From Marxists Internet Archive
Karl Marx. Capital Volume One
Chapter Six: The Buying and Selling of Labour-Power
The change of value that occurs in the case of money intended to be converted
into capital, cannot take place in the money itself, since in its function of
means of purchase and of payment, it does no more than realise the price of the
commodity it buys or pays for; and, as hard cash, it is value petrified, never
varying. [1] Just as little can it
originate in the second act of circulation, the re-sale of the commodity, which
does no more than transform the article from its bodily form back again into its
money-form. The change must, therefore, take place in the commodity bought by
the first act, M-C, but not in its value, for equivalents are exchanged, and the
commodity is paid for at its full value. We are, therefore, forced to the
conclusion that the change originates in the use-value, as such, of the
commodity, i.e., in its consumption. In order to be able to extract value from
the consumption of a commodity, our friend, Moneybags, must be so lucky as to
find, within the sphere of circulation, in the market, a commodity, whose
use-value possesses the peculiar property of being a source of value, whose
actual consumption, therefore, is itself an embodiment of labour, and,
consequently, a creation of value. The possessor of money does find on the
market such a special commodity in capacity for labour or labour-power.
By labour-power or capacity for labour is to be understood the aggregate of
those mental and physical capabilities existing in a human being, which he
exercises whenever he produces a use-value of any description.
But in order that our owner of money may be able to find labour-power offered
for sale as a commodity, various conditions must first
be fulfilled. The exchange of commodities of itself implies no other relations
of dependence than those which, result from its own nature. On this assumption,
labour-power can appear upon the market as a commodity, only if, and so far as,
its possessor, the individual whose labour-power it is, offers it for sale, or
sells it, as a commodity. In order that he may be able to do this, he must have
it at his disposal, must be the untrammelled owner of his capacity for labour,
i.e., of his person. [2] He and the
owner of money meet in the market, and deal with each other as on the basis of
equal rights, with this difference alone, that one is buyer, the other seller;
both, therefore, equal in the eyes of the law. The continuance of this relation
demands that the owner of the labour-power should sell it only for a definite
period, for if he were to sell it rump and stump, once for all, he would be
selling himself, converting himself from a free man into a slave, from an owner
of a commodity into a commodity. He must constantly look upon his labour-power
as his own property, his own commodity, and this he can only do by placing it at
the disposal of the buyer temporarily, for a definite period of time. By this
means alone can he avoid renouncing his rights of ownership over it. [3]
The second essential condition to the owner of money finding labour-power in
the market as a commodity is this — that the labourer instead of being in the
position to sell commodities in which his labour is incorporated, must be
obliged to offer for sale as a commodity that very labour-power, which exists
only in his living self.
In order that a man may be able to sell commodities other than labour-power,
he must of course have the means of production, as raw
material, implements, &c. No boots can be made without leather. He requires
also the means of subsistence. Nobody — not even “a musician of the
future” — can live upon future products, or upon use-values in an unfinished
state; and ever since the first moment of his appearance on the world’s stage,
man always has been, and must still be a consumer, both before and while he is
producing. In a society where all products assume the form of commodities, these
commodities must be sold after they have been produced, it is only after their
sale that they can serve in satisfying the requirements of their producer. The
time necessary for their sale is superadded to that necessary for their
production.
For the conversion of his money into capital, therefore, the owner of money
must meet in the market with the free labourer, free in the double sense, that
as a free man he can dispose of his labour-power as his own commodity, and that
on the other hand he has no other commodity for sale, is short of everything
necessary for the realisation of his labour-power.
The question why this free labourer confronts him in the market, has no
interest for the owner of money, who regards the labour-market as a branch of
the general market for commodities. And for the present it interests us just as
little. We cling to the fact theoretically, as he does practically. One thing,
however, is clear — Nature does not produce on the one side owners of money or
commodities, and on the other men possessing nothing but their own labour-power.
This relation has no natural basis, neither is its social basis one that is
common to all historical periods. It is clearly the result of a past historical
development, the product of many economic revolutions, of the extinction of a
whole series of older forms of social production.
