Professional Documents
Culture Documents
4.
S.
6.
41
in Different Countries]
Ireland. Emigration
[Expropriation and Depopulation in Eastern Germany during
the Eighteenth CenturyJ
[Property and Capital]
The Colliers
P.
95 1.
.."
. -
... .6t
'- ;'; \ .
. < <- .. :.;:. -
charig(i:d,.,l:? ;
:r-.
.
;
.- ;... __
950 Appendix
2. Sismondi.
Throughout this appendix Marx uses Arbe_ltsvermligen (capacity fOl'
labour) instead of Arbeitskraft (labour-power),.. the tenn which he finally
settled on in the published version of Capital. Since 'labour-power is more
natural in ,English and since it has gajned general acceptance it bas been used
bere except for a few instances where idea of 'capacities or 'faculties ' is
emphasized.
951
Only then. d_oes all produce become commodity and the objective
conditions of each and every sphere of production enter into it as
commodities themselves. Only on the basis of capitalist - produc
tion does the commodity -actually become the universal elementary
form of weafth. For example, where capital -has not yet taken over
agriculture, a large proportion of agricultural produce is still used
directly as means of subsistence and not as a commodity. In that
event a large proportion of the working population will not have
been transformed into wagelabourers and a large proportion of
the- conditions of labour will not yet have become capital. It is
implicit in this situation that the developed division of labour
which appears by chance within society, and the capitalist division
- of labour within the workshop, are things that mutually condition
and produce each other. For the commodity as the necessary form
of the product, and hence the alienation of the product as the
necessary means of appropriating it, entail a fully developed
division of social labour. While, conversely, it is only on the basis
of capitalist production, and hence of the capitalist division of
labour within the workshop, that all produce necessarily assumes
the form of the commodity and' hence all producers are necessarily
commodity producers. Therfore, it is only with the emergence of
capitalist production that usevalue is universally _mediated by
exchangevalue.
. ....
952
Appe.ndix
444
'' " ; u
.1
. .94 -Appendix
commodity rc;!garded by itself it remains quite undecided (and is in
fact a matter of indifference) from whom this objectified. labour is
derived, the commodity as the pro.duct of capital can be .said to
contain both paid and unpaid labour. It has already been men
tioned that this is not strictly true since the labour itself is not
bought or sold directly. But the commodity contains a specific
overall quantity of objectified la hour. A portion of this o bjectified
labour (aside from constant capital for which an equivalent has
been paid) is exchanged for the equivalent of the worker's wages;
another portion is appropriated by the capitalist without any
equivalent being paid. Both portions are objectifi.ed and so present
as parts of the value of the commodity. And it is a convenient
abbreviation to describe the one as paid and the other as unpaid
labour.
(2) The individual commodity does not only appear materially
445
as a part of the total produce of capital, but as an aliquot part of
the total produced by it. We are now no longer concerned with
the individual autonomous commodity, the single product. The
result of the process is not individual goods, but a mass of com
modities in which the value of the capital invested together with
the surplus-value - i.e. the surplus labour appropriated - has
reproduced itself, and each one of which is the incarnation of
both the value of the capital and the surplus-value it has produced.
The labour expended /on .each commodity can no longer be
calculated - except as an average, i.e. an ideal estimate. The cal
culation begins with that portion of the constant capital which
only enters into the value of the total product in so far as it is
used up ; it continues with the conditions of production that are
consumed communally, and ends with the direct social contri
bution of many co-operating individuals whose labour is averaged
out. This labour, then, is reckoned ideally as an aliquot part of
the total labour expended on it. When determining the price of an
individual article it appears as a merely ideal fraction of the total
product in which the capital reproduces itself.
(3) As the product of capital, the commodity embodies the
total value of the capital together with the surplus-value, unlike
the original commodity which appeared to us as an autonomous
thing. The commodity is a transfiguration of capital tha:t has
valorized itself, and its sale must now be ()rganized on, the scale
and in the quantities necessary to realize the old capital value and
the old surplus-value it has created. To achieve this it is by no
1 .
.,
'
956
Appf!ndix
951
other half gratis for the capitalist. In this case the surplus-value
produced = 20 and the total value of the 1 ,200 ells = 120, of
which 80 represents the constant capital invested, and 40 comes
from the additional living labour. Of this latter, half goes as wages
to the worker and the other half represents surplus labour or
constitutes surplus-value.
Since, with the exception of the additional labour, the elements
of capitalist production already enter the process of production
as commodities, i.e. with specific prices, it follows that the value
added by the constant capital is already given in terms of a price.
For example, in the present case it is 80 for flax, machinery, etc.
As for the additional labour, however, if the wage as determined
by the necessary means of subsistence = 20, and the sur Ius
labour is as great as the paid labour, it must be expressed at a price
of 40, since the value expressing the additional labour depends .
on its quantity and by no means on the circumstances in which it is
paid. Hence the total price of the 1 ,200 ells produced by a capital
of100 = 120 .
Howareweto determine the value o fthe individual commodity,
in this case the ell of linen? Obviously, by dividing the total price
of the aggregate product by the number of units as divided into
aliquot parts in accordance with a given measure. In other words,
the total price is divided by the number of measured units in which
,:n
l
s
This results in a price of 2s. per ell of linen. If the ell which serves
as a measure in the case of linen is now further defined, i.e. if it is
broken down into smaller aliquot parts, we can go on to determine
the price of half an ell, etc., in the same way. The price of the in..
dividual commodity is determined, then, by expressing its. use
value as an aliquot part of the aggregate product, and its price as
the corresponding aliquot part of the total value generated by the :
eapi talinvested.
,I::t;; :
We have seen that as the productivity or productive
labour varies, the same labour-time will result in the prodcti qq f;i {
very different quantities rf a product, or in other .words eql!il '
exchange-valueswill be expressed in quite different quantities o.fl!e
values. Let us assume, in the present instance, that the linen .
weaver's productivity is increased fourfold. The constant capital,
.
i.e. the flax, machinery, etc. set in motion by the labour expressed
the use-value is expressed. In the present case then,
.
powri/i}JJ.foj:
'.:
.
.
958
Appendix
One quarter
Value or price
of the total produced
7
"
"
., ::g
Apart from certain extraneous factors irrelevant for our 'preset{t
altered.
... -
.;;;-..,..
>.::. ;
960
Appendix
.: ;
=
remain unchanged because it would still have cost the same total
amount in terms of additional labour and labour objectified in
the means of labour. But the amount of surplus-value contained
in each ell would have increased. Previously, there was 20
surplus-value on 1 ,200 ells. On one ell, therefore, the surplus1
20
2
1
value would be -- = - = - = - = 4d. Now, however,
1 ,200
1 20
60
3s.
for 1 ,440 ells there is 28 ; for 1 ell, therefore, 4td., since 4fd. X
1 ,440 = 28 which is the real sum of the surplus-value in the 1 ,440
ells. In the same way there is an additional 8 surplus-value
( = 80 ells at 2s. per ell), and in fact the number of ells has grown
from 1 ,200 to 1 ,440.
In this example, then, the price of the commodity remains the
same. So do the productivity of labour and the capital employe-d
in paying wages. Nevertheless, the amount of surplus-value riss
,
from 20 to 28, or by 8, which is i of 20, since 8 x ! = 2Q = 20;}) by 40 per cnt. This is the percentage by which the total surplus
value has grown. As for the rate of surplus-value, then, it has fish
from 100 per cent to 1 40 per cent.
.
These damned figures can be corrected later on.* For the moni
962 Appendix
ent it is sufficient to note that with prices constant the surplus
value grows because the same variable capital sets more labour in
motion and this means not only that more goods are produced at
the same cost but that more goods are produced containing a
greater proportion of unpaid labour.
451
Value
Rate of Sum of Ells
of total surplus surplusproduct value
value
80 20 20 120
1 00 %
20
1200 2s.
196 20 28 144
140%
28
14 4 0 2s.
I
-
11
l'
Bd .
4d.
4:4
100 %
8d.
4fd.
4t: 3-!
140%
7:S
the
number
of hours
increasr=d
from 5
to 7
=
In
"
Value
.Rate of Sum of Ells
of total surplus- surplusproduct value
value
- - -
80 1 6 24 1 20
ISO %
24
'
. -}
1200 2s.
--
8d.
4td .
'
.. . .
4!: 3!
24: 1 6
150%
=
964 Appendix
It will be observed here that the sum of surplus-value is only 24
'
instead or 28 as in Table II. But if in m the same variable capital
20 had been laid out, the total amount of labour employed would
have risen, since it remains the same with a variable ea pi tal of 1 6.
In fact, since 20 is i more than 16, it would. have increased by t. In
that event the total amount of labour employed would have risen and
not just the ratio of surplus labour to paid labour. Since, given the
new rate, 16 yields 40, then 20 would yield 50, of which 30
would be surplus-value. If 40 200 hours, then 50 would equal
250 hours. And if 200 hours set 80 c in motion, then 250 hours
would transform 100 c. And finally, if 200 hours produced 1 ,200
ells, then 250 hours would yield 1 ,500 ells. The calculation works
out as follows :
=
- - -
Price Amount
per
ell
of
labour
per ell
Surplus
labour
[per eH]
Rate of
surplus
labour
4d.
