The Chapter on Capital (continuation)

Confusion of profit and surplus value. Carey’s erroneous calculation. – The capitalist, who does not pay the worker for the preservation of the old value, then demands remuneration for giving the worker permission to preserve the old capital. – Surplus value and profit etc. – Difference between consumption of the instrument and of wages. The former consumed in the production process, the latter outside it. – Increase of surplus value and decrease in rate of profit. (Bastiat)

This highly irksome calculation will not delay us further. The point is simply this: if, as in our first example, material and instrument amount to 3/5 (60 out of 100), and wages 2/5 (40), and if the capital yielded a gain of 40%, then it equals 140 at the end (this 40% gain equal to the fact that the capitalist made the workers put out 12 hours of labour, where 6 were necessary, hence gained 100% on the necessary labour time). Now if the 40 thalers which were gained go to work again as capital with the same presuppositions – and at the present point, the presuppositions have not changed yet – then of the 40 thalers 3/5 i.e. 24 thalers have to be used for material and instrument, and 2/5 for labour; so that the only thing that doubles is the wage of 16 which becomes 32, 16 for reproduction, 16 surplus labour; so that altogether at the end of production 40 + 16 = 56 or 40%. Thus the entire capital of 40 would have produced 196 under the same conditions. It should not be assumed, as happens in most of the economics books, that the 40 thalers are spent purely for wages, to buy living labour, and thus yield 80 thalers at the end of production.

<If it is said: a capital of 100 yields 10% in one period, 5% in another, then nothing is more mistaken than to conclude, as do Carey and consorts, that the share of capital in production was 1/10 and that of labour 9/10 in the first case; in the second case, the share of capital only 1/20 and that of labour 19/20; i.e. that the share of labour rises as the rate of profit falls. [1] From the viewpoint of capital – and capital has no awareness whatever of the nature of its process of realization, and has an interest in having an awareness of it only in times of crisis – a profit of 10% on a capital of 100 looks like a profit on each of its value components – material, instrument, wages – equally and indifferently, as if this capital were simply a sum of 100 thalers of value which had, as such, increased by 10%. But the question is, in fact: (1) what was the relation between the component parts of capital and (2) how much surplus labour did it buy with the wage – with the hours of labour objectified in the wage? If I know the total size of a capital, the relation of its value components to one another (in practice, I would also have to know what part of the instrument of production is used up in the process, i.e. actually enters into it), and if I know the profit, then I know how much surplus labour has been created. If 3/5 of the capital consisted of material (which for the sake of convenience we here suppose to be entirely consumed productively as material of production), i.e. 60 thalers, and wages 40, and if the profit on the 100 thalers is 10, then the labour bought for 40 thalers of objectified labour time has created 50 thalers of objectified labour in the production process, hence has worked a surplus labour time or created a surplus value of 25% = 1/4 of the necessary labour time. Then if the worker works a day of 12 hours, he has worked 3 hours of surplus time, and the labour time necessary to maintain him alive for one day was 9 hours of labour. The new value created in production may only be 10 thalers, but, according to the real rate, these 10 thalers are to be reckoned on the base of the 40, not of the 100. The 60 thalers of value have created no value whatever; the working day has. Thus the worker has increased the part of capital spent for labour capacity by 25%, not by 10%. The total capital has grown by 10%. 10 is 25% of 40; it is only 10% of 100. Thus the profit rate on capital in no way expresses the rate at which living labour increases objective labour; for this increase is merely = to the surplus with which the worker reproduces his wage, i.e. = to the time which he works over and above that which he would have to work in order to reproduce his wages. If the worker in the above example were not a worker for a capitalist, and if he related to the use values contained in the 100 thalers not as to capital but simply as to the objective conditions of his labour, then, before beginning the production process anew, he would possess 40 thalers in subsistence, which he would consume during the working day, and 60 thalers in instrument and material. He would work only 3/4 of a day, 9 hours, and at the end of the day his product would be not 110 thalers but 100, which he would again exchange in the above proportions, beginning the process again and again. But he would also work 3 hours less; i.e. he would save 25% surplus labour = 25% surplus value out of the exchange which he undertakes between 40 thalers in subsistence and his labour time; and if at some time he worked 3 hours extra, because the material and the instrument were there on hand, then it would not occur to him to say that he had created a new value of 10%, but rather one of 25%, because he could buy one fourth additional subsistence, 50 thalers’ worth instead of 40; and, since he is concerned with use values, these items of subsistence by themselves would be of value for him. This illusion that the new value is derived not from the exchange of 9 hours of labour time as objectified in 40 thalers for 12 hours of living labour, i.e. a surplus value of 25% on this part, but that it comes from an even 10% increase in the total capital – 10% of 60 is 6 and of 40 is 4 – this illusion is the basis of the notorious Dr Price’s compound interest calculation, [2] which led the heaven-born Pitt to his sinking fund idiocy. [3] The identity of surplus gain with surplus labour time – absolute and relative – sets a qualitative limit on the accumulation of capital, namely the working day, the amount of time out of 24 hours during which labouring capacity can be active, the degree to which the productive forces are developed, and the population, which expresses the number of simultaneous working days etc. If, on the other side, surplus value is defined merely as interest – i.e. as the relation in which capital increases itself by means of some imaginary sleight of hand, then the limit is merely quantitative, and there is then absolutely no reason why capital cannot every other day convert the interest into capital and thus yield interest on its interest in infinite geometrical progression. Practice has shown the economists that Price’s interest-multiplication is impossible; but they have never discovered the blunder contained in it.

