1. THE LABOUR PROCESS AND THE PROCESS 
OF PRODUCING SURPLUS-VALUE ; 

The purchaser of labour-power consumes it by setting its seller 

to work. This labour to produce commodities at first turns out 
use-values, and in this property it is independent of the specific 
relation between capitalist and labourer... Description of the 
labour process as such. (Pp. 141-49.) 
. The labour process, on a capitalist basis, has two peculiarities. 
1. The labourer works under the capitalist’s control. 2. The 
product is the capitalist’s property, since the labour process is now 
only a process between two things purchased by the capitalist: 
labour-power and means of production. (P. 150.) 

But the capitalist does not want the use-value produced for its 
own sake, but only as the depository of exchange-value and 
especially of surplus-value. Labour under this condition—where the 
commodity was a unity of use-value and exchange-value— becomes 

the unity of the production process and of the process of creating value. 
(P. 151.) 

Thus the quantity of labour objectified in the product is to be 
investigated. 

Yarn, for example. Let 10 lbs. of cotton be necessary for making 
it, say 10 shillings, and instruments of labour, whose wear and tear 
are inevitable in the spinning—here denoted in brief as spindle 
share—say 2 shillings. Thus, there are 12 shillings’ worth of 
means of production in the product, i.e., inasmuch as 1) the 
product has become an actual use-value, in this case yarn; and 
2) only the socially necessary labour-time was represented in these 
instruments of labour. How much is added to it by the labour of 
spinning? 

Thus, the labour process is here viewed from an altogether 
different angle. In the value of the product the labours of the 
cotton-planter, of the spindle-maker, etc., and of the spinner, are 
commensurable, qualitatively equal parts of general, human, 
necessary value-creating labour, and therefore distinguishable only 
quantitatively, and for that very reason quantitatively comparable by 
the length of time, presupposing that it is socially necessary 
labour-time, for only the latter is value-creating. 

Assumed the value of a day’s labour-power is 3 shillings, and 
that it represents 6 hours of labour, that 12/5 lbs. of yarn are made 
per hour, hence in 6 hours: 10 lbs. of yarn from 10 Ibs. of cotton 
(as above); then 3 shillings of value have been added in 6 hours, 
and the value of the product is 15 shillings (10+2+3 shillings) or a 
shilling and a half per pound of yarn. 

But in this case there is no surplus-value. This is of no use to 
the capitalist. (Vulgar-economic humbug, p. 157.) 

We assumed that the value of a day’s labour-power was 
3 shillings, because '/, working-day, or 6 hours, is incorporated in 
it. But the fact that only '/, working-day is required to maintain the 
worker for 24 hours does not in any way prevent him from working a 
whole day. The value of labour-power and the value it creates are 
two different quantities. Its useful property was only a conditio sine 
qua non; but what was decisive was the specific use-value of 
labour-power in being the source of more exchange-value than it has 
itself. (P. 159.) 

Hence, the labourer works 12 hours, spins 20 Ibs. of cotton 
worth 20 shillings and 4 shillings’ worth of spindles, and his labour 
costs 3 shillings: total—27 shillings. But in the product there are 
embodied: four days’ labour in the shape of spindles and cotton, 
and one day’s labour of the spinner, in all five days at 6 shillings 

totalling 30 shillings’ value of product. We have a surplus-value 
of 3 shillings: money has been converted into capital. (P. 160.) 
All the conditions of the problem are fulfilled. (Details 
p. 160.) 

As a value-creating process, the labour process becomes a process 
of producing surplus-value the moment it is prolonged beyond the 
point where it delivers a simple equivalent for the paid-for value of 
labour-power. 

The value-creating process differs from the simple labour 
process in that the latter is considered qualitatively, the former 
quantitatively, and only to the extent that it comprises socially 
necessary labour-time. (P. 161, details p. 162.) 

As the unity of labour process and value-creating process, the 
production process is the production of commodities; as the unity of 
labour process and the process of producing surplus-value it is the 
process of capitalist production of commodities. (P. 163.) 

Reduction of complex labour to simple labour. (Pp. 163-65.) 

2. CONSTANT AND VARIABLE CAPITAL 

The labour process adds new value to the object of labour, but 
at the same time it transfers the value of the object of labour to the 
product, thus preserving it by merely adding new value. This 
double result is attained in this manner: the specifically useful 
qualitative character of labour converts one use-value into another 
use-value and thus preserves value; the value-creating, abstractly 
general, quantitative character of labour, however, adds value. 
(P. 166.) 