150.%
--
150%
30
1500 2s.
8d.
96'
s49:
966 Appendix
(When we speak of the price of commodities, it is always
implicitly assumed that the total price of the quantity of goods
produced by capital
its total value, and hence the price of the
aliquot part of the individual commodity
the aliquot part of
that total value. Price in this context is in general just the money
expression of valt!e. Prices differing from the underlying values
have not yet entered into our discussions.)
[454] The individual commodity viewed as the product, the actual
elementary component of capital that has been generated and
reproduced, differs then from the individual commodity with which
we began, and which we regarded as an autonomous article, as the
premiss of capital formation. It differs not only in the question of
price as already noted, but also in the fact that even if the com
modity is_ sold at its price, the value of the capital invested in its
production may not be realized, and the surplus-value created by
that eapital_ even less so. Indeed, as the mere depository of eapital,
not only materially, i.e. as a part of te use-value of which the
capital consists, but as the depository of the value of which the
capital consists, it is possible for the capitalist to sell commodities
at prices corresponding to their individual value, and nevertheless
at less than their value as products of capital and as components of
=
the aggregate product in which the capital that has been valorized
actually has its being.
Previous. discussion
we
used
the
ures !__ we can now .refi
g
.
. . .
.
80 20 20,
present the situation by assuming that the 80 constant capital is
embodied i n 800 ells, or t of the aggregate product ; 20 variable
capital or wages amount to 200 ells, or t; of the total, and 20
surplus-value is likewise the equivalent of 200 ells or t;. If we now
suppose that not one ell, but let us say 800 ells were sold at the
right price, i.e. 80, and the other two portions were unsaleable,
then only ! of the original capital value of 100 would have been
reproduced. As the depository of the total capital, i.e. as the only
actualproduct of the total capital of 100, the 800 ells would have
been sold at less than theit value, at t of their value, to be precise,
since the value of the whole product 120 and 80 i s but t of that,
.
the missing 40 being the 'remaining third. These 800 ell, taken b
themselves, could conceivably also: be sold for more than their" true
value, and as the depositories of the total capital they might still
be sold at the right price, e.g. if they were sold for 90 and the
remaining 400 ells for 30. For our present purposes, however, we
intend to disregard the sale of different fractions of the total
quantity of goods at prices higher or lower than their value, since
our premiss is precisely that they should be sold at their correct
value.
455
What is at issue here is not just that the commodity's sale price
should reflect its value, as in the case of the commodity conceived
as an autonomous thing, but that, as a depository of the capital
invested in it, its sale price should also reflect the fact that it is an
aliquotpart of the total product of that capital. If only 800 ells are
1 20, then these 800 ells do
sold out of a total product of 1 ,200
not represent t of the total value, but the total value itself, i.e. they
represent the value of 120 and not 80, and the individual corn.
80
8
4
2
120
12
mod1ty does not
2s., but - = - =
80
800
80
40
20
800
=
;O
= -
= -
= -
= -
50 per cent too dear, if it had been sold at 3s. instead of 2s. As
an aliquot part of the total value the individual product must be
sold at the correct price and hence as the aliquot part of the total
product sold. It may not be sold, therefore, as an independent
article, but, e.g., a s 1/1 ,200 of the total product, in relation the re
fore to the remaining 1,1 99/1 ,200. What is at issue i s that the single
article should be sold at the correct price multiplied by the num
ber which forms its denominator a s the aliquot part of a whole.
(It follows from this that, with the development of capitalist pro..
duction and the resultant reduction in prices, there must be an in
crease in the quantity ofgoods, in the number of articles that must .
1
be sold. That is to say, a constant expansion ofthe market beco.rr e
a necessity for capitalist production. But this point i s better leftJ9,
th e subsequen book.) (It also explains why the capitalist cannt
sell 1 ,300 eJls at 2s., even though he could supply 1 ,200 at
price. For the additional 100 might well require extensions oftlfe
constant capital which would be able to provide another 1,200.'at
that price, but not an extra 100, etc.)
ti:
968
Appendix
)!;456
.=:: , ;
(In the above example, the price of the ell is determined not in
isolation but as an aliquot part oft he total product.)
I have earlier given a similar account of the foregoing argument
about the determination ofprices (particular formulations from the
original discussion should perhaps be interpolated here) :
Originally, we considered the individual commodity in isolation,
as the result and the direct product of a specific quantity of labour.
Now, as the result, the product of capital, the commodity changes in
form (and later on, in the price of production, it will be changed in
substance too). The difference is as follows : The mass of usevalues
produced represents a quantity of labour equal to the value of the
constant capital contained in and consumed by the product (of the
quantity of labour objectified and transferred from it to the pro
duct) + the value of the quantity of labour exchanged for variable
capital. A part of this labour goes to replace the value of the
variable capital and the remainder constitutes- the surplus-value.
If we express the labour-time contained in the capital as = 100 of
which 40 is variable capital and the rate of surplus-value = 50
per cent, then the total quantity of labour contained in the pro
duct comes to 120. Before the commodity can circulate, its
exchange-value must be previously converted into the price. There
fore, if the total product is not a single continuous thing, so that
the entire capital is reproduced in a single commodity, such as a
house - then the capitalist must calculate the price of the in
dividual commodity, i.e. he must represent the exchange-value of
the individual commodity in terms of money of account. Then
depending on the various rates of productivity of labour the total
value of 120 will be shared out among a greater or smaller number
of products, and the price of the individual article will stand in
inverse ratio to the total number of articles, and . each item wilt re
present a larger or smaller aliquot part of the 120. For example,
if the total product is 60 tons of coal, then 60 tons = 1 20 = 2
.
120
1 20 ..
. .
. 1
per ton = 6o ; if 1t IS 7 5 tons of coa1 , th en each ton = 7s =. ::/; .
.
' ;. .,: >:
120
12
= !, and so on. The pt;!12s . ; if it is 240 tons, then
=
24
240
;_ ,:::,
. .
the total price of the product h
.
; t e
.
of the m d'tvt'dua1 ar t'tc1e then =
:
--
.
: :."
970
Appendix
971
of labour has increased. For the same reason - the greater pro..
ductivity of labour (and the opposite would hold good if pro..
ductivity were to decline) - the value of labour-power is reduced,
since the same quantity of labour, the same value of 1 20, is spread
over a larger quantity of goods, thus causing the price of each
article to fall. Hence, even though the price of the individual article
falls, and even though the total amount of labour declines, and with
it the value contained in it, the amount of surplus-value in the
price increases relatively. In other words, in the smaller total
amount of labour to be found in the individual article, e.g. the
ton, there is a larger amount of unpaid labour than before when the
labour was less productive, the quantity of the product was smaller
and the price of the individual article higher. The aggregate price
of 1 20 now contains more unpaid labour than before and the
same is true of each aliquot part of that 1 20.
It is puzzles of this sort that lead Proudhon astray, since he
looks only at the price of the individual article in isolation, and not
the commodity as the product of a total capital. Hence he ignores
the overall situation within which the total product is divided up
into its various components with regard to price.
' Il est impossible que l'interet du capital ' (this is just one par..
ticular named put of the surplus-value) ' s 'ajoutant dans le com
merce au salaire de l'ouvrier pour composer le prix de la mar
chandise; I'ouvrfer puisse racheter ce qu 'il a lui-meme produit. Vivre
en travail/ant est un principe qui, sous le regime de l'interet, implique
contradiction ' [' Since in commerce the interest on capital is added
to the labourer's wages to make up the price of commodities, it is
impossible for the labourer to buy back his own product. To live
by working is a principle which under the regimen of interest, en..
tails a contradiction '] (Gratuite du credit. Discussion entre"J.1. Fr.
Bastiat et M. Proudhon, Paris, 1 8 50, p. 1 05).
.
.
This is quite right : to jnake the matter clear let us assume that . ,.: '"
the worker, l'ouvrier, under discussion is the working class as':: ,.,;.
whole The weekly payment it receives and with which it has to b_liyi::'>
the means of subsistence, et., is spent on a mass of commoditiet<;:
Whether we take eac separately or every one together, theif .
price contains one part ..:.::. ' y/ages and anothe r
sutjJlus.-value' (f .
which the interest 'mentioned by Proudhon .js b_u t one and perhaps .
a relatively insignificant element). Ho\y then is it possible for 'the
.
.
worltihg Class to us{ 'its weekly income, which consists just o'f
=
972
Appendix
' salaire ', to buy a quantity of goods that consists of ' salaire ' +
surplus-value? Since the week's wages, taking the class as a whole,
equal only the weekly aggregate of the means of subsistence, it is
as clear as day that with the money he has received the worker
cannot possibly buy the means of subsistence he requires. For the
sum of money he has received equals his week's wages, the price
paid each week for his labour, whereas the price of the provisions
he requires for a week = the price of the labour they contain + the
price represented by the unpaid surplus labour. Ergo : '11 est
impossible que . . . l 'ouvrier puisse racheter ce qu'il a lui-meme
produit. Vivre en travail/ant ' under these conditions therefore
really does entail ' contradiction '. Proudhon is quite right as far as
appearances go. But if, instead of considering the commodity in
isolation, he were to view it as the product of capital, he would
discover that the week's product breaks down into one part
whose price = the weekly wage, = the variable capital laid out
during the week and containing no surplus-value, etc., and another
part whose price consists entirely of surplus-value. And even
though the price of the commodity includes all these elements, it is
in fact only the first part that the worker buys back (and in the
present context it is irrelevant that he can be swindled by the
grocer in the process, etc.).