So, too, the economic categories, already discussed by us, bear the stamp of
history. Definite historical conditions are necessary that a product may become
a commodity. It must not be produced as the immediate means of subsistence of
the producer himself. Had we gone further, and inquired under what circumstances
all, or even the majority of products take the form of commodities, we should
have found that this can only happen with production of a very specific kind,
capitalist production. Such an inquiry, however, would have been foreign to the
analysis of commodities. Production and circulation of commodities can take
place, although the great mass of the objects produced are intended for the
immediate requirements of their producers, are not turned into commodities, and
consequently social production is not yet by a long way dominated in its length
and breadth by exchange-value. The appearance of products as
commodities pre-supposes such a development of the social division of labour,
that the separation of use-value from exchange-value, a separation which first
begins with
barter, must already have been completed. But such a degree of development is
common to many forms of society, which in other respects present the most
varying historical features. On the other hand, if we consider money, its
existence implies a definite stage in the exchange of commodities. The
particular functions of money which it performs, either as the mere equivalent
of commodities, or as means of circulation, or means of payment, as hoard or as
universal money, point, according to the extent and relative preponderance of
the one function or the other, to very different stages in the process of social
production. Yet we know by experience that a circulation of commodities
relatively primitive, suffices for the production of all these forms. Otherwise
with capital. The historical conditions of its existence are by no means given
with the mere circulation of money and commodities. It can spring into life,
only when the owner of the means of production and subsistence meets in the
market with the free labourer selling his labour-power. And this one historical
condition comprises a world’s history. Capital, therefore, announces from its
first appearance a new epoch in the process of social production. [4]
We must now examine more closely this peculiar commodity, labour-power. Like
all others it has a value. [5] How is
that value determined?
The value of labour-power is determined, as in the case of every other
commodity, by the labour-time necessary for the production, and consequently
also the reproduction, of this special article. So far as it has value, it
represents no more than a definite quantity of the average labour of society
incorporated in it. Labour-power exists only as a capacity, or power of the
living individual. Its production consequently pre-supposes his existence. Given
the individual, the production of labour-power consists in his reproduction of
himself or his maintenance. For his maintenance he requires a given quantity of
the means of subsistence. Therefore the labour-time requisite for the production
of labour-power reduces itself to that necessary for the production of those
means of subsistence; in other words, the value of labour-power is the value of
the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the labourer. Labour-power,
however, becomes a reality only by its exercise; it sets itself in action only
by working. But thereby a definite quantity of human muscle, nerve. brain,
&c., is wasted, and these require to be restored.
This increased expenditure demands a larger income. [6]
If the owner of labour-power works to-day, to-morrow he must again be able to
repeat the same process in the same conditions as regards health and strength.
His means of subsistence must therefore be sufficient to maintain him in his
normal state as a labouring individual. His natural wants, such as food,
clothing, fuel, and housing, vary according to the climatic and other physical
conditions of his country. On the other hand, the number and extent of his
so-called necessary wants, as also the modes of satisfying them, are themselves
the product of historical development, and depend therefore to a great extent on
the degree of civilisation of a country, more particularly on the conditions
under which, and consequently on the habits and degree of comfort in which, the
class of free labourers has been formed. [7]
In contradistinction therefore to the case of other commodities, there enters
into the determination of the value of labour-power a historical and moral
element. Nevertheless, in a given country, at a given period, the average
quantity of the means of subsistence necessary for the labourer is practically
known.
The owner of labour-power is mortal. If then his appearance in the market is
to be continuous, and the continuous conversion of money into capital assumes
this, the seller of labour-power must perpetuate himself, “in the way that
every living individual perpetuates himself, by procreation.” [8]
The labour-power withdrawn from the market by wear and tear and death, must be
continually replaced by, at the very least, an equal amount of fresh labour-power.
Hence the sum of the means of subsistence necessary for the production of labour-power
must include the means necessary for the labourer’s substitutes, i.e., his
children, in order that this race of peculiar commodity-owners may perpetuate
its appearance in the market. [9]
In order to modify the human organism, so that it may acquire skill and
handiness in a given branch of industry, and become labour-power of a special
kind, a special education or training is requisite, and this, on its part, costs
an equivalent in commodities of a greater or less amount. This amount varies
according to the more or less complicated character of the labour-power. The
expenses of this education (excessively small
in the case of ordinary labour-power), enter pro tanto into the total value
spent in its production.
The value of labour-power resolves itself into the value of a definite
quantity of the means of subsistence. It therefore varies with the value of
these means or with the quantity of labour requisite for their production.
Some of the means of subsistence, such as food and fuel, are consumed daily,
and a fresh supply must be provided daily. Others such as clothes and furniture
last for longer periods and require to be replaced only at longer intervals. One
article must be bought or paid for daily, another weekly, another quarterly, and
so on. But in whatever way the sum total of these outlays may be spread over the
year, they must be covered by the average income, taking one day with another.
