Concise Reader in Sociological Theory. Группа авторов

but the labour¹⁵ is not his commodity. The serf sells only a part of his labour.¹⁶ He does not receive a wage from the owner of the land; rather the owner of the land receives a tribute from him. The serf belongs to the land and turns over to the owner of the land the fruits thereof. The free labourer, on the other hand, sells himself and, indeed, sells himself piecemeal. He auctions off eight, ten, twelve, fifteen hours of his life, day after day, to the highest bidder, to the owner of the raw materials, instruments of labour and means of subsistence, that is, to the capitalist. The worker belongs neither to an owner nor to the land, but eight, ten, twelve, fifteen hours of his daily life belong to him who buys them. The worker leaves the capitalist to whom he hires himself whenever he likes, and the capitalist discharges him whenever he thinks fit, as soon as he no longer gets any profit out of him, or not the anticipated profit. But the worker, whose sole source of livelihood is the sale of his labour,¹⁷ cannot leave the whole class of purchasers, that is, the capitalist class, without renouncing his existence. He belongs not to this or that capitalist but to the capitalist class,¹⁸ and, moreover, it is his business to dispose of himself, that is, to find a purchaser within this bourgeois class.¹⁹

      […]

II

      Now, the same general laws that regulate the price of commodities in general of course also regulate wages, the price of labour.

Wages will rise and fall according to the relation of demand and supply, according to the turn taken by the competition between the buyers of labour, the capitalists, and the sellers of labour,²⁰ the workers. The fluctuations in wages correspond in general to the fluctuations in prices and commodities. Within the fluctuations, however, the price of labour will be determined by the cost of production, by the labour time necessary to produce this commodity – labour.²¹

What, then, is the cost of production of labour? ²²

      It is the cost required for maintaining the worker as a worker and for developing him into a worker.

The less the period of training, therefore, that any work requires, the smaller is the cost of production of the worker and the lower is the price of his labour, his wages. In those branches of industry in which hardly any period of apprenticeship is required and where the mere bodily existence of the worker suffices, the cost necessary for his production is almost confined to the commodities necessary for keeping him alive.²³ The price of his labour will, therefore, be determined by the price of the necessary means of subsistence.

      Another consideration, however, also comes in.

The manufacturer in calculating his cost of production and, accordingly, the price of the products takes into account the wear and tear of the instruments of labour. If, for example, a machine costs him 1,000 francs and wears out in ten years, he adds 100 francs annually to the price of the commodities so as to be able to replace the worn‐out machine by a new one at the end of ten years. In the same way, in calculating the cost of production of simple labour,²⁴ there must be included the cost of reproduction, whereby the race of workers is enabled to multiply and to replace worn‐out workers by new ones. Thus the depreciation of the worker is taken into account in the same way as the depreciation of the machine.

      The cost of production of simple labour, therefore, amounts to the cost of existence and reproduction of the worker. The price of this cost of existence and reproduction constitutes wages. Wages so determined are called the wage minimum. This wage minimum, like the determination of the price of commodities by the cost of production in general, does not hold good for the single individual but for the species. Individual workers, millions of workers, do not get enough to be able to exist and reproduce themselves; but the wages of the whole working class level down, within their fluctuations, to this minimum.

      […]

In production, men enter into relation not only with nature.²⁵ They produce only by co‐operating in a certain way and mutually exchanging their activities. In order to produce, they enter into definite connections and relations with one another and only within these social connections and relations does their relation with nature,²⁶ does production, take place.

      These social relations into which the producers enter with one another, the conditions under which they exchange their activities and participate in the whole act of production, will naturally vary according to the character of the means of production. With the invention of a new instrument of warfare, firearms, the whole internal organization of the army necessarily changed; the relationships within which individuals can constitute an army and act as an army were transformed and the relations of different armies to one another also changed.

      Thus the social relations within which individuals produce, the social relations of production, change, are transformed, with the change and development of the material means of production, the productive forces. The relations of production in their totality constitute what are called the social relations, society, and, specifically, a society at a definite stage of historical development, a society with a peculiar, distinctive character. Ancient society, feudal society, bourgeois society are such totalities of production relations, each of which at the same time denotes a special stage of development in the history of mankind.

      Capital, also, is a social relation of production. It is a bourgeois production relation, a production relation of bourgeois society. Are not the means of subsistence, the instruments of labour, the raw materials of which capital consists, produced and accumulated under given social conditions, in definite social relations? Are they not utilized for new production under given social conditions, in definite social relations? And is it not just this definite social character which turns the products serving for new production into capital?

      Capital consists not only of means of subsistence, instruments of labour and raw materials, not only of material products; it consists just as much of exchange values. All the products of which it consists are commodities. Capital is, therefore, not only a sum of material products; it is a sum of commodities, of exchange values, of social magnitudes.

      […]

The interests of the capitalist and those of the worker are, therefore, one and the same, assert the bourgeois and their economists. Indeed! The worker perishes if capital does not employ him. Capital perishes if it does not exploit labour,²⁷ and in order to exploit it, it must buy it. The faster capital intended for production, productive capital, increases, the more, therefore, industry prospers, the more the bourgeoisie enriches itself and the better business is, the more workers does the capitalist need, the more dearly does the worker sell himself.

      The indispensable condition for a tolerable situation of the worker is, therefore, the fastest possible growth of productive capital.

      But what is the growth of productive capital? Growth of the power of accumulated labour over living labour. Growth of the domination of the bourgeoisie over the working class. If wage labour produces the wealth of others that