This is what generally turns out to be the case with Proudhon's
apparently profound and . insoluble economic paradoxes. They
consist in the fact that he, regards the confusion- wrought by
economic phenomena in his own mind as the laws governing those
phenomena.
(Indeed, his- assertion here is- even more misleading than sug
gested above, since it entails the assumption that the true price of
the commodity = .the wages contained in it . the amount of paid
labour contained in it, while the surplus-value, interest, etc. is no
more than a surcharge, an arbitrary extr;a on top of th tre price
of the commodity.)
- But the criticism levelled at him by the vulgar economists is even
worse. For xample, M. Forcade - points out that his asse-rtion
proves tO() much on the one hand, since he shows that, accordig
to it; the working class could not survive at all ; while ori the other
- hand,. h does n,ot pr.ss the paradox far enough sin-ce the price of
the commodities, the _buye.r purchases indudes not just wages +
:
- -interest butalso the cost ofthe ravJ'matedals etc. (i.e. tiie eleinents
0
>
'
'
'
'.
'
913
fg$'
lO,oOO)Wllfit .;
'
974
Appendix
915
SURPLUS- VALUE
459
976 Appendix
s o that the value given, the particular sum of money, can re viewed
asjluens* and the increment as fiuxion. We shall come back to the
se1f-subsistent expression of capital as money when we come to
consider its process of circulation. Here, where we are concerned
with money only as the point of departure for the immediate pro
cess of production, we can confine ourselves to this observation:
capital exists here as yet only as a given quantum of value = M
(money), in which all use-value is extinguished, so that nothing but
the monetary form remains. The magnitude of this quantum of
value is limited by the amount or quantity of the money to be trans
formed into capital. S o this value becomes capital by increasing
its size, by transforming itself into a changing quantity, by being,
from the very outset, ajluens that must engender a fiuxion. In itself
this sum of money may only be defined as capital if it is employed,
spent, with the aim of increasing it, if it is spent expressly in order
to increase it. In the case of the sum of value or money this
phenomenon is its destiny, its inner law, its tendency, while to the
capitalist, i.e. the owner of the sum o. tmoney, in whose hands it
shall acquire its function, it appears as intention,purpose. Thus in
this originally simple expression of capital (or of the capital to be)
as money or value, every link with use-value has been broken and
entirely destroyed But even more striking is the elimination of
every unwelcome sign, all potentially confusing evidence of the
actual process ofproduction (production of commodities, etc.). It
is for this reason that the character, the specifi.c nature of capitalist
production, appears to be so simple and abstract. If the original
capital is a quantum of value = x, it becomes capital and fulfils its
purpose by changing into x+Ax, i.e. into a quantum ofmoney or
value = the original sum + a balance over the original sum. In
other words, it is transformed into the given amount of money +
additional money, into the given value + surplus-value. The pro
duction of surplus-value which includes the preservation of the
value originally advanced - appears therefore as the determining
purpose, the driving fore and thefinal result of the capitalist pro
cess of production, as the means through which the original value
is transformed into capital. How this is brought about, the real
procedure by means of which x is changed into x+ Ax, does not
affect the purpose and result of the process in the least. It is true
that x can be changed into x+Ax even in the absence of the capi;.
-
1
i
Ii
Ii .
i
I
I
I
i
Av = flx (since
.1 v), Ax
-.
!1v
V
=: '-;_:/::
>";..:t .
Since the total capital C
c +v, where c is constant andkvJs:
variable, C can b e regarded as a function of v. If v is increasedby
Av, then C
C'.
What w e have then is:
'(I) C c + v
=
I . ..
I
r
I
.; !
;v.r,
,
,,
(2) C
c + (v+L\v)
978 Appendix
If we subtract the first equation from the second, the difference
is C' c, the increment ofC = llC.
(3) C'-C = c+v+v-c-v = llv
(4) ac = av
So this gives us (3) and hence (4) C = llv. But C'- C = the
amount by which C has changed ( = /lC), = the .increment of C or
C, i.e. (4). In other words, the increment of the total capital =
the increment of the variable part.of it, such that ac or the change
in the constant part of the capital = 0. Hence in this investigation
of ac or llv the constant capital is given as = 0, i.e. it must be left
out of account.
v
+ v
(rate ofprofit)
Thus the actual function specific to capital as such is the produc
tion of surplus-value which, as will be shown later, is nothing but
the production of surplus labour, the appropriation of unpaid
labour in the course of the actual process of production. This
labour manifests itself, objectifies itself, as surplus-value.
It has also been seen/that if x is to be changed into capital, into
x+L1x, the value or sum of money represented by x has to be
transformed into the factors of the production process, and above
all into thefactors of the actual labour process. In some branches of
industry a part of the means of production- the object of labour
may possibly have no value, may possibly not be a commodity,
although it is a use-value. In that event only a portion of x will be
transformed into the means of production, and if we consider the
transformation of x, i.e. the use of x to purchase commodities
destined for the labour process, then the value of the object of
labour - which is nothing but the means of production that have
been purchased - is
0. But we shall only consider the matter in
its complete form where the object of labour = the commodity.
Where this is not the case this factor is to be deemed = 0, as far as
value is concerned, so as to rectify the calculation.
Like the commodity, which is an immediate unity o fuse-value
and exchange-value, the process of production, which is the pro
cess of the production of commodities, is the immediate unity of
=
919
461
lf
That's all.'
.-
' + ''
980 Apperzdix
981
98 .4ppendix
labour process as such, it follow s that the labou r process i n . all
l
forms of society is necessarily capitalist in atre. Thus capit
come s to be thought of as a thing, and as a thmg It plays a ceram
.
role, a role appropriate to it as a thing in the process .of productio
IS
It is the same logic that infers that because mone y I S gold, gold
r
intrinsically mone y; that because wage-labour is labou r, al labou
is neces sarily wage-labour. The identity is proved by holdi ng fast
to the features common to all processes of production, while
d
neglecting their specific differentiae. The identity is demonstrate.
by abstracting from the distinction s. We shall return to this
crucial point in greater detail in the course of this chapter. For the
present we shall merely note :
463
f,,
983
984
Appendix
Accessory materials'.
986 Appendix
machinery used should not produce more than the average amount
of waste etc. The capitalist must attend to all these thingi. Even
beyond that, however, if the value of constant capital is not to be
eroded, it must as far as possible be consumed productively and
not squandered, since in that case the product would contain a
greater amount of objectiied labour within it thari is socially neces
sary. In part this depends on the workers themselves, and it is here
that the supervisory responsibility of the capitalist enters. (He
secures his position here through piece-work, deductions from
wages, etc.) He mustalso s e e t o it that the work is performed in an
orderly and methodical fashion and that the use-value he has in
mind actually emerges successfully at the end of the process. At
this point too the capitalist's ability to supervise and enforce
discipline is vital . Lastly, he must make sure that the process of
465
,.
::f("'
i.
: -t
-:.
: --
. :
<r
.. ' . .
..
""' '
r.
987
i
!
I ..
i
988
Appendix
*'Eminently'.
989
*The number (2) appears in the M S. at this point, but there is no corres-
pending (1).
990 Appendix
whereas it belongs to the capitalist a:s a substance that creates and
increases wealth, and in fact it is a n element of capital, incorporated
into it in the production process as its living, variable component.
Hence the rule of the capitalist oyer the worker is the rul:e of things
over man, of dead la hour over :the living, of the product over the
producer. For the commodities that become the instruments of rule
over the workers (merely as the instruments of the rule of capita}
itself) are mere consequences of the process of production; they
are its products. Thus at the level of material production, of the life
process in the realm of the social - for that is what the process of
production is - we find the same situation that we find in religion at
the ideological level, namely the in version of subject into objectand
vice versa. Viewed historically this inversion is the indispensable
transition without which wealth as such, i.e. the relentless produc
tive forces of social labour, which alone can form the material base
of a fre e human society, could not possibly be created by force at
the expense of the majority. This antagonistic stage cannot be
avoided, any more than i t is possible for man to avoid the stage in
which his spiritual energies are given a religious definition as
powers independent of himself. What we are confronted by here is
the alienation [Entfremdung] of man from his own labour. To that
extent the worker stands on a higher plane than the capitalist from
the outset, since the latter has his .roots in the process ofalienation
and finds absolute satisfaction in it whereas right from the start the
worker is a victim who confronts it as a rebel and experiences it as
a process of enslavement. At the same time the process ofproduc
tion is a real labour process and to the e_xtent to which that is the
case and the capitalist has a . definite function to perform within it as
467 supervisor and director, his acivity acquir,es a specific, many-sided
content. But the labour process itselfis no more than the instrument
of the valorization process, just as the use-value of the product is
nothing but a repository of jts excha11ge-value. The self-valoriza
tion of capital - the creation . of surplus-value - is therefore the
determining, dominating :and overriding purpose of the capitalist;
it is the absolute motive and content of his activity. And in fact it is
no more than the rationalized motive and aim of the hoarder -:- a
highly impoverished and astract content which makes it plain
that the capitalist is just as enslaved by the relations1tips of capital
oism as is his opposite pole, the worker, albeit in a quite . different
manner,
-- '
991
992 Appendix
>and
468
993
..