Of the 110 thalers which emerge at the end of production, 60 thalers (material and instrument), in so far as they are values, have remained absolutely unchanged. The worker took nothing away from them and added nothing to them. Of course, from the standpoint of the capitalist, the fact that the worker maintains the value of objectified labour by the very fact of his labour being living labour appears as if the worker still had to pay the capitalist to get permission to enter into the proper relation with the objectified moments, the objective conditions, of labour. Now, as regards the remaining 50 thalers, 40 of them represent not only preservation but actual reproduction, since capital has divested itself of them [von sich entäussert] in the form of wages and the worker has consumed them; 10 thalers represent production above and beyond reproduction, i.e. 1/4 surplus labour (of 3 hours). Only these 50 thalers are a product of the production process. Therefore, if the worker, as is wrongly asserted, divided the product with the capitalist so that the former’s share were 9/10, then he would have to get not 40 thalers (and he has obtained them in advance, in exchange for which he has reproduced them and paid them back in their entirety, as well as maintaining the already existing values for the capitalist free of charge), which is only 8/10 but rather 45, which would leave capital only 5. Then, having begun the production process with 100 thalers, the capitalist would have at the end only 65 thalers as product. But the worker obtains none of the 40 thalers he has reproduced, nor any of the 10 thalers of surplus value. If the 40 thalers which have been reproduced are to serve for the purchase of further living labour, then, as far as the relation is concerned, all that can be said is that an objectified labour of 9 hours (40 thalers) buys living labour for 12 hours (50 thalers) and thus yields a surplus value of 25% of the real product (partly reproduced as wage fund, partly newly produced as surplus value) in the realization process.

Just now the original capital of 100 was: 50 – 10 – 40. [4] Produced surplus gain of 10 thalers (25% surplus time). Altogether 110 thalers.

Now suppose it were: 60 – 20 – 20. The result would be 110 thalers, so says the ordinary economist, and the even more ordinary capitalist says that 10% has been produced in equal proportions by all parts of the capital. Again, 80 thalers of capital would merely be preserved; no change taken place in its value. Only the 20 thalers would have turned into 30; i.e. surplus labour would have increased by 50%, not by 25% as before.

Take the third case: 100: 70 – 20 – 10. Result 110.

Then the invariable value, 90. The new product 20; hence surplus value or surplus time 100%. Here we have three cases in which the profit on the whole capital is always 10, but in the first case the new value created was 25% above the objectified labour spent to buy living labour, in the second case 50%, in the third: 100%.>

The devil take this wrong arithmetic. [5] But never mind. Commençons de nouveau.

In the first case we had:

We continue to presuppose a working day = 12 hours. (We could also assume a growing working day, e.g. x hours before, but now x + b hours, while productive force remains constant; or both factors variable.)

The worker’s necessary labour then amounts to 9 3/5 hours (40 thalers); hence surplus labour 2 2/5 hours (value of 10 thalers). 2 2/5 hours is 1/5 of the working day. The worker’s surplus labour amounts to 1/5 of the day, i.e. = the value of 10 thalers. Now if we look at these 2 2/5 hours as a percentage which capital has gained above the labour time objectified in 9 3/5 hours, then 2 2/5:9 3/5 = 12/5:48/5, i.e. = 12:48 = 1:4. Thus 1/4 of the capital = 25% of it. Likewise, 10 thalers : 40 thalers = 1:4 = 25%. Now, summarizing the whole result: [6]

(It might be said that the instrument of labour, its value, has to be not only replaced but reproduced; since it is in fact used up, consumed in production. This to be looked at under fixed capital. In actuality the value of the instrument is transposed to that of the material; to the extent that it is objectified labour, it only changes its form. If in the above example the value of the material was 50 and that of the instrument 10, then now, with the instrument used up by 5, the value of the material is 55 and that of the instrument 5; if it disappears altogether, then that of the material has reached 60. This is an element of the simple production process. Unlike wages, the instrument has not been consumed outside the production process.)

Now to the second presupposition:

If the worker produces 30 thalers in 12 hours, then in 1 hour 2 2/4 thalers, in 8 hours 20 thalers, in 4 hours 10 thalers. 10 thalers are 50% of 20 thalers; as are 4 hours out of 8 hours; the surplus value = 4 hours, 1/3 of a day, or 10 thalers surplus value.

Thus:

In the first case, like the second, the profit on a total capital of 100 = 10%, but in the first case the real surplus value which capital obtains from the production process is 25%, in the second, 50%.

