 are spent in replacing the value of labour power, a definite quantity of surplus-value is produced during the remaining 4 hours. If it be possible to increase the duration of the working-day to 11 hours, or to increase the output of labour during the 10 hours, or to combine both proceedings, the amount of surplus-value will be increased in proportion. An absolute increase of surplus-value is thereby obtained.

If, on the other hand, it be impossible to prolong the working-day beyond 10 hours, and likewise impossible to intensify the production, it may nevertheless perhaps be feasible to shorten the necessary working-time. We assumed the latter to last 6 hours, because this time was needed to produce those necessaries of life requisite for the upkeep of labour power. If such necessaries can be produced within a shorter time and with less expenditure of labour, 5 hours may perhaps suffice instead of 6, and in the 10 hours working-day 5 hours would then be available for the pro- duction of surplus-value instead of 4. The surplus-value would in this case have been increased relatively to the working-day.

In order to obtain such a?relative increase in surplus-value, those commodities destined for the consumption of the labourers must be produced in a shorter lime. In oilier words: the productive force of labour must be increased, so that a lesser amount of labour may produce the same quantity of commodities. For this purpose it by no means suffices for capital to take over the labour process in the form under which it has been historically handed down, and then simply to prolong the duration of that process. The technical and social conditions of the process and consequently the very mode of production, must be revolutionised, before the productiveness of labour can be increased. By that means alone the value of labour power can be made to sink, and the portion of the working-day necessary for the reproduction of that value be shortened.

In order to effect a fall in the value of labour power, the increase in the productiveness of labour must seize upon those branches of industry whose products determine the value of labour power, and consequently either belong to the class of customary means of subsistence, or are capable of supplying the place of those means. Such industries include, not only those which produce themselves the means of subsistence, but also those which supply the former with the means of production. For instance, the value of a pair of boots depends, not only on the cobbler's labour, but also on the value of the leather, wax, thread, etc. But an increase in the productiveness of labour in those branches of industry which supply neither the necessaries of life nor the means of production for such necessaries, leaves the value of labour power undisturbed.

Whenever an individual capitalist cheapens, for instance, shirts, by increasing the productiveness of labour, he by no means necessarily aims at reducing the value of labour power. But it is only in so far as he ultimately contributes to this result that he assists in raising the general rate of surplus-value. Hence there is immanent in capital an inclination and constant tendency to heighten the productiveness of labour, in order to cheapen commodities, and by such cheapening to cheapen the labourer himself.

Since one and the same process cheapens commodities and augments the surplus-value contained in them, we have here the solution of the riddle: why does the capitalist, whose sole concern is the production of exchange-value, continually, strive to depress the exchange value of commodities? The object of all development of the productiveness of labour, within the limits of capitalist production, is to shorten that part of the working-day during which the labourer must work for his own benefit, and by that very shortening to lengthen the other part of the day, during which he works gratis for the capitalist.

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