' . . . for the capital used, to purchase the capacity for labour is embodi p;ln
fact i n the means of subsistence although these means o f subsistence\if
fe; '. ..
transferred to the worker i n the form of money; Like the supportes or:;
qb{ c; }'
?.! ..
monetary systern the worker might well answer the question: Whatis :capita
with the won;i s : Capital is money. For while in the labour process ca.pi(\j s\':} A .
to be found physically in the form of raw materials, the_ instruments. . qf
labour etc., i n the. circulation process it takes th form of money. I!! the sm.e
way, if an ecohomist ofantiquity had been asked :"What is a worker? he woidd
have had to answer, following the identical logic : A worker is a slave (becauSe
the slave was the worker in the labour process ,ofantiquity).'
_
_.__
t.
996
Appendix
469b
sents bread, meat and, in short, all the means of subsistence of the
worker.6
Under certain circumstances a chair with four legs and a velvet
covering may be used as a throne. But this same chair,- a thing for
sitting on, does not become a throne by virtue of its use-value. The
most essential factor in the labour process is the worker himself,
and in antiquity this worker was a slave. But this does not imply
that the worker is a slave by nature (though this latter view is not
entirely foreign to Aristotle), any more than spindles and cotton
are capital by nature just because they are consumed nowadays by
. .
r
I
Are they not rather the objects on which the instruments of production must
operate?'] (p. 367). He does not realize that once he confuses capital
physical manifestations arid hence calls the objective coriditions of .
1(Jf
capital, they do indeed break .down into the materials. arid the
w
labour, but are all equally irles of production as far as _the .
cemed. Thus oo. j>. 37the refers to capital simply as ' /es moyens de r..nnur
'/I n 'y a aucutie difference entre un capital et tour- autre portiOn d(! nrl7.1!.
seulement par l'einploi qui en 'est fait. qu'une chose 'devient
\viilt
m
..
,1
;
I! 'I-
I
:
Appendix
998
7. Se,
for. exawpl,
Vol l BJC:
- L
..
'.
::
. .
.... . ..
.
John S.tuart Mi!l; Principles of Political Economy,
. .
.
'
999
then I have proved that the existence of capital is -an eternal law of
nature of human production and that the Kirghiz who cuts down
rushes with a knife he has stolen from a Russian so as to weave
them together to make a canoe is just as true a capita-list as Herr
von Rothschild. I could prove with equal facility that the Greeks
and Romans celebrated communion because they drank wine.and
ate bread, and that the Turks sprinkle themselves daily with holy
water like Catholics because they wash themselves daily. This is
the sort of impertinent and superficial rubbish that one finds doled
out with self-important complacency not only by the likes 9f
F. Bastiat* or the little economic pamphlets of the Society for the
469c Advancement of Useful Knowledge, or the nursery stories o f a
Mother Martineau,t but even in the writings of reputable authori
ties. Far from iemonstrating, as they hope, that capital is an
eternal natural necessity, all they succeed in doing is to refute that
necessary existence in the case of a specific historical phase of the
social process of production. For if it is claimed that capital is
nothing but the n1aterial and instruments of labour or that the
material elements-of the labour process are capital by nature, one
may rightly riposte that1n that event we do indeed require capital
but no capitalists, or alternatively that capital is nothing but a
name invented to deceive the masses.8
8. 'We are told that Labour cannot move one step without Capital - that
Capital is as a shovel to a man who digs - that Capital is just as necessary to
production as Labour itself is. The working man knows all this, for its truth
is daily brought home to him; but this mutual dependency between Capital
and Labour has nothing to do with the relative position of the capitalist and
the working man; nor does it show that the former could be maintained by
the latter. Capital is but so much unconsumed produce ; and that which is at
this moment in being, exists now independent of, and is in no way identified
with, any particular individual or class. Labour is the parent of it, on the one
side, and mother earth upon the other ; and were every capitalist and'. every
rich man in the United Kingdom to be annihilated in one moment, nor a
single particle of wealth or capital would disappear with them; nor wouidtbe .
nation itself be less wealthy, even to the amount of one farthing. It. is)
n
capital, and not the capitalist, that is essential to the operations of thecp <
ducer; and there is as much difference between the two, as there is bet!l, > .
the actual cargo and the bill of lading (J. F. Bray, Labour1s
Labour's Remedy, etc., Leeds, 1839, p. 59).
.: :;::''
'alpital iS a sort of cabalistic word like chw-ch o r state, o r any othet()f
Wroiig)f
1832-4.
1000
Appendix
10()1
' subjective ' and his subjective abstraction he calls ' society '.
. '. ,
'
1 1 . Cf. J. B. Say, op. cit. [Traite d'economie politique}, Vol. II, p. 429, nqtO
all articles possessing exchangeable
When Carey says, ' Capital
: .
(H. C. Carey, Principles of Political Economy, Part I, Philadelphia, l8[!t; \
p, 294) this lapses into the explanation of capital referred to in Chapter Ji: <
' Capital - i s commodities', an explanation that can only refer t o the maru-
festation of capital in the process of circulation.
12. Sismondi, Nouv. Princ. etc., Vol. I, p. 89. cr. also 'Le capital est U11e
idee commerciale [' Capital is a commercial idea'] (Sismondi, Etudes, etc.,
Vol ll, p. 389).
See above, p. 255, n. 13.
\'i.lHl ,'
1002
Appendix
labour process is only the means; the end is supplied by the valori
zation process or the production of surplus-value. As soon as this
occurs to the economist he declares capital to be wealth which is
used in production to make a 'profit' .13
W e have seen that the transformation of money into capital
breaks down into two wholly distinct, autonomous spheres, two
entirely separate processes. The first belongs to the realm of the
circulation of commodities and is acted out in the market-place. It
is the sale and purchase of labour-power. The second is the consump
tion of the labour-power that has been acquired, i.e. the process of
production itself. In the first process the capitalist and the worker
confront one another merely as the owners respectively of money
and commodities, and their transactions, like those of all buyers
and sellers, are the exchange of equivalents. In the second process
the worker a ppears pro tempore as the living component of capital
itself, and the category of exchange is entirely excluded here since
the ea pitalist has acquired by purchase all the factors of the pro
duction process, both material and personal, before the negotia
tions begin. Howeve, although the two processes subsist in
dependently side by side, each condiions the other. The first
introduces the second and the second completes the first.
The first process, the sale andpurchase of labour-power, displays
to us the capitalist and the worker only as the buyer and seller of
commodities. What distinguishes the worker from the vendors of
other commodities is only the specific nature, the specific use-value,
of the commodity he. sells. But the particular use-value of a com
modity does not affect the economic form of the transaction; it
does not alter the fact that the purchaser represents money, and
the vendor a commodity; In order to demonstrate, therefore, that
the relationship between capitalist and worker is nothing but a
relationship between commodity owners who exchange money and
commodities with a free contract and to their mutual advantage, it
suffices to isolate the first process and to cleave to its formal
chara<;:ter. This simple device is no sorcery, but it contains the
entire wisdopi of the vulgar economists.
.
That po rtion of the stock of a country which is kept or
employed with a view to profit in the production and distribution of wealth
(T. R. Malthus, Definitions in Political Economy, new edition, etc. by John
Cazeno e, London, 1853, p. 10). Capital is the part qf we alth employed for
production and generally for the purpose of obtaining profit' (Th. Chalmers
'
On Political Economy, etc., London, 1832, 2nd edn, p. 75).
,
13. 'Capital.
1003
We have seen that the capitalist must transform his money not
only into labour-power, but into the material factors of the labour
process, i.e. the means of production. However, if we think of the
whole of capital as standing on one side, i .e. the totality of the pur
chasers of labour-power, and if we think of the totality of the
vendors of labour-power, the totality of workers on the other, then
we find that the worker is compelled to sell not a commodity but
his own labour-power as a commodity. This is because he finds on
the other side, opposed to him and confronting him as alien
-i1;\..
property, all the means of production, all the material conditions
c
'69e of work together with all the means of subsistence, money and
means of production. In other words, all material wealth confronts
the worker as the property of the commodity possessors. What is
proposed here is that he works as a non-proprietor and that the
conditions ofhis labour confront him as alien property. The fact that
Capitalist No. I owns money nd that he buys the means of pro
..
duction from Capitalist No. 2, who owns them, while the worker
-._:;\
buys the means of subsistence from Capitalist No. 3 with the
money he has obtained from Capitalist No. 2, does not alter the
fundamental situation that Capitalists Nos. 1, 2 and 3 are together
the exclusive possessors of money, means of production and
J-j?;,;,
means of subsistence. Man can only live by producing his own
means of. subsistence, and he can produce these only if he is in
possession of the means of production, of the material conditions
of labour. It is obvious from the very outset that the worker who is
denuded of the means of production is thereby deprived of the
means of subsistence, just as, conversely, a man deprived of the
means of subsistence is i n no position to create the means of pro
duction. Thus even in the first process, what stamps money or com
modities as capital from the outset, even before they have been
really transformed.into capital, is neither their money nature nor
their commodity nature, nor the material use-value of these corn- modities as means of production or subsistence, but the circum
stance that this money and this commodity, these means of prodUyf
tion and these means of subsistence confront !abour-power,:sdp.'>.
ped of all material wealth, as autonomous powers, personified.\h1
their owners. The objective conditions essential to the realizat_ion.
of labour are alienated from the worker and become manifest as
fetishes endowed with a will and a soul of their own. Commoaii(es,
in short, appear as the purhasers of persons. The buyer of labo.t:
power is nothing but the personification o"r objecti.fied labour which
; -::"l.