E.g., let the productivity of spinning labour multiply sixfold. As 
useful (qualitative) labour it preserves in the same period of time six 
times as many instruments of labour. But it adds only the same 
new value as before, i.e., in each pound of yarn there is only '/, of 
the new value previously added. As_ value-creating labour it 
accomplishes no more than before. (P. 167.) Conversely, if the 
productivity of spinning labour remains the same, but the value of 
the instruments of labour rises. (P. 168.) 

The instruments of labour transfer to the product only that . 
value which they lose themselves. (P. 169.) This is the case in 
differing degree. Coal, lubricants, etc., are consumed completely, 
raw materials take on a new form. Instruments, machinery, etc., 
transmit value only slowly and by parts, and the wear and tear are 
calculated by experience. (Pp. 169-70.) But the instrument remains 

continually as a whole in the labour process. Therefore, the same 
instrument counts as a whole in the labour process but only partly in 
the process of producing surplus-value, so that the difference between 
the two processes is reflected here in material factors. (P. 171.) 
Conversely, the raw material, which forms waste, enters wholly 
into the process of producing surplus-value, and only [partly] into 
the labour process, since it appears in the product minus the 
waste. (P. 171.) 

But in no case can an instrument of labour transfer more 
exchange-value than it possessed itself—in the labour process it 
acts only as a use-value and hence can give only the exchange- 
value that it possessed previously. (P. 172.) 

This preserving of value is very advantageous to the capitalist 
but costs him nothing. (Pp. 173, 174.) 

Yet the preserved value only reappears, it was already present, 
and only the labour process adds new value. That is, in capitalist 
production, surplus-value, the excess of the product’s value over the value 
of the consumed elements of the product (means of production and 
labour-power). (Pp. 175, 176.) 

Herewith have been described the forms of existence which the 
original capital value takes on in dropping its money-form, in 
being converted into factors of the labour process: (1) in the 
purchase of instruments of labour; (2) in the purchase of 
labour-power. 

The capital invested in instruments of labour does not therefore 
alter the magnitude of its value in the production process. We call 
it constant capital. 

The portion invested in labour-power does change its value; it 
produces: 1) its own value, and 2) surplus-value—it is variable 
capital. (P. 176.) 

(Capital is constant only in relation to the production process 
specifically given, in which it does not change; it can consist 
sometimes of more, sometimes of fewer instruments of labour, 
and the purchased instruments of labour may rise or fall in value, 
but that does not affect their relationship to the production 
process. P. 177. Likewise, the percentage in which a given capital 
is subdivided into constant and variable capital may change, but 
in any given case the c¢ remains constant and: the v _ variable. 

P. 178.) 

3. THE RATE OF SURPLUS-VALUE 

c U 

C=£500=410+90. At the end of the labour process in which v 

c S 
is turned into labour-power we get 410+90+90=590. Let us 
assume c consists of 312 raw material, 44 auxiliary material, and 
54 wear and tear of machinery, in all 410. Let the value of all the 
machinery be 1,054. If this were entered as a whole, we would get 
1,410 for c on both sides of our calculation; the surplus-value 
would remain 90 as before. (P. 179.) 

Since the value of c merely re-appears in the product, the value 
of the product we get differs from the value created in the process; 
the latter, therefore, equals not c+v+s, but v+s. Hence the 
magnitude of c is immaterial to the process of producing 
surplus-value, i.e., c=o. (P. 180.) This also takes place in practice 
in commercial accounting, e.g., in calculating a country’s profit 
from its industry, imported raw material is deducted. 
(P. 181.) Cf. Vol. HI'* for the ratio of surplus-value to total 
capital. 

Hence: the rate of surplus-value is s:v, in the above case 
90:90= 100%. 

The labour-time during which the labourer reproduces the 
value of his labour-power— under capitalist or other conditions—is 
the necessary labour;what goes beyond that,producing surplus-value 
for the capitalist, surplus-labour. (Pp. 183, 184.) Surplus-value is 
congealed surplus-labour, and only the form of extorting it 
differentiates the various social formations. 

Examples of the incorrectness of including c, pp. 185-96. 
(Senior.)* 

The sum of the necessary labour and the surplus-labour equals 
the working day. 

4. THE WORKING DAY 

The necessary labour-time is given. The surpluslabour is variable, 
but within certain limits. It can never be reduced to nil, since then _ 
capitalist production ceases. It can never go as high as 24 hours 
for physical reasons, and, moreover, the maximum limit is always 
affected by moral grounds as well. But these limits are very elastic. 
The economic demand is that the working-day should be no 

longer than for normal wear and tear of the worker. But what is 
normal? An antinomy results and only force can decide. Hence the 
struggle between the working class and the capitalist class for the 
normal working day. (Pp. 198-202.) 