The conditions presupposed in No. II are in themselves as possible as those in No. I. But brought into connection with one another, those of No. II are absurd. Material and instrument have been raised from 60 to 80, the productivity of labour has fallen from 4 1/6 thalers per hour to 2 3/4 and surplus value increased by 100%. (Suppose, however, that the increased expenditure for wages expresses more working days in the first case, fewer in the second, and then the presupposition is correct.) It is in itself irrelevant that necessary wages, i.e. the value of labour expressed in thalers, have fallen. Whether the value of an hour of labour is expressed in 2 thalers or in 4, in both cases the product of 12 hours of labour is exchanged (in circulation) for 12 hours of labour, and in both cases surplus labour appears as surplus value. The absurdity of the presupposition comes from the fact (1) that we have posited 12 hours as the minimum working time; and hence cannot introduce additional or fewer working days; (2) the more we make capital increase on one side, the more we not only make necessary labour decline, but have also to decrease its value, although the value is the same. In the second case, the price would, rather, have to rise. The fact that the worker can live from less work, i.e. that he produces more in the same number of hours, would have to be shown not in a decrease in the thalers for necessary labour, but in the number of necessary hours. If he gets, as e.g. in the first case, 4 1/6 thalers, but if the use value of this value, which has to be constant in order to express value (not price), had multiplied, then he no longer needs 9 3/5 but only 4 hours for the reproduction of his living labouring capacity, and this would have to express itself in the surplus over the value. But the way we have set up the presuppositions, our ‘invariable value’ is variable, while the 10% are invariable, here a constant addition to reproductive labour, although it expresses different percentage parts of the same. In the first case the invariable value is smaller than in the second case, but the total product of labour is larger; since, if one part of 100 is smaller, the other has to be larger; and, since absolute labour time is fixed at the identical amount, and since further the total product of labour becomes smaller, in proportion as ‘invariable value’ becomes larger, and larger as the latter becomes smaller, we therefore obtain less product (absolutely) from the same labour time in proportion as more capital is employed. Now, this would be quite correct, since, if out of a given sum such as 100 more is spent as ‘invariable value’, less can be spent for labour time, and thus, relative to total capital, less new overall value can be created; but then, if capital is to make a profit, one cannot hold labour time constant, as is done here, or, if one holds it constant, the value of the working hour cannot become smaller, as it does here; which is impossible if ‘invariable value’ becomes larger and surplus value becomes larger; the number of working hours would have to become smaller. But that is what we have assumed in the example. We assume in the first case that 50 thalers are produced in 12 hours of labour; in the second case, only 30 thalers. In the first, we make the worker work 9 3/5 hours; in the second only 6, although he produces less per hour. It’s absurd. But, understood differently, is there not after all something correct in these figures? Does not absolute new value decrease despite an increase in the relative, as soon as relatively more material and instrument than labour is introduced into the component parts of capital? Relative to a given capital, less living labour is employed; hence, even if the excess of this living labour above its costs is greater, and therefore the percentage of wages rises, i.e. the percentage relative to capital actually consumed, then the absolute new value does not necessarily become relatively smaller than in the case of a capital which employs less material and instrument (and this is the main point of the change in invariable value, i.e. value unchanged as value in the production process) and relatively more living labour; precisely because relatively more living labour is employed? An increase in the productive force then corresponds to the increase in the instrument, since the surplus value of the instrument does not keep pace, as in the previous mode of production, with its use value, its productive force, and since any increase in productive force creates more surplus value, although by no means in the same numerical proportion. The increase in the productive forces, which has to express itself in an enlargement of the value of the instrument – the space it takes up in capital expenditure – necessarily brings with it an increase in the material, since more material has to be worked in order to produce more product. (The increase in the productive force can, however, also relate to quality; but if that is given, only to quantity; or to quantity if quality is given; or to both.) Now, although there is less (necessary) labour in relation to surplus labour, and absolutely less living labour in relation to capital, is it not possible for its surplus value to rise, although in relation to the capital as a whole it declines, i.e. the so-called rate of profit declines? Take for example a capital of 100. Let material be 30 at first. 30 for instrument. (Together, invariable value of 60.) Wages 40 (4 working days). Profit 10%. Here profit is 25% on wages and 10% on capital as a whole. Now let material become 40 and instrument 40. Let productivity double, so that only 2 working days necessary = 20. Now posit that the absolute profit be smaller than 10; i.e. the profit on total capital. Is it not possible for profit on labour employed to be more than 25%, i.e. in the given case, more than merely a fourth of 20? In fact, a third of 20 is 6 2/3; i.e. less than 10, but 33 1/3% of labour employed, while in the previous case it was only 25%. In this case, we would end up with only 106 2/3, while in the previous case we would have had 110, but still, with the same capital (100) the surplus labour, surplus gain relative to labour employed, would be greater than in the first case; but since 50% less labour was employed, in absolute terms, than in the first case, while the profit on labour employed was only 8 1/3 more than in the first case, it follows that the absolute quantity which results has to be smaller, and the same applies to the profit on total capital. For 20 × 33 1/3 is smaller than 40 × 25. This whole instance is improbable and cannot count as a general example in economics; for an increase in the instrument and an increase in the material worked are both presupposed, while not only the relative but the absolute number of workers has declined. (Of course, when two factors = a third, one has to grow smaller as the other grows larger.) But an increase in the value of the instrument in relation to capital as a whole, and an increase in the value of the material, all in all presuppose a division of labour, hence at least an absolute increase in the number of workers, if not an increase relative to capital as a whole. However, take the case of the lithographing machine, which everyone can use to make lithographs without special skill; suppose the value of the instrument immediately upon its invention to be greater than that which 4 workers absorbed before these handy things were invented; it now requires only 2 workers (here, as with many instrument-like machines, no further division of labour takes place; instead, the qualitative division disappears); let the instruments originally have a value of only 40, but let 4 working days be necessary (necessary, here, for the capitalist to make a profit). (There are machines, e.g. forced air heating ducts, where labour as such disappears altogether except at a single point; the duct is open at one point, and carries heat to the others; no workers are required at all. This the case generally (see Babbage) [7] with energy transmission, where, previously, energy had to be carried in material form by numbers of workers, here firemen, from one point to another – where the transmission from one room to another, which has now become a physical process, appeared as the labour of numbers of workers.) Now, if he uses this lithographing machine as a source of income, as capital, and not as use value, then the material must necessarily increase, since he can put out more lithographs in the same amount of time, which is precisely where this greater profit comes from. Let this lithographer then employ an instrument to the amount of 40, material 40, 2 working days (20) which [give] him 33 1/3%, i.e. 6 2/3 out of an objectified labour time of 20; then his capital, like the other’s, consists of 100, only yields 6 2/3%, but he gains 33 1/3 on labour employed, while the other gains 10 on capital, but only 25% on labour. The value obtained from labour employed may be smaller, but the profits on the whole capital are greater if the other elements of capital are relatively smaller. Despite this, the business at 6 2/3% on the total capital and 33 1/3% on labour could become more profitable than the earlier one based on 25% on labour and 10% profit on the total capital. Suppose e.g. that grain prices etc. rose so that the maintenance of the worker rose by 25% in value. The 4 working days would now cost the first lithographer 50 instead of 40. His instruments and material would remain the same: 60 thalers. He would then have to lay out a capital of 110. With this capital, his profit on the 50 thalers for 4 working days would be 12 (25%). Hence 12 thalers on 110 (i.e. 9 1/6% on the total capital of 110). The other lithographer: machine 40, material 40; but the 2 working days will cost him 25% more than 20, i.e. 25. He would thus have to lay out 105; his surplus value on labour 33 1/3%, i.e. 1/3, is 8 1/3. He would gain then, 8 1/3 on 105; 13 1/8%. Then suppose a 10 year cycle with 5 bad and 5 good harvests at the above average proportions; then the first lithographer would gain 50 thalers of interest on the second during the first 5 years; in the last 5 45 5/6; altogether 95 5/6 thalers; average interest over the 10 years 9 7/12 thalers. The other capitalist would have gained 31 1/3 in the first 5 years, 65 5/8 in the last; 96 23/24 altogether; a 10-year average of 9 84/120. Since No. II uses up more material at the same price, he sells cheaper. It could be said in reply that he sells dearer because he uses up more instrument; especially because he uses up more of the value of the machine in proportion as he uses up more material; however, it is in practice not true that machines wear out and have to be replaced more rapidly as they work more material. But all this is beside the point. Let the relation between the value of the machine and that of the material be constant in both cases.

This example attains significance only if we assume a smaller capital which employs more labour and less material and machinery, but yields a higher percentage on the total capital; and a larger capital employing more machinery and more material, as many working days in absolute numbers but relatively fewer, and a smaller percentage on the whole, because less on labour, being more productive, division of labour used, etc. It also has to be postulated (which was not done above) that the use value of the machine significantly greater than its value; i.e. that its devaluation in the service of production is not proportional to its increasing effect on production.