., ).
: --: .. .
, - - :!
'
-) .-!
...._;.,!_"?
1004 Appendix
cedes a part of itself to the worker in the form of the means of sub
sistence in order to annex the living labour-power for the benefit
of the remaining portion, so as to keep itself intact and even to
grow beyond its original size by virtue of this annexation. It is not
the worker who buys the means of production and subsistence, but
the means of production that buy the worker to incorporate him
into the means of production.
The means ofsubsistence are a particular form of material exist
ence in which capital confronts the worker before he acquires
them through the sale of his labour-power. But by the time the
process of production begins the labour-power has already been
sold and hence the means of subsistence have passed de jure at
least into the consumption fund of the worker. These means of
subsistence themselves form no part of the labour process, which,
apart from the presence of effective labour-power, requires nothing
b ut the materials and means of labour. In fact, of course, the
worker must sustain his capacity for work with the aid of means of
subsistence, but this, his private consumption, which is at the same
time the reproduction of his labo ur-power, falls outside the process
of producing commodities. It is possible that in capitalist produc
tion the entire available time of the worker is actually taken up by
capital and that the consumption of the means of subsistence is
actually no more than an incident in the labour process, like the
consumption of coal by the steam-engine, of oil by the wheel, of
hay' by the horse and like the entire private consumption of the
labouring slave. It is in keeping with this that Ricardo; for in
stance (see note 6 above), lists 'food and clothing' alongside raw
materials and tools, as things which 'give effect to labour' and
hence serve as 'capital' in the labour process. However that may be
469f in fact, the means of subsistence that the worker consumes are
commodities that he haspurchased. As soon as they pass into his
hands, and even more evidently, as soon as he has consumed the_m,
they cease to be capital. They form no part of the physical elements
in which capital manifests itself in the immediate process ofproduc
tion, even though they constitute the physically existing form of
variable capital which enters the market place as the purchaser of
labour-power within the sphere ofcirculation.14
14. This is the valid point underlying Rossi's polemic against the inclusion
of the means of subsistence among the components of productive capitaJ:
How wide he is of the mark in his interpretation, however, and the extent
1005
When a capitalist takes 500 thalers and invests 400 of them in the
means of production and 100 in the acquisition of labour-power,
these 100 thalers constitute his variable capital. With them the
workers buy the means of subsistence, either from the same capi
talist or from another. These 100 thalers are nothing but the money
form of the means of subsistence which in fact constitute the physical manifestation of the variable capital. Within the immediate
process of production the variable capital has ceased to exist: it
exists neither in the form of money, nor of commodities, but in the
form of living labour whieh the eapitalist has acquired through the
purchase of labour-power. And it is only by virtue of this trans
formation of vaiable capital into labour that the quantum of value
invested in money or commodities can be converted into capital.
Thus when we look at the process of capitalist production as a
whole and not merely at the immediate production of commodi
ties, we find that although the sale and purchase of labour-power
(which itself conditions the transformation of a part of the capital
into variable capital) is entirely separate from the immediate pro
duction process, and indeed precedes it, it yet forms the absolute
foundation of capitalist production and is an integral moment within it. Material wealth transforms itself into capital simply and solely
because the worker sells his labour-power in order to live. The
articles which are the material conditions of labour, i.e. the means
ofproduction, and the articles which are the precondition for the
survival of the worker himself, i.e. the means of subsistence, both
become capital only because of the phenomenon of wage-labour.
Capital is not a thing, any more than money is a thing. In capital, as
in money, certain specific social relations of production between
people appear as relations of things to people, or else certain social
relations appear as the natural properties of things in society. Without a class dependent on wages, the moment individuals confront
each other as free persons, there can be no production of surplus
valu e ; without the production of surplus-value there can be no
capitalist production, and hence no capital and no capitalist{
Capital and wage-labour (it is thus we designate the labour of the
worker who sells his own labour-power) only express two aspect\.:
of the confusion introduced by his rationalizations, is something we sha1l
return to in a later chapter.*
"'This point is dealt with in Grundrisse, pp. 591-4. Marx did not however
return to it anywhere in Capital, or in Theories ofSurplus-Value.
1006
Appendix
!:
tt
I
I
t
. . ..
.- ;:.
..
_ :;
--
1007
'
16. 'We see further from the explanations of the economist himself, that
in the process of production, capital, the result of labour, is immediately
transformed again into the substratum, into the material of labour; and hGW
therefore the momentarily postulated separation of capital from labour is
immediately superseded by the unity of both ' (F. Engels, Deutsch-franzosische
Jahrbucher, etc., p. 99) [English translation, p. 430 ].
Goethe,
1008 Appendix
who is only capable of conceiving the labour process as a process
owned by capital, all think of the physical elements of the labour
process as capital just because of their physical characteristics.
This is why they are incapable of detaching their physical exist..
ence as mere elements in the labour process from the social
characteristics amalgamated with it, which is what really make them
capital. They are unable to do this because in reality the labour
process that employs the physical qualities of the means of pro..
duction as the means of subsistence of labour is identical with the
labour process that converts these self -same means of production
into means for living labour. In the labour process looked at purely
for itself the worker utilizes the means of production. In the labour
process regarded also as a capitalist process of production, the
means of production utilize the worker, so that work appears only
as an instrument which enables a specific quantum of value, i.e. a
specific mass of objectified labour, to suck in living labour in order
to sustain .and increase itself . Regarded thus, the labour process
is the self-valorization process of objectified labour through the
agency of living labour.1 7 Capital utilizes the worker, the worker
does not utilize capital, and only .articles which utilize the worker
and hence possess independence, a consciousness and a will of their
own in the capitalist, are capital.18
17. 'Labour i s the agency b y which capital is made productive of
profit' (John Wade, op. cit., p. 161). 'In bourgeois society, living labour is
but a means to increase accumulated labour' (Manifesto of the Communist
Party, 1848, p. 12) [see The Revolutions of 1848, Pelican Marx Library, 19 73,
'
p. 81].
18. The fact that the means of subsistence have the particular economic
characteristic that they purchase workers, or that the means of production,
such as leather and lasts, utilize cobbler's assistants- this inversion of person
and thing has become an inseparable pari of the physical character of the
elements of production both in capitalist production itself and in the imagina
tion of the economists. So much so in fact that when Ricardo, for example,
deems it necessary to give an analysis of the physical elements of capital, he
naturally Ydthout scruples or reflection of any kind makes use of the correct
economic expressions. Thus he talks of 'capital, or the means of employing
labour' (i.e. not 'means employed by labour' but 'means of employing labour')
(op. cit., p. 9 2); quantity of labour employed by a capital' (ibid., p. 419 );
'the fund which is to employ them (the labourers) (p. 252, etc.). Likewise in
modern German the capitalist, the personification of things which take
labour, is called an' Arbeitgeber' [employer, literally a giver of work], while the
actual worker who gives his labour is called an 'Arbeitnehmer ' [employee,
literally a taker of work]. 'In bourgeois society capital is independent and has
individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality'
(Manifesto of t!1e Communist Party, op. cit.).
.
Since the labour process is only the instrument and the actual
form of the valorization process, i.e. since its purpose is to employ
the labour materialized in wages to objectify in commodities an
extra quantity of unpaid labour, surplus-value, i.e. to create surplus
value, the crux of the entire process is the exchange of objectified
labour for living labour, of less objectified labour for more living
labour. In the course of the exchange an amount of labour objecti
fied in money as a commodity is exchanged for an equal amount of
labour objectified in living labour.