Surplus-labour in earlier social epochs. As long as the exchange- 
value is not more important than the use-value, surplus-labour is 
milder, e.g., among the ancients; only where direct exchange- 
value—gold and silver—was produced, surplus-labour was térri- 
ble. (P. 203.) Likewise in the slave states of America until the mass 
production of cotton for export. Likewise corvée labour, e.g., in 
Romania. 

Corvée labour is the best means of comparison with capitalist 
exploitation, because the former fixes and shows the surplus- 
labour as a specific labour-time to be performed— Réglement 
organique’ of Wallachia. (Pp. 204-06.) 

The English Factory Acts are negative expression of the greed 
for surplus-labour, just as the foregoing was its positive expres- 
sion. 

The Facrory Acts. That of 1850—(p. 207). 10", hours and 7'/, 
on Saturdays=60 hours per week. Millowners’ profit through 
evasion. (Pp. 208-11.) 

Exploitation in unrestricted or only later restricted branches: lace 
industry (p. 212), potteries (p. 213), lucifer matches (p. 215), 
wall-paper (pp. 215-17), baking (pp. 217-22), railway employees 
(p. 223), seamstresses (pp. 223-25), blacksmiths (p. 226), day and 
night workers 1n shifts: (a) metallurgy and the metal industry 
(pp. 227-36). 

These facts prove that capital regards the labourer as nothing 
else than labour-power, all of whose time is labour-time as far as this 
is at all possible at a given moment, and that the length of life of 
labour-power is immaterial to the capitalist. (Pp. 236-38.) But is 
this not against the interests of the capitalist? What about the 
replacement of what is rapidly worn out? The organised slave 
trade in the interior of the United States has raised the rapid 
wearing out of slaves to an economic principle, exactly like the 
supply of labourers from the rural districts in Europe, etc. 

(P. 239.) Poornouse suppty. (P. 240.) The capitalist sees only the 
' continuously available surplus-population and wears it out. 
Whether the race perishes— apres moi le déluge.* Capital 1s reckless of 
the health and length of life of the labourer, unless it is forced by society to 

show consideration ... and free competition makes the inherent laws of 
capitalist production hold good as external coercive laws for every 
individual capitalist. (P. 243.) 

Establishment of a normal working day—the result of centuries of 
struggle between capitalist and worker. 

At the beginning laws were made to raise working-time; now to 
lower it. (P. 244.) The first Srarute or Lasovurers, 23rd Edward III, 
1349, was passed under the pretext that the plague had so 
decimated the population that everyone had to do more work. 
Hence maximum wages and limit of the working day were fixed 
by law. In 1496, under Henry VII, the working day of agricultural 
labourers and all arriricers continued from 5 a.m. to between 
7 and 8 p.m. in summer— March to September, with 1 hour, 1'/s 
hours and '/, hour, in all 3 hours’ break. In winter it was from 
5 a.m. to dark. This statute was never strictly enforced. In the 
18th century the whole week’s labour was not yet available to 
capital (with the exception of agricultural labour). Cf. controversies 
of that time. (Pp. 248-51.) Only with modern large-scale industry 
was this, and more, achieved; it broke down all bounds and 
exploited the workers most shamelessly. The proletariat resisted as 
soon as it recovered consciousness. The five acts of 1802-33 were 
only nominal, since there were no inspectors. Only the Act of 1833 
created a normal working day in the four textile industries: from 
5.30 a.m. to 8.30 p.m., during which time younc persons from 13 to 
18 years of age could be employed only 12 hours with 1'/, hours’ 
pause, children from 9 to 13 years of age only 8 hours, while 
night work of children and younc persons was_ prohibited. 
(Pp. 253-55.) 

The relay system and its abuse for purposes of evasion. (P. 256.) 
Finally, the Act of 1844 which put women of all ages on the same 
basis as younc persons. Children limited to 6'/. hours; the relay 
system curbed. On the other hand, children permitted from 
8 years on. At last in 1847 the ten-hour bill forced through for 
women and younc persons. (P. 259.) The capitalists’ efforts against it. 
(Pp. 260-68.) A rraw in the Act of 1847 led to the compromise Act 
of 1850 (p. 269), which fixed the working day for young persons and 
women—5 days of 10'/,, 1 day of 7'/,=60 hours per week, and 
that between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. Otherwise the Act of 1847 in force 
for children. The exception for the silk industry. (P. 270.) In 1853 
the working-time for children also limited to between 6 a.m. and 
6 p.m. (P. 272.) 

Printworss Acr in 1845 limits almost nothing—children and 
women can work 16 hours! 