Thus, as above, a press (first, hand-operated printing press; second, self-acting printing press).

Capital I, 100, uses 30 in material; 30 for the manual press; 4 working days = 40 thalers; gain 10%; hence 25% on living labour (1/4 surplus time).

Capital II, 200, uses 100 in materials; 60 in press, 4 working days (40 thalers); gain on the 4 working days 13 1/3 thalers = 1 working day and 1/3, compared to only 1 working day in the first case; total sum: 213 1/3. I.e. 6 2/3%, compared to 10% in the first case. Nevertheless, the surplus value on the labour which has been employed is 13 1/3 in this second case, as against 10 in the first; in the first, 4 days create 1 surplus day in 4 working days; in the second, 4 days create 1 1/3 surplus days. But the rate of profit on the total capital is 1/3 or 33 1/3% smaller than in the first; the total amount of the gain is 1/3 greater. Now let us suppose that the 30 and the 100 in material are sheets of book paper, and that the instruments wear out in the same space of time, say 10 years or 1/10 per year. Then No. I has to replace 1/10 of 30 in material, i.e. 3; No. II, 1/10 of 60, i.e. 6. The material does not enter further into annual production (which may be regarded as 4 working days of 3 months each) on either side, see above.

Capital I sells 30 sheets at 30 for materials + 3 for instrument + 50 (objectified labour time) (production time) = 83.

Capital II sells 100 sheets at 100, material, + 6, instrument, + 53 1/3 = 159 1/3.

Capital I sells 30 sheets for 83 thalers, 1 sheet at 83/80 thalers = 2 thalers, 23 silver groschen.

Capital II sells 100 sheets for 159 thalers, 10 silver groschen; 1 sheet at

It is clear then that Capital I is done for, because its selling price is infinitely too high. Now, although in the first case the profit on total capital was 10% and in the second case only 6 2/3%, the first capital only took in 25% on labour time, while the second takes 33 1/3%. With Capital I, necessary labour is greater relative to the total capital; and hence surplus labour, while smaller in absolute terms than with Capital II, shows up as a higher rate of profit on the smaller total capital. 4 working days at 60 are greater than 4 at 160; in the first, 1 working day corresponds to a capital of 15; in the second, 1 working day corresponds to 40. But with the second capital, labour is more productive (which is given both in the greater amount of machinery, hence the greater amount of space that it takes up among the value components of capital; and in the greater amount of material in which a working day, which consists of a greater proportion of surplus time and hence uses more material in the same time, is expressed). It creates more surplus time (relative surplus time, i.e. determined by the development of the force of production). In the first case, surplus time is 1/4, in the second, 1/3. It therefore creates more use values and a higher exchange value in the same amount of time; but the latter not in proportion with the former, since, as we saw, exchange value does not rise in the same numerical proportion as the productivity of labour. The fractional price is therefore smaller than the total production price – i.e. the fractional price multiplied by the amount of fractional prices produced is greater. Now, if we had assumed an absolutely greater number of working days than in No. I, although a relatively smaller number, then the matter would have been even more striking. The profit of the larger capital, working with more machinery, therefore appears smaller than that of the smaller capital working with relatively or absolutely more living labour, precisely because the higher profit on living labour appears as smaller, when calculated on the basis of a total capital in which living labour makes up a lesser proportion of the whole, than the lower profit on living labour which makes up a larger proportion of the smaller total capital. But the fact that No. II can employ more material, and that a larger proportion of the total value is in the instrument, is only the expression of the productivity of labour.

This, then, is the unfortunate Bastiat’s famous riddle; he had firmly convinced himself – to which Mr Proudhon had no answer – that because the rate of profit of the larger and more productive total capital is smaller, it follows that the worker’s share has grown larger, whereas precisely the opposite is the case; his surplus labour has grown larger. [8]

Nor does Ricardo seem to have understood the matter, for otherwise he would not have tried to explain the periodic decline of profit merely by the rise in wages caused by the rise in grain prices (and hence of rent). [9] But at bottom, surplus value – in so far as it is indeed the foundation of profit, but still distinct from profit commonly so-called – has never been developed. The unfortunate Bastiat would have said in the above case that in the first example the profit was 10% (i.e. 1/10), in the second only 6 1/4%, i.e. 1/16 (leaving out the percentage), so that the worker receives 9/10 in the first case, 15/16 in the second. The relation is correct in neither of the two cases, nor is their relation to one another correct. Now, as far as the further relation of the new value of capital to capital as indifferent total value is concerned (and this is how capital as such appeared to us at the beginning, before we moved on into the production process, and it must again appear to us in this way at the end of the process), this is to be developed partly under the rubric of profit, where the new value obtains a new character, and partly under the heading of accumulation. We are here initially concerned only with developing the nature of surplus value as the equivalent of the absolute or relative labour time mobilized by capital above and beyond necessary labour time.

The consumption, in the production process, of the element of value consisting of the instrument cannot in the least [serve to] distinguish the instrument of labour from the material – here, where all that is to be explained is the creation of surplus value, self realization. This is because this consumption is part of the simple production process itself, hence the value of the consumed instrument (whether it be the simple use value of the instrument itself or the exchange value, if production has already progressed to where there is a division of labour and where at least the surplus is exchanged) has to be recovered again in the value (exchange value) or the use value of the product – so that the process can begin anew. The instrument loses its use value in the same proportion as it helps to raise the exchange value of the raw material and serves as a means of labour. This point must, indeed, be examined, because the distinction between the invariable value, the part of capital which is preserved; that which is reproduced (reproduced for capital; from the standpoint of the real production of labour – produced); and that which is newly produced, is of essential importance.