'""'' '"''- In accordance with the laws of commodity exchange equivalent
values change hands, i.e. equal amounts of objectified labour,
although the one amount is objectified in a thing, the other in flesh
and blood. But this exchange only inaugurates the process ofpro
duction through whose agency in fact more labour in living form
is given up than was supplied in its objectified form. It is therefore
greatly to the credit of the classical economists that they portrayed
the entire process of production in terms of a commerce between
objectified and living labour, and that they accordingly defined
capital only as objectified labour in contrast to living labour. That
is to say, they depict capital as value which makes use of living
labour to valorize itself. Their only failings are firstly that they
were unable to show how this exchange of more living labour for
less objectified labour could be reconciled with the laws of com
modity exchange and the definition of the value of commodities in
terms of labour-time. And this led to their second failure of con
fusing the exchange of a definite quantity of objectified labour for
labour-power in the process ofcirculation with what takes place in
the process of production, namely, the drawing off of living labour
by labour objectified in. the means of production. They confound
the exchange process that takes place between variable capital and
labour-power with the process in which living labour finds itself
sucked up and absorbed by constant c"'pital. This failure, too, is
rooted in their 'capitalist' blinkers, since for the capitalist himself,
who pays for labour only after it has been valorized, the exchang.
of a small amount of objectified labour for a large amotinf}df'
living labour appears to ea single unmediated proess. Thetefpt
when the modern economist contrasts capital.as objectified labour
to living labour, what he understands by objectified: labour is:'not
products of labour in the sense that they have a use-value and em.
body certain useful acts of labour, but products of labour in th
sense that they are the material base of a certain amount of general
__,.
1011
. 21. 'Un axiome generalement Qdmis par les economistes est que tout travail
doitlaisserun excedan i Cette proposition esrpour moi d'une verite universel/e
et absolue: c'est le corollaire de la Jot de la proportlonalite (!). que /'on peut
. regarder comme le sommaire de toute la science econontique. Mais, j'en de
mande pardon aux economistes, le prindpe que tout travail do it laisser un
excedant n'a pas de sens dans leur theorie, et n'est pas susceptible d'auc'u,ne
de la philosophie. Reponse
Paris, 1847, pp. 76-91 [English edition, pp. 78-89], I have shown that M.
Proudhon has not the slightest idea what this 'excedant du travail' is, namely
...
1012
Appendix
1013
1014 Ap pendix
the rising generation, to niove from one branch of industry to the
next, depending on the state of the market The more highly
capitalist production is developed in a country, the greater the
demand will be for versatility in labour-po wer, the more indiffer
ent the worker will be towards the specific content of his work and
the more fluid will be the movements of capital from one-sphere of
production to the nextClassical economics regards the versatiFty
of labour-power and the fluidity of capital as axiomatic, and it is
right to do so, since this is the tendency of capitalist production
which ruthlessly enf orces its will despite obstacles which are in any
case largely of its own making. At all events, in order to portray
the laws of political economy in their purity we are ignoring these
sources of friction, as is the practice in mechanics where the fric
tions that arise have to be dealt with in every particular application
of its_general laws. 23-
91
I
'
1015
The fact that two men differ from each other as buyerand seller is
of ever diminishing significance since in the course of time everyone
assumes all the roles in the sphere of circulation. Now it is also
true that once the worker has sold his labour-power and trans
formed it into money, he too becomes a buyer, and the capitalists
appear to him as the mere sellers of goods. But in his hand money
is nothing but a means of circulation. In the actual commodity
market, then, it is quite true that the worker, like any other owner
of money, is a buyer and is distinguished by that fact alone from the
commodity owner as seller. But on the labour;:.market, money
always confronts him as capital in the form of money, and so the
owner of money appears as capital personified, as a capitalist, and
he for his part appears to the owner of money merely as the
personification of labour-power and hence of labour, i.e. as a
worker.24 The two people who face each other on the market
place, in the sphere of circulation, are not just a buyer and a seller,
but capitalist and worker who confront each other as buyer and
sell er. Their relationship as capitalist and worker is the precondi
tion of their relationship as buyer and seller. Unlike the situation
in the case of other sellers, the relationship does not arise directly
from the nature of commodities. This derives from the fact that no
one directly produces the products he needs in order to live, so that
. each man only produces a single product as a commodity which
he then sells in order to be able to acquire the products of others.
Here, however, we are not concerned- with the merely social di
vision o flabour in which each branch of labour is autonomous, so
that, for example, a cobbler becomes a seller of boots but a buyer
of leather or bread. What we are concerned with here is the
division of the constituents of the process of production itself, con
stituents that really belong together. This division leads to the pro
gressive separation of these elements and their personification
vis-a-vis each other, so that money as the general form of objectified
labour becomes the purchaser of labour-power, the living soure
of exchange-value and hence of wealth. Real wealth (from ihi
standpoint of exchange-value), money (from the standpoint ofu-
value), i.e. the means of subsistence and the means of productioiJI';
make their appearance as persons in opposition to the possibillty
of wealth, i.e. labour-power,
which appears as a different person.
.
.
.:mo.
24. 'The relation of 4anufacturer to his operatives is purely
economic. The manufacturer is Capital, the operative "Labour"' (F. Engels
Lage der arbeitenden Klassen, etc., p. 329) [English edition, op. cit., p. 302].
.
1016 Appendix
469m
263
25. 'They' (the workers) 'exchange their labour' (i.e. their labourpower)
'for corn' (i.e. means of subsistence). 'This constitutes their revenue' (i.e.
their individual consumption) ' . . . wh ereas their labour has become capital
for their master' (Sismondi, Nouveaux Principes, Vol. 1, p. 90). 'The workers
who give up their labour in the process of exchange transform it [the product
of the whole year] into capital' (ibid., p. 105),
At this point the first interpolated passage, ci>'bsisting of MS. pp. 469a;_
469m, breaks off. Following Marx's own directimee our note on p. 995)
it is- to be succeeded by a second interpola-tion which Marx numbered pp.
262-4. Page 262 is missing.
1017
*The following quotation, the first part of which is missing, occurs iri the
MS. immediately after the above text, to which it has no relation. It is in fact
the continuation of a footnote referring to the missing text on p. 262: ' to
1018
264
Appendix
'*'Effective force'.
tThese figures refer to MS. pp. 469a-469m, i.e. pp. 995-1016 of the present
text.
,
1019
Hence we may say that the means of production appear not just
as the means for accomplishing work, but as the means for ex
ploiting the labour of others. *
;_:.:{: .
:}0\>
. .-::'.
\ ' : .
THE F O R M A L S U B S U M P T I O N OF LA B O U R u N D E R C A P I T A L
-
:... .
.
. .
..
.At this point the second inerp,olated passage com to. an end. Wha
foilows is the contipuation
of p. 469 of the
fdS
.
.
'
. -- ;
-- ...
IOiO
470
A ppendix
,..
'
....
, . .
..
1021
471
1022 Appendix
Chapter II,* for example, the sundering of the objective conditions
of labour into materials and instruments on the one hand, and the
living activity of the workers on the other, are all independent of
every historical and specifically social conditioning and they re
main. valid for all possible forms and stages in the development of
the processes of production. They are in fact immutable natural
conditions of hU:man labour. This is strikingly confirmed by the
fact that they hold good f or people who work independ(mtly, i.e.
for those, like_ Robinson Crusoe, who work not in exchange with
society, but only with nature. Thus they are in fact absolute deter
minations of human labour as such, as soon as it has evolved
beyond the purely animal.
The way in which even the merely formal subsumption of labour
under capital begins to become differentiated within itself - and
does so increasingly as time goes on, even on the basis of the old,
traditional mode of labour - is in terms of the scale of production.
That is to say, differences appar later in the volume ofthe mea_ns
.o f production invested, and in the number of workers under t!J-e
command of a single employer. For example, what appeared to be
the maximum attainable in the mode of production of the guilds
(let us say, in reference to the number of journeymen rJ;Iployed)
can scarcely serve as a minimum f or the relations of capital. For
the latter can achieve no more than a nominal existence
unless the
.
capitalist can employ . at the very least enop.gh workers to ensure
that the surplus-value he produces : will suffice f or his on .privat
cohsumption and to fiU his accumulation fund. Only then w.ill he be
relieved of the need to work directly himself and be able to content
himself with acting as capitalist, i.e. as -supervisor and direc.tor of
the process, as a mere function, as it were, en,dowed with conscious
ness and will, of the capitalengaged in the process of valorizing
itself. This enlargement of scal e constitutes the rel foundation on
which the- specifically capitalist mode of productipn can aris if
the historical circumstances are otherwise favourable, a_s they were
f or instance in the sixteenth century. OLcourse, it may also qccur
sporadically; as something which does npt dominate society, at
isolated points within earlier social formations.
The distinctive character of the formal subsumption of labour
under capital appears at its sharpest if we compare it to situations
.
'
In
.:
1023
1:
- : .;;.:[};;
We have demonstrated i n detail in Chapter Ill* the crucialJ
- ;,t
. .
,, , ,
: ... ; ;.
.
:
./
l024 Appendix
dividual value of his product falls below its social value and can be
sold accordingly at a price above its individual v alue. With the pro
fronts the worker as something not merely alien, but hostile and
antagonistic, when it appears before him objectified and personified in capital.
' '
Before proceeding to a further examination o f the real subsumption of labour under capital, here are a f ew additional reflections
from my notebooks.
.
The form based on absolute surplusvalue is what I call the
formal subsumption oflabour under capital. I do so because it is only
formally distinct from earlier modes of production on whose
foundations it arises spontaneously (or is introduced), either when
the producer is self -employing or when the immediate producers
are f orced to deliver surplus labour to others. All that changes i s
that compulsion is applied, i.e. the method by which surplus labour
is extorted. The essential features of formal subsumption are : .
,
:: -...,-
-,.' .;.'.
.
1. The pure money relationship between the man who appr:-, .< ::
priates the surplus labour and the man who yields it up : sub;f'
ordination in this case arises from the specific content of the sale)..
there is not a subordination underlying it in which the pr'oducer
stands in a relation to the exploiter of his labour which is deter
mined not just by money (the relationship of one commodity
owner to another), but, let us say, by political constraints. What
10.26 Ap pIJdix.
brings -the_seller into a relationship of dependency i; sol ely the fact
that $e buyer is the owner of the conditions of labour. There is no
fixed political and social relationship of supremacy and sub
ordination.
