From Marxists Internet Archive
Karl Marx. Capital Volume One
Chapter Twenty: Time-Wages
Wages themselves again take many forms, a fact not recognizable in the
ordinary economic treatises which, exclusively interested in the material side
of the question, neglect every difference of form. An exposition of all these
forms however, belongs to the special study of wage labour, not therefore to
this work. Still the two fundamental forms must be briefly worked out here.
The sale of labour-power, as will be remembered, takes place for a definite
period of time. The converted form under which the daily, weekly, &tc.,
value of labour-power presents itself, is hence that of time wages, therefore
day-wages, &tc.
Next it is to be noted that the laws set forth, in the 17th chapter, on the
changes in the relative magnitudes of price of labour-power and surplus-value,
pass by a simple transformation of form, into laws of wages. Similarly the
distinction between the exchange-value of labour power, and the sum of the
necessaries of life into which this value is converted, now reappears as the
distinction between nominal and real wages. It would be useless to repeat here,
with regard to the phenomenal form, what has been already worked out in the
substantial form. We limit ourselves therefore to a few points characteristic of
time-wages.
The sum of money [1] which the
labourer receives for his daily or weekly labour, forms the amount of his
nominal wages, or of his wages estimated in value. But it is clear that
according to the length of the working-day, that is, according to the amount of
actual labour daily supplied, the same daily or weekly wage may represent very
different prices of labour, i.e., very different sums of money for the same
quantity of labour. [2] We must,
therefore, in considering time-wages, again distinguish between the sum-total of
the daily or weekly wages, &tc., and the price of labour. How then, to find
this price, i.e., the money-value of a given quantity of labour? The average
price of labour is found, when the average daily value of the labour-power is
divided by the average number of hours in the working-day. If, e.g., the daily
value of labour-power is 3 shillings, the value of the product of 6
working-hours, and if the working-day is 12 hours, the price of 1 working hour
is 3/12 shillings = 3d. The price of the working-hour thus found serves as the
unit measure for the price of labour.
It follows, therefore, that the daily and weekly wages, &tc., may remain
the same, although the price of labour falls constantly. If, e.g., the habitual
working-day is 10 hours and the daily value of the labour-power 3s., the price
of the working-hour is 3 3/5d. It falls to 3s. as soon as the working-day rises
to 12 hours, to 2 2/5d as soon as it rises to 15 hours. Daily or weekly wages
remain, despite all this, unchanged. On the contrary, the daily or weekly wages
may rise, although the price of labour remains constant or even falls. If, e.g.,
the working-day is 10 hours, and the daily value of labour-power 3 shillings,
the price of one working-hour is 3 3/5d. If the labourer, in consequence of
increase of trade, works 12 hours, the price of labour remaining the same, his
daily wage now rises to 3 shillings 7i5/d. without any variation in the price of
labour. The same result might follow if, instead of the extensive amount of
labour, its intensive amount increased. [3]
The rise of the nominal daily or weekly wages may therefore be accompanied by a
price of labour that remains stationary or falls. The same holds as to the
income of the labourer’s family, as soon as the quantity of labour expended by
the head of the family is increased by the labour of the members of his family.
There are, therefore, methods of lowering the price of labour independent of the
reduction of the nominal daily or weekly wages. [4]
As a general law it follows that, given the amount of daily or weekly labour,
&tc., the daily or weekly wages depend on the price of labour which itself
varies either with the value of labour-power, or with the difference between its
price and its value. Given, on the other hand, the price of labour, the daily or
weekly wages depend on the quantity of the daily or weekly labour.
The unit-measure for time-wages, the price of the working-hour, is the
quotient of the value of a day’s labour-power, divided by the number of hours
of the average working-day. Let the latter be 12 hours, and the daily value of
labour-power 3 shillings, the value of the product of 6 hours of labour. Under
these circumstances the price of a working hour is 3d.; the value produced in it
is 6d. If the labourer is now employed less than 12 hours (or less than 6 days
in the week), e.g., only 6 or 8 hours, he receives, with this price of labour,
only 2s. or 1s. 6d. a day. [5] As on
our hypothesis he must work on the average 6 hours daily, in order to produce a
day’s wage corresponding merely to the value of his labour power, as according
to the same hypothesis he works only half of every hour for himself, and half
for the capitalist, it is clear that he cannot obtain for himself the value of
the product of 6 hours if he is employed less than 12 hours. In previous
chapters we saw the destructive consequences of over-work; here we find the
sources of the sufferings that result to the labourer from his insufficient
employment.