Multiplication of simultaneous working days. (Accumulation of capital.) – Growth of the constant part of capital in relation to the variable part spent on wages = growth of the productivity of labour. – Proportion in which capital has to increase in order to employ the same number of workers if productivity rises

It is now time to finish with the question of the value resulting from the growth of the productive forces. We have seen: this creates a surplus value (not merely a greater use value) just as in the case of an absolute increase in surplus labour. If a certain limit is given, say e.g. that the worker needs only half a day in order to produce his subsistence for a whole day – and if the natural limit has been reached – then an increase of absolute labour time is possible only if more workers are employed at the same time, so that the real working day is simultaneously multiplied instead of only lengthened (in the given conditions, the individual worker can work no more than 12 hours; if a surplus time of 24 hours is to be gained, then there have to be 2 workers). Capital in this case, before entering the self-realization process, has to buy 6 additional hours of labour in the act of exchange with the worker, i.e. has to lay out a greater part of itself; at the same time it has to lay out more for material, on the average (beside the fact that the extra worker has to be available, i.e. that the working population has to have grown). Hence the possibility of this further realization process depends here on a previous accumulation of capital (as regards its material existence). If, however, productivity increases, and hence relative surplus time – at the present point we can still regard capital as always directly engaged in the production of subsistence, raw materials etc. – then less expenditure is necessary for wages and the growth in the material is created by the realization process itself. But this question belongs, rather, with the accumulation of capitals.

We now come to the point where we last broke off. [10] An increase in productivity increases the surplus value, although it does not increase the absolute amount of exchange values. It increases values because it creates a new value as value, i.e. a value which is not merely an equivalent destined for exchange, but which asserts itself as such; in a word, more money. The question is: does it ultimately also increase the amount of exchange values? This is, at bottom, admitted; for even Ricardo admits that along with the accumulation of capitals there is an increase in savings, hence a growth in the exchange values produced. The growth of savings means nothing more than the growth of independent values – of money. But Ricardo’s demonstration contradicts his own assertion.

Our old example. 100 thalers capital; 60 thalers in constant value; 40 in wages; produces 80; hence product = 140. * Let these 40 in surplus value be absolute labour time.

* Here we see again that the surplus value on the whole of the capital = to half of the newly produced value, since a half of the latter = to necessary labour. The relation between this surplus value, which is always equal to surplus time, i.e. = to the worker’s total product minus the part which forms his wage, depends (1) on the relation between the constant part of capital and the productive part; (2) between necessary labour time and surplus time. In the above case, the relation of surplus time to necessary time is 100%; gives 40% on a capital of 100; hence (3) it depends further, not only on the relation given above in (2), but also on the absolute magnitude of necessary labour. If, in a capital of 100, the constant part were 80, then the part exchanged for necessary labour would be = 20, and if this created 100% surplus time, the profit on capital would be 20%. But if the capital were 200 with the same relation between the constant and the variable part (i.e. 3/5 to 2/5), then the total would be 280, which is 40 out of 100. In this case the absolute amount of profit would rise from 40 to 80, but the relation would remain at 40%. However, if out of the 200 the constant element were 120 and the quantity of necessary labour 80, but the latter increased by only 10%, i.e. 8, then the total sum would be = 208, i.e. a profit of 4%; if it increased by only 5, then the total 205, i.e. 2 1/2%.

Now suppose that productivity doubles: then, if a wage of 40 gives 8 hours of necessary labour, the worker could now produce a whole day of living labour in 4 hours. Surplus time would then increase by 1/3 (2/3 of a day to produce a whole day before, now 1/3). 2/3 of the product of the working day would be surplus value, and if the hour of necessary labour = 5 thalers (5 × 8 = 40), then he would now need only 5 × 4 = 20 thalers. For capital, then, a surplus gain of 20, i.e. 60 instead of 40. At the end, 140, of which 60 = the constant value, 20 = the wage and 60 = the surplus gain; together, 140. The capitalist can then begin production anew with 80 thalers of capital:

Let capitalist A on the same stage of old production invest his capital of 140 in new production. Following the original proportions, he needs 3/5 for the invariable part of capital, i.e. 3 × 140/5 = 3 × 28 = 84, leaving 56 for necessary labour. Before, he spent 40 on labour, now 56; 2/5 of 40 additionally. Then at the end, his capital = 84 + 56 + 56 = 196.

Capitalist B on the higher stage of production would similarly employ his 140 thalers for new production. If out of a capital of 80 he needs 60 for invariable value and only 20 for labour, then out of a capital of 60 he needs 45 for invariable value and 15 for labour; thus the total would be = 60 + 20 +20 = 100 in the first and, secondly, 45 + 15 + 15 = 75. Thus his total yield is 175, while that of the first = 196. An increase in the productivity of labour means nothing more than that the same capital creates the same value with less labour, or that less labour creates the same product with more capital. That less necessary labour produces more surplus labour. The necessary labour is smaller in relation to capital; for the process of its realization this is obviously the same as: capital is larger in relation to the necessary labour which it sets into motion; for the same capital sets more surplus labour in motion, hence less necessary labour. *

* If it is postulated, as in our case, that the capital remains the same, i.e. that both begin again with 140 thalers, then in the case of the more productive capital, a larger part has to go to capital (i.e. to its invariable part), while with the less productive capital, a larger part to labour. The first capital of 140 thus sets into motion a necessary labour of 56, and this necessary labour presupposes an invariable part of 84 out of the total capital. The second sets labour in the amount of 20 + 15 = 35 into motion, and an invariable capital of 60 + 45 = 105 (it further follows from what was developed earlier that an increase in the force of production does not proportionately increase value). In the first case, as already shown above, the absolute new value is greater than in the second, because the mass of labour employed is greater in relation to the invariable part; while in the second the former is smaller, precisely because labour is more productive. However (1) the difference between the new value of 60 in one case and 40 in the other means that the first cannot begin production anew with the same capital as the second; for a part of the new value on both sides has to enter into circulation as an equivalent so that the capitalist can live, and live from his capital. If both of them eat up 20 thalers then the first begins anew with a capital of 120, the other also with 120 etc. See above. Return to this whole matter again; [11] but the question of the relation between the new value created by the increased force of production and the new value created by absolute increases in labour belongs in the chapter on accumulation and profit.