2. This is implicit in the first relationship - for were it not for
this the worker would not have his labourpower to sell : it is that
his objective conditions oflabour (the .means of production) and the
subjective conditions of labour (the means of subsistence) confront
him as capital, as the monopoly of the buyer of his labour-power.
The more completely these conditions of labour are mobilized
against him as alien property, the more effectively the formal
relationship between capital and wage-labour is established, i.e.
the more effectively the formal subsumption oflabour under capital
is accomp lished, and this in turn is the premiss and precondition
of its r_eal subsumption.
There is no change as yet in the mode of production itself.
Technologically speaking, the labour process goes on as before,
with the proviso that it is now subordinated to capital. Within the
production process, however, as we have already shown, two de
velopments emerge : (1) an economic relationship of supremacy and
subordinadon, since the consumption of labour-power by the
capitalist is naturally supervised and directed by him ; (2) labour
becomes far more continuous and intensive, and the conditions of
labour are employed far,more economically, since every effort is
made to ensure that no more (or rather even less) .socially neces
sary time is consumed in making the product - and this applies
both to the living labour that is used to manufacture it and to the
objectified labour which enters into it as an element in the means of
production.
With the formal subsumption of labour under capital the com
pul sion to perform sur plus labour, and to create the leisure time
necessary for development independently of material production,
differs only in form from what had.obtained under the earlier mode
of production. (Even though, be it noted, this compulsion implies
also the necessity of f orming needs, and creating the ineans of
satisfying them, and of supplying quantities of produce well in ex
cess of the traditional requirements of the worker.) But this formal
ch ange is one which increases the continuity and intensity of
labour; it is more favourable to the development of versatility
. among the workers, and hence to increasing diversity in modes of
1027
'r
",
,<
-:--
. .
,' '
,,T,
_ .
'
. .,
I '
1028 Appendix
ery, serfdom, vassallage and other patriarchal forms of subjec
tion, the change is purely one of form. The f orm becomes freer,
because it is objective in nature, voluntary in appearance, purely
economic. (Verte.)*
475
Economy, London, 1 828, pp. 56-7). 'The motive that drives a free man to
work is much more violent than what drives the slave : a free man has to choose
between hard labour and starvation (check the passage), a slave between . . .
and a good whipping ' (ibid., p. 56). 'The difference between the conditions
of a slave and a labourer under the money system is very inconsiderable; . . .
the master of the slave understands too well his own interest to weaken his
slaves by stinting them in their food ; but the master of a free man gives him a
little food as possible, because the injury done to the labourer does not fall on
himself alone. but on the whole class of masters (ibid.).
'In a11tiquity, to make mankind laborious beyond their wants, to make one
part of a state work, to maintain the other part gratuitously', was only to be
achieved through slaves : hence slavery was introduced generally. ' Slavery
was then as necessary towards multiplication, as it would now be destructive
of it. The reason is plain. If mankind be not forced to labour, they will only
labourfor themselves; and if they have few wants, there will befew who labour.
But when states come to be formed and have occasion for,idle hands to defend
them against the violence of their enemies, food at any rate must be procured
for those who do not labour; and as by the supposition, the wants of the
labourers are small, a method .must be found to increase their labour above the
proportio_n of their wants. For thi purpose slavery was calCulated
The
slaves were forced to labour the soil' which fed both them and the idle free
men, as was the ease in Sparta ; or they filled all the servile places which free
. meh-fill now, and they were likewise employed, as in Greece and in Rome, in
'Supplying with manufactures those whose service was necessary for the state.
Here then was a violent method o/making mankind laborious iri raising food
Men were then forced to labour, because ihey were slaves to others; men are
now forced to labour because they are slaves of their Own wants' (J. Steuart,
Dublin edition, Vol. 1, pp. 38-40).
.
In the sixteenth century, the same Steuart says, ' while on the one hand the
lords dismissed their retainers, the farmerS; (who were transforming themselves
into industrial capitalists) ' dismissed the idle mouths. From a means of sub
sistence agriculture was transformed into a tra.de.' The consequence was,
The withdrawing . . , of a number of handsfrolll a trifling agricultuteforces
_in a manner the husbandmn to work harder ; and by hard lelbour upon a Si1lalf
'
spot the same effect is produced as with slight labour upon a' great extent
.
.
.
. (ibicl., p. 1 05).
.
'
1 029
1030 Appendix
c_hasing either the objective conditions of labour, or acquiring the
ncessary journeymen and apprentices, be has to pass through the
prescribed stages . of apprentice and journeyman and even pro
duce his O\Yn masterpiece. He can transform money into capital
only in his own craft, i.e. not merely as the means of his own
labour, b_ut as the means of exploiting the labour of others. His capital is bound to a definit kind of use-value and hence does not
confront his own workers directly as capital. The . methods of
work that he employs are laid down not just by tradition, but by
th guld - they are thought of as indispensable, and so, from this
point of view too, it is the use-value of labour, rather than its
exchange-value, that appears to be the ultimate purpose. It does
not remain at the discretion of the master to produce work of this
or that standard ; all the arrangements of the guild are designed to
ensure that work of a definite quality is produced. He has as little
control over the price as O\:'e.r the methods of work. The restric
tions that prevent his wealth from functioning as capital also en
sure that this . capital does not exceed a certain maximum. He may
not employ more than a certain number of journeymen, since the
guild guarantees that all the masters earn a certain amount from
their trade. Lastly, there is the relationship of the master to the
other masters in the guild. As a master he belonged to a corporation which [enforced] certain collective conditions of production
(guild restrictions, etc.) and possessed .political rights, a share in
municipal ad.miistration,.etc. He worked to order - with. the ex
ception of what he produced for merchants ...:. and produced goods
for immediate use. The number of masters too was restricted as a
result. He did not confront his worke_r s merely as a merchant. Even
less coud the mercha.n t convert his .money into productive capital;
he could only 'commision' the goods, not produce them himself.
Not exchange-value as such, not enrichment as suh, but a life ap..
propriate to a certain status or condition - this was the purpose and
result of the exploitation of the labour of others. The instrument of
labour, was the crucial factor here. In many trades (e.g. tailoring)
the master was supplied with raw materials by his clients. Th
limits o production were kept by regulation within: the limits of
ctualconsull}ption. That is to say, production was not restricted
by"'.the confines of capital itself. In. capitalist production thes
barriers are swept away along with the s ocio-political limits in
whi c cpital was confined. In short, what we see here is not yet
capitql proper.
_
1031
>
:
:
J
(
:
!>
power to the capitalist.
: :=:.-;---
1032 Appendix
independent of his own labour and determined by the mere needs
of his physical existence. The average for the class as a whole re
mains more or less constant, like the value of all commodities ; but
th is is not how it immediately appears to the individual worker
whose wages may stand above or below this minimum. The price
of labour sometimes sinks below and sometimes rises above the
value of labour-power. Furthermore, there is scope for variation
(within narrow limits) to allow for the worker's individuality, so
that partly as between different trades, partly in the same one, we
find that wages vary depending on the diligence, skill or strength
of the worker, and to some extent on his actual personal achieve
ment. Thus the size of his wage packet appears to vary in keeping
with the results of his own work and its individual quality. This is
particularly evident in the case of piece rates. Althogh, as we have
shown, the latter do not aff ect the general relationship between
capital and labour, between necessary labour and surplus labour,
the result diff ers for the individual worker, and it does so in ac
cordance with his particlar achievement. In the case of the slave,
great physical strength or a special talent may enhance his value
to a purchaser, but this is of no concern to him. It is otherwise with
the free worker who is the owner of his labour-power.
477
1033
flexible and skilled than that of the slave, quite apart from the fact
that they fit him f or quite a diff erent historical role. The slave re
ceives the means of subsistence he requires in the form of naturalia
which are fixed both in kind and quantity - i.e. he receives use
values. The free worker receives them in the shape of money,
exchange-value, the abstract social form of wealth. Even though
his wage is in fact nothing more than the silver or gold or copper or
paper form of the necessary means of subsistence into which it
must constantly be dissolved - even though money functions here
only as a means of circulation, as a vanishing form of exchange
value, that exchange-value, abstract wealth, remains in his mind as
something more than a particular use-value hedged round with
traditional and local restrictions. It is the worker himself who con
verts the money into whatever use-values he desires ; it is he who
buys commodities as he wishes and, as the owner of money, as the
buyer of goods, he stands in precisely the same relationship to the
sellers of goods as any other buyer. Of course, the conditions of
his existence - and the limited amount of money he can earn compel him to make his purchases from a fairly restricted selection
of goods. But some variation is possible as we can see from the
fact that newspapers, for example, form part of the-essential pur:
chases of the urban English worker. He can save or hoard a little.
Or else he can squander his money on drink. But even so he acts as
a free agent ; he must pay his own way ; he is responsible to himself
for the way he spends his wages. He learns to control himself, in
contrast to the slpve, who needs a master. Admittedly, this is valid
only if we consider the transformation from serf or slave into free
worker. In such cases the capitalist relationship appears to be an
improvement in one's position in the social scale. It is otherwise
when the independent peasant or artisan becomes a wage-labourer.