If the total of the commodities required daily for the production of labour-power
= A, and those required weekly = B, and those required quarterly = C, and so on,
the daily average of these commodities = (365A + 52B + 4C + &c) / 365.
Suppose that in this mass of commodities requisite for the average day there are
embodied 6 hours of social labour, then there is incorporated daily in labour-power
half a day’s average social labour, in other words, half a day’s labour is
requisite for the daily production of labour-power. This quantity of labour
forms the value of a day’s labour-power or the value of the labour-power daily
reproduced. If half a day’s average social labour is incorporated in three
shillings, then three shillings is the price corresponding to the value of a
day’s labour-power. If its owner therefore offers it for sale at three
shillings a day, its selling price is equal to its value, and according to our
supposition, our friend Moneybags, who is intent upon converting his three
shillings into capital, pays this value.
The minimum limit of the value of labour-power is determined by the value of
the commodities, without the daily supply of which the labourer cannot renew his
vital energy, consequently by the value of those means of subsistence that are
physically indispensable. If the price of labour-power fall to this minimum, it
falls below its value, since under such circumstances it can be maintained and
developed only in a crippled state. But the value of every commodity is
determined by the labour-time requisite to turn it out so as to be of normal
quality.
It is a very cheap sort of sentimentality which declares this method of
determining the value of labour-power, a method prescribed by the very nature of
the case, to be a brutal method, and which wails with Rossi that, “To
comprehend capacity for labour (puissance de travail) at the same time that we
make abstraction from the means of
subsistence of the labourers during the process of production, is to comprehend
a phantom (être de raison). When we speak of labour, or capacity for labour, we
speak at the same time of the labourer and his means of subsistence, of labourer
and wages.” [10] When we speak of
capacity for labour, we do not speak of labour, any more than when we speak of
capacity for digestion, we speak of digestion. The latter process requires
something more than a good stomach. When we speak of capacity for labour, we do
not abstract from the necessary means of subsistence. On the contrary, their
value is expressed in its value. If his capacity for labour remains unsold, the
labourer derives no benefit from it, but rather he will feel it to be a cruel
nature-imposed necessity that this capacity has cost for its production a
definite amount of the means of subsistence and that it will continue to do so
for its reproduction. He will then agree with Sismondi: “that capacity for
labour ... is nothing unless it is sold.” [11]
One consequence of the peculiar nature of labour-power as a commodity is,
that its use-value does not, on the conclusion of the contract between the buyer
and seller, immediately pass into the hands of the former. Its value, like that
of every other commodity, is already fixed before it goes into circulation,
since a definite quantity of social labour has been spent upon it; but its
use-value consists in the subsequent exercise of its force. The alienation of
labour-power and its actual appropriation by the buyer, its employment as a
use-value, are separated by an interval of time. But in those cases in which the
formal alienation by sale of the use-value of a commodity, is not simultaneous
with its actual delivery to the buyer, the money of the latter usually functions
as means of payment. [12] In every
country in which the capitalist mode of production reigns, it is the custom not
to pay for labour-power before it has been exercised for the period fixed by the
contract, as for example, the end of each week. In all cases, therefore, the
use-value of the labour-power is advanced to the capitalist: the labourer allows
the buyer to consume it before he receives payment of the price; he everywhere
gives credit to the capitalist. That this credit is no mere fiction, is shown
not only by the occasional loss of wages on the bankruptcy
of the capitalist, [13] but also by
a series of more enduring consequences. [14]
Nevertheless, whether money serves as a means of purchase or as a means of
payment, this makes no alteration in the nature of the exchange of commodities.
The price of the labour-power is fixed by the contract, although it is not
realised till later, like the rent of a house. The labour-power is sold,
although it is only paid for at a later period. It will, therefore, be useful,
for a clear comprehension of the relation of the parties, to assume
provisionally, that the possessor of labour-power, on the occasion of each sale,
immediately receives the price stipulated to be paid for it.