It is sometimes said about machinery, therefore, that it saves labour; however, as Lauderdale correctly remarked, the mere saving of labour is not the characteristic thing; [12] for, with the help of machinery, human labour performs actions and creates things which without it would be absolutely impossible of accomplishment. The latter concerns the use value of machinery. What is characteristic is the saving of necessary labour and the creating of surplus labour. The higher productivity of labour is expressed in the fact that capital has to buy a smaller amount of necessary labour in order to create the same value and a greater quantity of use values, or that less necessary labour creates the same exchange value, realizes more material and a greater mass of use values. Thus, if the total value of the capital remains the same, an increase in the productive force means that the constant part of capital (consisting of machinery and material) grows relative to the variable, i.e. to the part of capital which is exchanged for living labour and forms the wage fund. This means at the same time that a smaller quantity of labour sets a larger quantity of capital in motion. If the total value of capital entering into the production process increases, then the wage fund (this variable part of capital) must decrease relatively, compared to the relation if the productivity of labour, i.e. the relation of necessary to surplus labour, had remained the same. Now let us assume in the above case that the capital of 100 is agricultural capital. Then, 40 thalers for seeds, fertilizer etc.; 20 thalers instrument of labour, and 40 thalers wage labour, at the old level of production. (Let these 40 thalers = 4 days of necessary labour.) At the old production level, these create a total of 140. Now let fertility double, owing to improvement either in the instrument or in the fertilizer etc. In this case the product has to = 140 thalers (given that the instrument is entirely consumed). Let fertility double, so that the price of the necessary working day falls by half; so that only 4 necessary half days of work (i.e. 2 whole ones) are necessary in order to produce 8. 2 working days to produce 8 is the same as when 1/4 of each working day (3 hours) is required for necessary labour. Now, instead of 40 thalers, the farmer has to spend only 20 for labour. Thus at the end of the process the component parts of capital have changed; from the original 40 for seed etc., which now have double the use value; 20 for instrument and 20 for labour (2 whole working days). Before the relation of the constant part of capital to the variable = 60:40 = 3:2; now 80:20 = 4:1. Looking at the whole capital, necessary labour was = 2/5; now 1/5. Now, if the farmer wants to continue to use labour in the old relation, then by how much would his capital have to increase? Or – in order to avoid the nefarious presupposition that he continued to operate with a constant capital of 60 and a wage fund of 40 – after a doubling of productive force, which introduces false relations; * because it presupposes that, despite the doubled force of production, capital continued to operate with the same component parts, to employ the same quantity of necessary labour without spending more for raw material and instrument of labour; † then, therefore, productivity doubles, so that he now needs to spend only 20 thalers on labour, whereas he needed 40 before. (If it is given that 4 whole working days were necessary, each = 10 thalers, in order to create a surplus of 4 whole working days, and if this surplus is provided for him by the transformation of 40 thalers of cotton into yarn, then he now needs only 2 whole working days in order to create the same value, i.e. that of 8 working days; the value of the yarn expressed a surplus time of 4 working days before, now of 6. Or, each of the workers needed 6 hours of necessary labour time before in order to create 12; now 3. Necessary labour time was 12 × 4 = 48, or 4 days. In each of these days, the surplus time was = 1/2 day (6 hours). It now amounts to only 12 × 2 = 24 or 2 days; 3 hours per day. In order to bring forth the surplus value, each of the 4 workers would have to work 6 × 2 hours; i.e. 1 day; now he needs to work only 3 × 2 hours; i.e. 1/2 day. Now, whether 4 work 1/2 a day or 2 a whole (1) day is the same. The capitalist could dismiss 2 workers. He would even have to dismiss them, since a certain quantity of cotton is only enough to make a certain quantity of yarn; thus he cannot order 4 whole days of work any more, but only 4 half days. But if the worker has to work 12 hours in order to obtain 3 hours, i.e. his necessary wage, then, if he works 6 hours, he will obtain only 1 1/2 hours of exchange value. But if he can live for 12 hours with 3 hours of necessary labour, then with it he can live only 6 hours. Thus if all 4 workers were to be employed, each of the 4 could live only half a day; i.e. the same capital cannot keep all 4 alive as workers, but only 2. The capitalist could pay 4 out of the old fund for 4 half days of work; then he would pay 2 too many and would make the workers a present of the productive force; since he can use only 4 half days of living labour; such ‘possibilities’ neither occur in practice, nor can we deal with them here, where we are concerned with the relation of capital as such.) Now 20 thalers of the capital of 100 are not directly employed in production. The capitalist uses 40 thalers of raw material, 20 for instrument, together 60 as before, but now only 20 thalers for labour (2 working days). Of the whole capital of 80 he uses 3/4 (60) for the constant part and only 1/4 for labour. Then if he employs the remaining 20 in the same way, 3/4 for constant capital, 1/4 for labour; then 15 for the first, 5 for the second. Now since 1 working day = 10 thalers (given), 5 would be only = 6 hours = 1/2 working day. With the new value of 20, gained through productivity, capital could buy only 1/2 a working day more, if it continues to realize itself in the same proportion. It would have to grow threefold (namely, 60) (together with the 20 = 80) in order to employ the 2 dismissed workers for the previous 2 full working days. In the new relation, the capital uses 3/4 in constant capital in order to employ 1/4 as wage fund.

* Although in the case e.g. of the farmer this is quite correct, if the seasons bring a doubling of fertility, and correct for every industrialist if the force of production doubles not in his branch, but in the branch whose output he uses; i.e. if e.g. raw cotton cost 50% less and grain (i.e. wages) and the instrument likewise; he would then continue as before to spend 40 thalers for raw cotton, but in twice the quantity, 20 for machinery, 40 for labour.

† Suppose cotton alone doubled in productivity, the machine remains the same, then – this to be examined further.

Thus if 20 is the whole capital, 3/4 i.e. 15 constant and 1/4 labour (i.e. 5) = 1/2 a working day.

With a whole capital of 4 × 20, hence 4 × 15 = 60 constant, hence 4 × 5 = 20 wages = 4/2 working days = 2 working days.