What a gulf there is between the proud yeomanry of England of
which Shakespeare speaks and the English agricultural labourer !
Since the sole purpose of work in the eyes of the wage-labourer is
his wage, money, a specific quantity of exchange-value from which >
every particular mark of use-value has been expunged, he is whqf i:i ' }t..
. indifferent towards the content of his labour and hence his 6\y,Q:'
particular form of activity. While he was in the guild or caste
system his activity was a calling, whereas for the slave, as for th
beast of burden, it is merely something that befalls him, something forced on him, it is the mere activation of his labour-power.
Except where labour-power has been rendered quite one-sided by
,,
c.'
1034
Appendix
T H E R E A L S U B S U M P TI ON O F L A B O U R U N D E R C A P I T A L
1035
the labour
labour and capital havebeen set free. And i thse new branches,
..
'
l 036 Appendix
industry capital can once more operate on a small scale and pass
through the various phases until this new industry too can be
operated on a social scale. This process is continuous. At the same
479 time, capialist production has a tendency to take over all branches
of industry not yet acquired and where only formal subsumption
obtains. Once it has appropriated agriculture and mining, the
manufacture of the principal textiles etc., it moves on to other sec
tors where , the artisans are still formally or even genuinely . in
dependent. It has already been remarked, i n our discussion of
machinery, tha t the introduction of machinery into one industry
leads to its introduction into other industries a nd other branches of
the same industry. Thus spinning machines led to powerlooms in
weaving ; machinery in cotton spinning to machinery in the wool
len, linen and silk etc. industries. The increased use of machinery
in the mines, cotton mills etc. made the introduction of largescale
production in machine tools inevitable. Quite apart from the im
proved means of transport rendered necessary by largescale pro
duction, it . was also only the introduction of machinery in
engineering itself - especially the rotary prime movers - which
made steamships a nd railways a possibility and revolutionized the
whole of shipbuilding. Largescale industry hurls such huge masses
of people into industries as yet unsubjugated, or creates such rela
tive surplus populations with them as are required to transf orm
handicraft or small formally capitalist workshops into largescale
concerns. Here the following Tory Jeremiad is relevant :
the good old .times,.when " Live and let live " was the ge neral
motto, every man was contented with one avocatiop.. In the cot
ton trade, there were wevers, cottonspinners, blanchers, dyers
nd several other independent branches, all living upon the profits
of their respective trades, and all, as might be expected, contented
.
and happy. By and by however, when the downward course of
trade had proceeded to some e xtentfirst one branch was adopted
by the capitalist and then another, till in time, the whole of the
people were ousted; and thown up on the maret 'of labour, to
find out a livelihoqd in the best manner t hey could. Tlhis, although
no charter secures to these J_llen the right to be cotton'spinners,
m.anufacturers, Printers etc., yet the course of events has invested
them with a monopoly of all . . They have become Ja.ck--of all
trades; and as far as! the c o untry is concerned in the business, it is
' In
1037
__
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_.
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-
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1038
Appendix
tated by the mode of production itself. Its aim is that the individual
product should contain as much unpaid labour as possible, and this
is achieved only by producing for the sake ofproduction. This be
comes manifest, on the one hand, as a law, since the capitalist who
produces on too small a scale puts more than the socially necessary
quantum of labour into his products. That is to say, it becomes
manifest as ati adequate embodiment of the law of value which
develops fully only on the foundation of capitalist production.
But, on the other hand, it becomes manifest as the desire of the
individual capitalist who, in his wish to render this law ineffectual,
or to outwit it arid turn it to his own advantage, reduces the in
dividual value of his product to a point where it falls below its
socially determined vaiue.
Apart from the increase in the minimum amount of capital
necessary for production,. all these forms of production (of relative
surplus-value) have one feature in common. This i s that the ration
alization of conditions for many workers co-operating together
directly permits economies. And this contrasts with the frag
mentation of conditions in small-scale production, since the e./fee-
tiveness of these collective conditions of production does not bring
about a proportionate increase in their quantity and value. The
fact that they are employed simultaneously and collectively causes
their relative value to sink (with reference to the product), how
ever niuch'their absolute value grows.
'
'
i
i
.
'
,
o6kd a frm the simple standpoint of 'the Iabour -process,
hib9ur seem-ed prodUctive if it reali_zed 'itself in a product, . or rattier
a commodity. From the standpoint of capitalist productiort' we
may add the qualification that labour is productive if it directly
.
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i . .,
.
1039
1040
Appendix
-:
'
,
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i
II
I
I .
1 04 1
.,
...
1042 Appendix
may be.29 And, on the other hand, their valuation - the price of
these different activities from the prostitute to the king - becomes
subject to the laws that govern the price of wage-labour. The im
plications of this last point should be explored in a special treatise
on wage-labour and wages, rather than here. Now the fact that
with the growth of capitalist production all services become trans
formed into wage-labour, and those who perform them into wage
labourers, means that they tendincreasingly to be confused with the
productive worker, just because they share this characteristic with
him. This confusion is all the more tempting because it arises frqm
capitalist production and is typical of it. On the other hand, it also
creates an opening for its apologists to convert the productive
worker, simply because heis a wage-labourer, into a worker who
only exchanges his services (i.e. his labour as a use-value) for
money. This makes it easy for them to gloss over the specific nature
of this ' productive worker ' and of capitalist production - as the
production of surplus-value, as the self-valorization of capital in
which living labour is no more than the agency it has embodied in
itself. A solqier is a wage-labourer, a mercenary, but this does not
make a productive worker of him.
Further error springs from two sources.
First, within capitalist production there are always certain parts
of the productive process that are carried out in a way typical of
earlier inodes of production, in which the relations of capital and
wage-l abour did not yet exist and wherein consequenc(: the capital
ist concepts of productive and unproductive labour are quite in
applicable. But in line with the dominant mode of production, even
those kinds of labour which have not been subjugated by capital
ism in reality are so in thought. For example, the self-employing
worker is his own wage-labourer; his own means of production
appear to him in his own mind as capital. As his own capitalist he
puts htinsdf to work as wage-labourer. Such anomalies provide
welcome opportunities for all sorts of hot air a bout the difference
between productive and unproductive labour.
483
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labour.
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.
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1043
...
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.
_: , ;!:: .t .r),
lf
.:t.. ;-
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:-
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The specifiq product of the capitalist process of proh:iJibii
surplus-value, iscreated only th,rough an xchange With prbfluciiv-e
. : . :: :c-.:_. .-.
labour.
..
.
.. 4 "';'
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\:
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*' Incidental costs o(prodpction
'
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.
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1044 A ppendix
_
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1045
Uflttli:<
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1046 Appet_Ulix
the . natural growth of the population, is held up by the dispro
portionate diversion of productive labour into unreproductive
articles, it follows that the means of subsistence or production will
not be reproduced in the necessary quantities. In that event it is
possible to condemn the manufacture of luxury go0ds from the
standpoint of capitalist production._ For the rest, however, luxury
goods ate absolutely necessary for a mode of production which
creates wealth for the non-producer and which therefore must
provide that wealth in forms which permit its acquisition only by
those who enjoy.) .
For the worker himself this productive labour, like any other, is
simply a means of reproducing the means of subsistence he re
quires. For the capitalist to whom both the nature of the use-value
and the character of the actual concrete labour employed are
matters of complete _indiff erence, it is simply un moyen de battr
monnaie, de produire l a surval ue. *
485 _ The desire to define productive and unproductive labour in ternis
ofthir material content has a thieefold source.
(1)" The fetishism peculiar to the capitalist mode of production
from which it arises. This consists in regarding economic cate
gories, such as being a commodity or productive labour, as quali
ties inherent in the mat erial incarnations of these formal deter-_
miriations or categories; .
(2) Looking at the lab our proces as such, labour is held tq be
productive only if it results in a product (and since we are concerned
hereonly\vith material wealth, it must be a material prod.l,lc); . .
. (3) ln th actual process ()f reproduction -considering only its
real inoments -there i s a vast difference which affects-theforma
tiOn of ealth, bet-ween lahour whch is _engagd ? articies esse n
.
tial to reproduction
and labour concerned purely with luxuries.
.
,-
'
1047
seeks to convert the trousers back into money, i.e. into a form in
Which the distinctive character of the work of tailoring has totally
disappeared, and the service performed becomes embodied in the
fact that one thaler has become two.)
In general, we may say that service is merely an expressionforthe
particular use-value of labour where the latter is useful not as an
article, but as an activity. Do utfacias,facio ut facias, facio ut des,
do ut des- all these are interchangeable formulae for the same
situation, whereas in capitalist production the do ut facias expres
ses a highly specific relationship between material wealth and living
!
I ,
I;
e:q!
and'J',
486
. thatyou
*'I give so that you may do, I do so that you may do I do so
give, l give so that you may give.'
t See above, p. 300, n.17.
n\).
- ,
,_
1048
Appendix
1049
tions of capital and the agents which it employs within them form
a subject to be left for later.
The definition of productive labour (and hence of its opposite,
unproductive labour) is based on the fact that the production of
capital is the production of surplus-value and the labour it em
ploys is labour that produces surplUs-value.
NET AND GROSS PRODUCT