If the hour’s wage is fixed so that the capitalist does not bind himself to
pay a day’s or a week’s wage, but only to pay wages for the hours during
which he chooses to employ the labourer, he can employ him for a shorter time
than that which is originally the basis of the calculation of the hour-wage, or
the unit-measure of the price of labour. Since this unit is determined by the
ratio
| daily value of labour-power |
| working-day of a given number of hours’ |
it, of course, loses all meaning as soon as the working-day
ceases to contain a definite number of hours. The connection between the paid
and the unpaid labour is destroyed. The capitalist can now wring from the labour
a certain quantity of surplus-labour without allowing him the labour-time
necessary for his own subsistence. He can annihilate all regularity of
employment, and according to his own convenience, caprice, and the interest of
the moment, make the most enormous over-work alternate with relative or absolute
cessation of work. He can, under the pretense of paying “the normal price of
labour,” abnormally lengthen the working-day without any corresponding
compensation to the labourer. Hence the perfectly rational revolt in 1860 of the
London labourers, employed in the building trades, against the attempt of the
capitalists to impose on them this sort of wage by the hour. The legal
limitation of the working-day puts an end to such mischief, although not, of
course, to the diminution of employment caused by the competition of machinery,
by changes in the quality of the labourers employed, and by crises partial or
general.
With an increasing daily or weekly wage the price of labour may remain
nominally constant, and yet may fall below its normal level. This occurs every
time that, the price of labour (reckoned per working-hour) remaining constant,
the working-day is prolonged beyond its customary length. If in the fraction:
| daily value of labour power |
| working-day |
the denominator increases, the numerator increases yet more
rapidly. The value of labour-power, as dependent on its wear and tear, increases
with the duration of its functioning, and in more rapid proportion than the
increase of that duration. In many branches of industry where time-wage is the
general rule without legal limits to the working-time, the habit has, therefore,
spontaneously grown up of regarding the working day as normal only up to a
certain point, e.g., up to the expiration of the tenth hour (“normal
working-day,” “the day’s work,” “the regular hours of work”). Beyond
this limit the working-time is over-time, and is, taking the hour as
unit-measure, paid better (“extra pay”), although often in a proportion
ridiculously small. [6] The normal
working-day exists here as a fraction of the actual working-day, and the latter,
often during the whole year, lasts longer than the former. [7]
The increase in the price of labour with the extension of the working-day beyond
a certain normal limit, takes such a shape in various British industries that
the low price of labour during the so-called normal time compels the labourer to
work during the better paid over-time, if he wishes to obtain a sufficient wage
at all. [8] Legal limitation of the
working-day puts an end to these amenities. [9]
It is a fact generally known that, the longer the working-days, in any branch
of industry, the lower are the wages. [10]
A. Redgrave, factory inspector, illustrates this by a comparative review of the
20 years from 1839-1859, according to which wages rose in the factories under
the 10 Hours Law, whilst they fell in the factories in which the work lasted 14
to 15 hours daily. [11]
From the law, “the price of labour being given, the daily or weekly wage
depends on the quantity of labour expended,” it follows, first of all, that
the lower the price of labour, the greater must be the quantity of labour, or
the longer must be the working-day for the labourer to secure even a miserable
average wage. The lowness of the price of labour acts here as a stimulus to the
extension of the labour-time. [12]
On the other hand, the extension of the working-time produces, in its turn, a
fall in the price of labour, and with this a fall in the day’s or week’s
wages.