Therefore, if the productive force of labour doubles, so that a capital of 60 thalers in raw materials and instrument now needs only 20 thalers in labour (2 working days) for its realization, whereas it needed 100 before, then the total capital of 100 would have to grow to 160, or the capital of 80 now being dealt with would have to double in order to retain all the labour put out of work. But the doubling of productive force creates a new capital of only 20 thalers = 1/2 of the labour time employed earlier; and this is only enough to employ 1/2 a working day additionally. Before the doubling of the productive force, the capital was 100 and employed 4 working days (on the supposition that 2/5 = wage fund of 40); now, when the wage fund has fallen to 1/5 of 100, to 20 = 2 working days (but to 1/4 of 80, the capital newly entering into the realization process), it would have to rise to 160, by 60%, in order still to be able to employ 4 working days as before. It can only employ 1/2 a new working day with the 20 thalers drawn from the increase in the productive force, if the whole old capital continues operating. Before, it employed with 100, 16/4 (4 days) working days; it could now employ only 5/4. Therefore, when the force of production doubles, capital does not need to double in order to set the same necessary labour into motion, 4 working days; i.e. it does not need to rise to 200, but needs to rise only by double the whole, minus the part deducted from the wage fund. (100 − 20 = 80) × 2 = 160. (By contrast, the first capital, before the increase in productive force, which divided 100 as 60 constant 40 wages (4 working days), in order to employ two additional days, would need to grow from 100 to only 150; i.e. 3/5 constant capital (30) and 2/5 wage fund (20). If it is given that the working day doubles in both cases, then the second would amount to 250 at the end, the first only 160.) Of the part of capital which is withdrawn from the wage fund owing to the increase in the force of production, one part has to be transformed again into raw material and instrument, another part is exchanged for living labour; this can take place only in the proportions between the different parts which are posited by the new productivity. It can no longer take place in the old proportion, for the relation of the wage fund to the constant fund has decreased. If the capital of 100 first used 2/5 for wage fund (40) and, owing to a doubling of productive force, then used only 1/5 (20), then 1/5 of the capital has become free (20 thalers); and the employed part, 80, uses only 1/4 as wage fund. Thus, of the 20, similarly, only 5 thalers (1/2 working day). The whole capital of 100 therefore now employs 2 1/2 working days; or, it would have to grow to 160 in order to employ 4 again.

If the original capital had been 1,000, divided in the same way: 3/5 constant capital, 2/5 wage fund, then 600 + 400 (let 400 equal 40 working days; each working day = 10 thalers). Now double the productive force of labour, i.e. only 20 working days required for the same product (= 200 thalers), then the capital necessary to begin production anew would be = 800; that is 600 + 200; 200 thalers would have been set free. Employed in the same relation, then 3/4 for constant capital = 150 and 1/4 wages = 50. Thus, if the 1,000 thalers are employed in their entirety, then now 750 constant + 250 wage fund = 1,000 thalers. But 250 wage fund would be = 25 working days (i.e. the new fund can employ labour time only in the new relation, i.e. at 1/4; in order to employ the entire labour time as before, it would have to quadruple). The liberated capital of 200 would employ a wage fund of 50 = 5 working days (1/4 of the liberated labour time). (The part of the labour fund disconnected from capital is itself employed as capital at only 1/4 for labour fund; i.e. precisely in the relation in which that part of the new capital which is labour fund stands to the total sum of the capital.) Thus in order to employ 20 working days (4 × 5 working days), this fund would have to grow from 50 to 4 × 50 = 200; i.e. the liberated part would have to grow from 200 to 600, i.e. triple; so that the entire new capital would amount to 800. Then the total capital, 1,600; of this, 1,200 constant part and 400 labour fund. Thus if a capital of 1,000 originally contained a labour fund of 400 (40 working days), and if, owing to a doubling of productive force, it now needs to employ a labour fund of only 200 in order to buy necessary labour, i.e. only 1/2 of the previous labour; then the capital would have to grow by 600 in order to employ all the previous labour in its entirety (in order to gain the same amount of surplus time). It would have to be able to employ twice the labour fund, i.e. 2 × 200 = 400; but, since the relation of the labour fund to the total capital is now = 1/4, this requires a total capital of 4 × 400 = 1,600. *

* The total capital which would be necessary in order to employ the old labour time is therefore = to the old labour fund multiplied by the denominator of the fraction which now expresses the relation of the labour fund to the new total capital. If the doubling of productive force has reduced the latter to 1/4, then multiplied by 4; if to 1/3, then multiplied by 3. If the productive force has doubled, then necessary labour, and thereby the labour fund, is reduced to 1/2 of its earlier value; but this makes up 1/4 relative to the new total capital of 800 or 1/5 relative to the old total capital of 1,000. Or the new total capital is = 2 × the old capital minus the liberated part of the labour fund; (1,000 − 200) × 2 = 800 × 2 = 1,600. The new total capital expresses the total sum of constant and variable capital required in order to employ half of the old labour time (1/3, 1/4, 1/x, etc, depending on whether the force of production increased 3 ×, 4 ×, x × ); 2 × then the capital required to employ all of it (or 3 ×, 4 ×, etc., depending on the relation in which the productive force has grown). The original relation of the parts of capital must here always be given (technologically); on this depends, e.g., in what ratios the multiplication of productive force expresses itself as a division of necessary labour.

Or, which is the same thing, it is = 2 × the new capital which owing to the new productive force replaces the old in production (800 × 2) (thus if the productive force had quadrupled, quintupled etc. = 4 ×, 5 × the new capital etc. If the force of production has doubled, then necessary labour is reduced to 1/2; likewise the labour fund. Thus if it amounted, as in the above case of the old capital of 1,000, to 400, i.e. 2/5 of the total capital, then, afterwards, 1/5 or 200. This relation, by which it is reduced, is the liberated part of the labour fund = 1/5 of the old capital = 200. 1/5 of the old = 1/4 of the new. The new capital is = to the old + 3/5 of the same. These trivia more closely later etc.)

Given the same original relations between the parts of the capital and the same increase in the productive force, the largeness or smallness of the capital is completely irrelevant for the general theses. Quite another question is whether, when capital grows larger, the relations remain the same (but this belongs under accumulation). But, given this, we see how an increase in the force of production changes the relations between the component parts of capital. If in both cases 3/5 was originally constant and 2/5 labour fund, then doubling the productive force acts in the same way on a capital of 100 as on one of 1,000. (The word labour fund is here used only for convenience’s sake; we have not yet developed capital in this specificity [Bestimmtheit]. So far two parts; the one exchanged for commodities (material and instrument), the other for labour capacity.) (The new capital, i.e. the part of the old capital which represents its function, is = the old minus the liberated part of the labour fund; this liberated part, however, = the fraction which used to express necessary labour (or, same thing, the labour fund) divided by the multiplier of the productive force. Thus, if the old capital = 1,000 and the fraction expressing necessary labour or the labour fund = 2/5, and if the force of production doubles, then the new capital which represents the function of the old = 800, i.e. 2/5 of the old capital = 400; this divided by 2, the multiplier of productive force, = 2/10 = 1/5 = 200. Then the new capital = 800 and the liberated part of the labour fund = 200.)