Bleaching and dyeing works 1860. Lace factories 1861; potteries 
and many other branches 1863 (under the Factory Act, special acts 
passed the same year for bleaching in the open air and baking). 

(P. 274.) 
_ Large-scale industry thus at first creates the need for limiting 
working-time, but it is later found that the same overwork 
has gradually taken possession of all other branches as well. 
(P. 277.) 

History further shows that the individual “free” labourer is 
defenceless against the capitalist and succumbs, especially with the 
introduction of women’s and children’s labour, so that it is here 
that the class struggle develops between the workers and the 
capitalists. (P. 277.) 

In France, the twelve-hour day law for all ages and branches of 
work was passed only in 1848. (Cf., however, p. 253, footnote on 
the French child labour law of 1841, which was really enforced 
only in 1853, and then only in the Département du Nord.) Complete 
“freedom of labour” in Belgium. one eight-hour movement in 
America. (P. 279.). 

Thus, the labourer comes out of the production process quite 
different than he entered. The labour contract was not the act of a 
free agent; the time for which he is free to sell his labour[-power] is 
the time for which he is forced to sell it, and only the mass 
opposition of the workers wins for them the passing of a law that 
shall prevent the workers from selling, by voluntary contract with 
capital, themselves and their generation into slavery and death. In 
place of the pompous catalogue of the inalienable rights of man 
comes the modest Magna Charta of the Factory Act. (Pp. 280, 
281.) 

5. RATE AND MASS OF SURPLUS-VALUE 

. With the rate, the mass is also given. If the daily value of one 
labour-power is 3 shillings, and the rate of surplus-value is 100 per 
cent, its daily mass=3 shillings for one labourer. 

I. Since the variable capital is the money expression of the value 
of all the labour-powers simultaneously employed by one capital- 
ist, the mass of the surplus-value produced by them is equal to the 
variable capital multiplied by the rate of surplus-value. Both 
factors can vary, different combinations thus arising. The mass of 
surplus-value can grow, ¢ven with decreasing variable capital, if 
the rate rises, that is, if the working day is Si (P.. 282.) 

II. This increase in the rate of surplus-value has its absolute limit 
in that the working day can never be prolonged to the full 
24 hours; hence the total value of one worker’s daily production 
can never equal the value of 24 working hours. Thus, in order to 
obtain the same mass of surplus-value, variable capital can be 
replaced by increased exploitation of labour only within these limits. 
This is important for the explanation of various phenomena 
arising from the contradictory tendency of capital: (1) to reduce 
the variable capital and the number of workers employed; and (2) 
to produce the greatest possible mass of surplus-value nonetheless. 
(Pp. 283, 284.) 

III. The masses of value and surplus-value produced by 
different capitals, with the given value and equally high degree of 
exploitation of labour-power, are related directly as the magnitudes of the 
variable components of these capitals. (P. 285.) This seems to contradict 
all facts. 

For a given society and a given working day, surplus-value can 
be increased only by increasing the number of workers, i.e., the 
population; with a given number of workers, only by lengthening 
the working day. This is important, however, only for absolute 
surplus-value. 

It now turns out that not every sum of money can be 
transformed into capital—that a minimum exists: the cost price of 
a single labour-power and of the necessary instruments of labour. 
In order to be able to live himself like a worker, the capitalist 
would have to have two workers, with a rate of surplus-value of 50 
per cent, and yet save nothing. Even with eight he is still a small 
master. Hence, in the Middle Ages people were forcibly hampered 
in transformation from craftsmen into capitalists by limitation of 
the number of journeymen to be employed by one master. The 
minimum of wealth required to form a real capitalist varies in 
different periods and branches of business. (P. 288.) 

Capital has evolved into command over labour, and sees to it that 
work is done regularly and intensively. Moreover, it compels the 
workers to do more work than is necessary for their sustenance; 
and in pumping out surplus-value it surpasses all earlier produc- 
tion systems based upon direct compulsory labour. 

Capital took over labour with the given technical conditions, and 
at first does not change them. Hence, with the production process 
considered as a labour process, the worker stands in relation to the 
means of production not as to capital, but as to the means of his 
own appropriate activity. But, considered as a process of creating 
surplus-value, otherwise. The means of production become means. 

of absorbing the labour of others. It is no longer the worker who employs 
the means of production, but the means of production that employ the 
worker. (P. 289.) Instead of being consumed by him ... they consume 
him as the leaven necessary to their own life-process, and the 
life-process of capital consists only in its movement as value 
constantly multiplying itself.... The simple transformation of money 
into means of production transforms the latter into a right by law and 
a right by coercion to the labour and surplus-labour of others. 

Chapter IV