The determination of the price of labour by:
| daily value of labour power |
| working day of a given number of hours |
shows that a mere prolongation of the working-day lowers the
price of labour, if no compensation steps in. But the same circumstances which
allow the capitalist in the long run to prolong the working-day, also allow him
first, and compel him finally, to nominally lower the price of labour until the
total price of the increased number of hours is lowered, and, therefore, the
daily or weekly wage. Reference to two circumstances is sufficient here. If one
man does the work of 1½ or 2 men, the supply of labour increases, although the
supply of labour-power on the market remains constant. The competition thus
created between the labourers allows the capitalist to beat down the price of
labour, whilst the falling price of labour allows him, on the other hand, to
screw up still further the working-time. [13]
Soon, however, this command over abnormal quantities of unpaid labour, i.e.,
quantities in excess of the average social amount, becomes a source of
competition amongst the capitalists themselves. A part of the price of the
commodity consists of the price of labour. The unpaid part of the labour-price
need not be reckoned in the price of the commodity. It may be presented to the
buyer. This is the first step to which competition leads. The second step to
which it drives is to exclude also from the selling price of the commodity at
least a part of the abnormal surplus-value created by the extension of the
working-day. In this way, an abnormally low selling price of the commodity
arises, at first sporadically, and becomes fixed by degrees; a lower selling
price which henceforward becomes the constant basis of a miserable wage for an
excessive working-time, as originally it was the product of these very
circumstances. This movement is simply indicated here, as the analysis of
competition does not belong to this part of our subject. Nevertheless, the
capitalist may, for a moment, speak for himself. “In
Birmingham there is so much competition of masters one against another that many
are obliged to do things as employers that they would otherwise be ashamed of;
and yet no more money is made, but only the public gets the benefit.” [14]
The reader will remember the two sorts of London bakers, of whom one sold the
bread at its full price (the “full-priced” bakers), the other below its
normal price (“the under-priced,” “the undersellers”). The
“full-priced” denounced their rivals before the Parliamentary Committee of
Inquiry: “They only exist now by first defrauding the public, and next getting
18 hours’ work out of their men for 12 hours’ wages.... The unpaid labour of
the men was made ... the source whereby the competition was carried on, and
continues so to this day.... The competition among the master bakers is the
cause of the difficulty in getting rid of night-work. An underseller, who sells
his bread below the cost-price according to the price of flour, must make it up
by getting more out of the labour of the men.... If I got only 12 hours’ work
out of my men, and my neighbor got 18 or 20, he must beat me in the selling
price. If the men could insist on payment for over-work, this would be set
right.... A large number of those employed by the undersellers are foreigners
and youths, who are obliged to accept almost any wages they can obtain.” [15]
This jeremiad is also interesting because it shows how the appearance only of
the relations of production mirrors itself in the brain of the capitalist. The
capitalist does not know that the normal price of labour also includes a
definite quantity of unpaid labour, and that this very unpaid labour is the
normal source of his gain. The category of surplus labour-time does not exist at
all for him, since it is included in the normal working-day, which he thinks he
has paid for in the day’s wages. But over-time does exist for him, the
prolongation of the working-day beyond the limits corresponding with the usual
price of labour. Face to face with his underselling competitor, he even insists
upon extra pay for this over-time. He again does not know that this extra pay
includes unpaid labour, just as well as does the price of the customary hour of
labour. For example, the price of one hour of the 12 hours’ working-day is
3d., say the value-product of half a working-hour, whilst the price of the
over-time working-hour is 4d., or the value-product of 2/3 of a working hour. In
the first case the capitalist appropriates to himself one-half, in the second,
one-third of the working-hour without paying for it.
Footnotes
1.
The value of money itself is here always supposed constant.
2.
“The price of labour is the sum paid for a given quantity of labour.” (Sir
Edward West, “Price of Corn and Wages of Labour,” London, 1836, p. 67.) West
is the author of the anonymous “Essay on the Application of Capital to
Land.” by a Fellow of the University College of Oxford, London, 1815. An
epoch-making work in the history of Political Economy.
3.
“The wages of labour depend upon the price of labour and the quantity of
labour performed.... An increase in the wages of labour does not necessarily
imply an enhancement of the price of labour. From fuller employment, and greater
exertions, the wages of labour may be considerably increased, while the price of
labour may continue the same.” (West, op. cit., pp. 67, 68, 112.) The main
question: “How is the price of labour determined?” West, however, dismisses
with mere banalities.
4.
This is perceived by the fanatical representative of the industrial bourgeoisie
of the 18th century, the author of the “Essay on Trade and Commerce” often
quoted by us, although he puts the matter in a confused way: “It is the
quantity of labour and not the price of it” (he means by this the nominal
daily or weekly wages) “that is determined by the price of provisions and
other necessaries: reduce the price of necessaries very low, and of course you
reduce the quantity of labour in proportion. Master manufacturers know that
there are various ways of raising and felling the price of labour, besides that
of altering its nominal amount.” (op. cit., pp. 48, 61.) In his “Three
Lectures on the Rate of Wages,” London, 1830, in which N. W. Senior uses
West’s work without mentioning it, he says: “The labourer is principally
interested in the amount of wages” (p. 14), that is to say, the labourer is
principally interested in what he receives, the nominal sum of his wages, not in
that which he gives, the amount of labour!
5.
The effect of such an abnormal lessening of employment is quite different from
that of a general reduction of the working-day, enforced by law. The former has
nothing to do with the absolute length of the working-day, and may occur just as
well in a working-day of 15, as of 6 hours. The normal price of labour is in the
first case calculated on the labourer working 15 hours, in the second case on
his working 6 hours a day on the average. The result is therefore the same, if
he in the one case is employed only for 7½, in the other only for 3 hours.
6.