We now know how the value paid by the purchaser to the possessor of this
peculiar commodity, labour-power, is determined. The use-value which the former
gets in exchange, manifests itself only in the actual utilisation, in the
consumption of the labour-power. The money-owner buys everything necessary for
this purpose, such as raw material, in the market, and pays for it at its full
value. The consumption of labour-power is at one and the same time the
production of commodities and of surplus-value. The consumption of labour-power
is completed, as in the case of every other commodity, outside the limits of the
market or of the sphere of circulation. Accompanied by Mr. Moneybags and by the
possessor of labour-power, we therefore take leave for a time of this noisy
sphere, where everything takes place on the surface and in view of all men, and
follow them both into the hidden abode of production, on whose threshold there
stares us in the face “No admittance except on business.” Here we shall see,
not only how capital produces, but how capital is produced. We shall at last
force the secret of profit making.
This sphere that we are deserting, within whose boundaries the sale and
purchase of labour-power goes on, is in fact a very Eden of the innate rights of
man. There alone rule Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham. Freedom, because
both buyer and seller of a commodity, say of labour-power, are constrained only
by their own free will. They contract as free agents, and the agreement they
come to, is but the form in which they give legal expression to their common
will. Equality, because each enters into relation with the other, as with a
simple owner of commodities, and they exchange equivalent for equivalent.
Property, because each disposes only of what is his own. And Bentham, because
each looks only to himself. The only force that brings them together and puts
them in relation with each other, is the selfishness, the gain and the private
interests of each. Each looks to himself only, and no one troubles himself about
the rest, and just because they do so, do they all, in accordance with the
pre-established harmony of things, or under the auspices of an all-shrewd
providence, work together to their mutual advantage, for the common weal and in
the interest of all.
On leaving this sphere of simple circulation or of exchange of commodities,
which furnishes the “Free-trader Vulgaris” with his views and ideas, and
with the standard by which he judges a society based on capital and wages, we
think we can perceive a change in the physiognomy of our dramatis personae. He,
who before was the money-owner, now strides in front as capitalist; the
possessor of labour-power follows as his labourer. The one with an air of
importance, smirking, intent on business; the other, timid and holding back,
like one who is bringing his own hide to market and has nothing to expect but
— a hiding.
Footnotes
1.
“In the form of money ... capital is productive of no profit.” (Ricardo:
“Princ. of Pol. Econ.,” p. 267.)
2.
In encyclopaedias of classical antiquities we find such nonsense as this —
that in the ancient world capital was fully developed, “except that the free
labourer and a system of credit was wanting.” Mommsen also, in his “History
of Rome,” commits, in this respect, one blunder after another.
3.
Hence legislation in various countries fixes a maximum for labour-contracts.
Wherever free labour is the rule, the laws regulate the mode of terminating this
contract. In some States, particularly in Mexico (before the American Civil War,
also in the territories taken from Mexico, and also, as a matter of fact, in the
Danubian provinces till the revolution effected by Kusa), slavery is hidden
under the form of peonage. By means of advances, repayable in labour,
which are handed down from generation to generation, not only the individual
labourer, but his family, become, de facto, the property of other
persons and their families. Juarez abolished peonage. The so-called
Emperor Maximilian re-established it by a decree, which, in the House of
Representatives at Washington, was aptly denounced as a decree for the
re-introduction of slavery into Mexico. “I may make over to another the use,
for a limited time, of my particular bodily and mental aptitudes and
capabilities; because in consequence of this restriction, they are impressed
with a character of alienation with regard to me as a whole. But by the
alienation of all my labour-time and the whole of my work, I should be
converting the substance itself, in other words, my general activity and
reality, my person, into the property of another.” (Hegel, “Philosophie des
Rechts.” Berlin, 1840, p. 104, § 67.)
4.
The capitalist epoch is therefore characterised by this, that labour-power takes
in the eyes of the labourer himself the form of a commodity which is his
property; his labour consequently becomes wage-labour. On the other hand, it is
only from this moment that the produce of labour universally becomes a
commodity.
5.
“The value or worth of a man, is as of all other things his price — that is
to say, so much as would be given for the use of his power.” (Th. Hobbes:
“Leviathan” in Works, Ed. Molesworth. Lond. 1839-44, v. iii. p. 76.)
6.
Hence the Roman Villicus, as overlooker of the agricultural slaves, received
“more meagre fare than working slaves, because his work was lighter.” (Th.
Mommsen, Röm. Geschichte, 1856, p. 810.)
7.
Compare W. Th. Thornton: “Over-population and its Remedy,” Lond., 1846.
8.
Petty.
9.
“Its (labour’s) natural price ... consists in such a quantity of necessaries
and comforts of life, as, from the nature of the climate, and the habits of the
country, are necessary to support the labourer, and to enable him to rear such a
family as may preserve, in the market, an undiminished supply of labour.” (R.