“The rate of payment for overtime (in lace-making) is so small, from ½ d. and
¾ d. to 2d. per hour, that it stands in painful contrast to the amount of
injury produced to the health and stamina of the workpeople.... The small amount
thus earned is also often obliged to be spent in extra nourishment.” (“Child.Empl.Com.,
II. Rep.,” p. xvi., n. 117.)
7.
E.g., in paper-staining before the recent introduction into this trade of the
Factory Act. “We work on with no stoppage for meals, so that the day’s work
of 10½ hours is finished by 4:30 p.m., and all after that is over-time, and we
seldom leave off working before 6 p.m., so that we are really working over-time
the whole year round.” (Mr. Smith’s “Evidence in Child. Empl. Com., 1.
Rep.,” p. 125.)
8.
E.g., in the Scotch bleaching-works. “In some parts of Scotland this trade”
(before the introduction of the Factory Act in 1862) “was carried on by a
system of over-time, i.e., ten hours a day were the regular hours of work, for
which a nominal wage of 1s. 2d. per day was paid to a man, there being every day
over-time for three or four hours, paid at the rate of 3d. per hour. The effect
of this system ... a man could not earn more than 8s. per week when working the
ordinary hours ... without over-time they could not earn a fair day’s
wages.” (“Rept. of Insp. of Factories,” April 30th, 1863, p. 10.) “The
higher wages, for getting adult males to work longer hours, are a temptation too
strong to be resisted.” (“Rept. of Insp. of Fact.,” April 30th, 1848, p.
5.) The book-binding trade in the city of London employs very many young girls
from 14 to I5 years old, and that under indentures which prescribe certain
definite hours of labour. Nevertheless, they work in the last week of each month
until 10, 11, 12, or 1 o’clock at night, along with the older labourers, in a
very mixed company. “The masters tempt them by extra pay and supper,” which
they eat in neighboring public houses. The great debauchery thus produced among
these “young immortals” (“Children’s Employment Comm., V. Rept.,” p.
44, n. 191) is compensated by the fact that among the rest many Bibles and
religious books are bound by them.
9.
See “Reports of lnsp. of Fact.,” 30th April, 1863, p. 10. With very accurate
appreciation of the state of things, the London labourers employed in the
building trades declared, during the great strike and lock-out of 1860, that
they would only accept wages by the hour under two conditions: (1), that, with
the price of the working-hour, a normal working day of 9 and 10 hours
respectively should be fixed, and that the price of the hour for the 10 hours,
working-day should be higher than that for the hour of the 9 hours working-day;
(2), that every hour beyond the normal working-day should be reckoned as
over-time and proportionally more highly paid.
10.
“It is a very notable thing, too, that where long hours are the rule, small
wages are also so.” (“Report of Insp. of Fact.,” 31st. Oct., 1863, p. 9.)
“The work which obtains the scanty pittance of food, is, for the most part,
excessively prolonged.” (“Public Health, Sixth Report,” 1864, p. 15.)
11.
“Report of Inspectors of Fact.,” 30th April, 1860, pp. 31, 32.
12.
The hand nail-makers in England, e.g., have, on account of the low price of
labour, to work 15 hours a day in order to hammer out their miserable weekly
wage. “It’s a great many hours in a day (6 a.m. to 8 p.m.), and he has to
work hard all the time to get II d. or Is., and there is the wear of the tools,
the cost of firing, and something for waste iron to go out of this, which takes
off altogether 2½d. or 3d.” (“Children’s Employment Com., III. Report,”
p. 136, n. 671.) The women earn by the same working-time a week’s wage of only
5 shillings. (l.c., p. 137, n. 674.)
13.
If a factory-hand, e.g., refused to work the customary long hours, “he would
very shortly be replaced by somebody who would work any length of time, and thus
be thrown out of employment.” (“Reports of Inspectors of Factories,” 30th
April, 1848. Evidence, p. 39, n. 58.) “If one man performs the work of two...
the rate of profits will generally be raised ... in consequence of the
additional supply of labour having diminished its price.” (Senior, l.c., p.
15.)
14.
“Children’s Employment Com., III Rep.,” Evidence, p. 66, n. 22.
15.
“Report, &tc., Relative to the Grievances Complained of by the Journeymen
Bakers.” London, 1862, p. 411, and ib. Evidence, notes 479, 359, 27. Anyhow
the full-priced bakers, as was mentioned above, and as their spokesman, Bennett,
himself admits, make their men “generally begin work at 11 p.m. ... up to 8
o’clock the next morning.... They are then engaged all day long ... as late as
7 o’clock in the evening.” (l.c., p. 22.)
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