Torrens: “An Essay on the External Corn Trade.” Lond. 1815, p. 62.) The word
labour is here wrongly used for labour-power.
10.
Rossi: “Cours d’Econ. Polit.,” Bruxelles, 1842, p. 370.
11.
Sismondi: “Nouv. Princ. etc.,” t. I, p. 112.
12.
“All labour is paid after it has ceased.” (“An Inquiry into those
Principles Respecting the Nature of Demand,” &c., p. 104.) Le crédit
commercial a dû commencer au moment où l’ouvrier, premier artisan de la
production, a pu, au moyen de ses économies, attendre le salaire de son travail
jusqu’à la fin de la semaine, de la quinzaine, du mois, du trimestre,
&c.” [“The system of commercial credit had to start at the moment when
the labourer, the prime creator of products, could, thanks to his savings, wait
for his wages until the end of the week.”] (Ch. Ganilh: “Des Systèmes
d’Econ. Polit.” 2éme édit. Paris, 1821, t. II, p. 150.)
13.
“L’ouvrier prête son industrie,” but adds Storch slyly: he “risks
nothing” except “de perdre son salaire ... l’ouvrier ne transmet rien de
matériel.” [“The labourer lends his industry ... the lossof his wages ...
the labourer does not hand over anything of a material nature.”] (Storch:
“Cours d’Econ. Polit.” Pétersbourg, 1815, t. II., p. 37.)
14.
One example. In London there are two sorts of bakers, the “full priced,” who
sell bread at its full value, and the “undersellers,” who sell it under its
value. The latter class comprises more than three-fourths of the total number of
bakers. (p. xxxii in the Report of H. S. Tremenheere, commissioner to examine
into “the grievances complained of by the journeymen bakers,” &c., Lond.
1862.) The undersellers, almost without exception, sell bread adulterated with
alum, soap, pearl ashes, chalk, Derbyshire stone-dust, and such like agreeable
nourishing and wholesome ingredients. (See the above cited Blue book, as also
the report of “the committee of 1855 on the adulteration of bread,” and Dr.
Hassall’s “Adulterations Detected,” 2nd Ed. Lond. 1861.) Sir John Gordon
stated before the committee of 1855, that “in consequence of these
adulterations, the poor man, who lives on two pounds of bread a day, does not
now get one fourth part of nourishing matter, let alone the deleterious effects
on his health.” Tremenheere states (l.c., p. xlviii), as the reason, why a
very large part of the working-class, although well aware of this adulteration,
nevertheless accept the alum, stone-dust, &c., as part of their purchase:
that it is for them “a matter of necessity to take from their baker or from
the chandler’s shop, such bread as they choose to supply.” As they are not
paid their wages before the end of the week, they in their turn are unable “to
pay for the bread consumed by their families, during the week, before the end of
the week,” and Tremenheere adds on the evidence of witnesses, “it is
notorious that bread composed of those mixtures, is made expressly for sale in
this manner.” In many English and still more Scotch agricultural districts,
wages are paid fortnightly and even monthly; with such long intervals between
the payments, the agricultural labourer is obliged to buy on credit.... He must
pay higher prices, and is in fact tied to the shop which gives him credit. Thus
at Horningham in Wilts, for example, where the wages are monthly, the same flour
that he could buy elsewhere at ls 10d per stone, costs him 2s 4d per stone.
(“Sixth Report” on “Public Health” by “The Medical Officer of the
Privy Council, &c., 1864,” p.264.) “The block printers of Paisley and
Kilmarnock enforced, by a strike, fortnightly, instead of monthly payment of
wages.” (“Reports of the Inspectors of Factories for 31st Oct., 1853,” p.
34.) As a further pretty result of the credit given by the workmen to the
capitalist, we may refer to the method current in many English coal mines, where
the labourer is not paid till the end of the month, and in the meantime,
receives sums on account from the capitalist, often in goods for which the miner
is obliged to pay more than the market price (Truck-system). “It is a common
practice with the coal masters to pay once a month, and advance cash to their
workmen at the end of each intermediate week. The cash is given in the shop”
(i.e., the Tommy shop which belongs to the master); “the men take it on one
side and lay it out on the other.” (“Children’s Employment Commission,
III. Report,” Lond. 1864, p. 38, n. 192.)
Transcribed by Hinrich Kuhls
Html Markup by Stephen Baird (1999)
|