We have seen that under these conditions a capital of 100 thalers has to grow to 160, and a capital of 1,000 to 1,600, in order to retain the same labour time (of 4 or 40 working days) etc.; both have to grow by 60%, i.e. 3/5 of themselves (of the old capital), in order to be able to re-employ the liberated labour time (in the first case 20 thalers, in the second 200) of 1/5 – the liberated labour fund – as such.

Percentage of total capital can express very different relations. – Capital (like property) rests on productivity of labour

<Notabene. We saw above that identical percentages of the total capital can express very different relations in which capital creates its surplus value, i.e. posits surplus labour, relative or absolute. [13] If the relation between the invariable value-part of capital and the variable part (that exchanged for labour) such that the latter = 1/2 the total capital (i.e. capital 100 = 50 (constant) + 50 (variable), then the part exchanged for labour would have to increase by only 50% in order to yield 25% on the capital; i.e. 50 + 50 (+ 25) = 125; while in the above example 75 + 25 (+ 25) = 125; i.e. the part exchanged for living labour increases by 100% in order to yield 25% on the capital. Here we see that, if the relations remain the same, the same percentage on the total capital holds no matter how big or small it may be; i.e. if the relation of the labour fund to the total capital remains the same; thus, above, 1/4. Thus: 100 yields 125, 80 yields 100, 1,000 yields 1,250, 800 yields 1,000, 1,600 yields 2,000 etc., always = 25%. If capitals whose component parts are in different relations, including therefore their forces of production, nevertheless yield the same percentages on total capital, then the real surplus value has to be very different in the different branches.>

<Thus the example is correct, the productive force compared under the same conditions with the same capital before the rise in productive force. Let a capital of 100 employ constant value 50, labour fund = 50. Let the fund increase by 50%, i.e. 1/2; then the total product = 125. Let the labour fund of 50 thalers employ 10 working days, pay 5 thalers per day. Since the new value is 1/2, the surplus time has to be = 5 working days; i.e. the worker who needed to work only 10 working days in order to live for 15 has to work 15 for the capitalist in order to live for 15; and his surplus labour of 5 days constitutes capital’s surplus value. Expressed in hours, if the work day = 12 hours, then surplus labour = 6 per day. Thus in 10 days or 120 hours, the worker works 60 hours = 5 days too many. But now with the doubling of productivity, relations within the 100 thalers would be 75 and 25, i.e. the same capital now needs to employ only 5 workers in order to create the same value of 125; the 5 working days then = 10; doubled; i.e. 5 working days are paid, 10 produced. The worker would need to work only 5 days in order to live 10 (before the increase in productive force he had to work 10 to live 15; thus, if he worked 5, he could live only 7 1/2); but he has to work 10 for the capitalist in order to live 10; the latter thus makes a profit of 5 days; 1 day per day; or, expressed in days, the worker had to work 1/2 to live 1 before (i.e. 6 hours to live 12); now he needs to work only 1/4 to live 1 (i.e. 3 hours). If he worked a whole day, he could live 2; if he worked 12 hours, 24; if he worked 6, 12 hours. But he now has to work 12 hours to live 12. He would need to work only 1/2 in order to live 1; but he has to work 2 × 1/2 = 1 to live 1. In the old state of the productive force, he had to work 10 days to live 15; or 12 hours to live 18; or 1 hour to live 1 1/2, or 8 hours to live 12, i.e. 2/3 of a day to live 3/3. But he has to work 3/3 to live 2/3, i.e. 1/3 too much. The doubling of the productive force increases the relation of surplus time from 1:1 1/2 (i.e. 50%) to 1:2 (i.e. 100%). In the earlier labour time relation: he needed 8 to live 12, i.e. 2/ 3 of the whole day was necessary labour; he now needs only 1/2, i.e. 6, to live 12. That is why capital now employs 5 workers instead of 10. If the 10 (cost 50) produced 75 before, then now the 25, 50: i.e. the former only 50%, the second 100. The workers work 12 hours as before; but in the first case capital bought 10 working days, now merely 5; because the force of production doubled, the 5 produce 5 days of surplus labour; because in the first case 10 working days yielded only 5 days of surplus labour; now, with the force of production doubled, i.e. risen from 50% to 100% – 5, 5; in the first case 120 working hours (= 10 working days) produce 180; in the second, 60, 60; i.e. in the first case, the surplus time is 1/3 of the whole day (50% of necessary labour) (i.e. 4 hours out of 12; necessary time 8); in the second case surplus time is 1/2 the whole day (100% of necessary labour) (i.e. 6 hours out of 12; necessary time 6); hence the 10 days yielded 5 days of surplus time (surplus labour) in the first case, and in the second the 5 yield 5. Thus relative surplus time has doubled; relative to the first relation it grew by only 1/2 compared to 1/3; i.e. by 16 4/6%.>

Since surplus labour, or surplus time, is the presupposition of capital, it therefore also rests on the fundamental presupposition that there exists a surplus above the labour time necessary for the maintenance and reproduction of the individual; that the individual e.g. needs to work only 6 hours in order to live one day, or 1 day in order to live 2 etc. With the development of the forces of production, necessary labour time decreases and surplus labour time thereby increases. Or, as well, that one individual can work for 2 etc. (‘Wealth is disposable time and nothing more. … If the whole labour of a country were sufficient only to raise the support of the whole population, there would be no surplus labour, consequently nothing that can be allowed to accumulate as capital . . . Truly wealthy a nation, if there is no interest or if the working day is 6 hours rather than 12 … Whatever may be due to the capitalist, he can only receive the surplus labour of the labourer; for the labourer must live.’ (The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties.) [14]

‘Property. Origin in the productivity of labour. If one can produce only enough for one, everyone worker; there can be no property. When one man’s labour can maintain five, there will be four idle men for one employed in production. Property grows from the improvement in the mode of production … The growth of the property, this greater ability to maintain idle men and unproductive industry = capital … machinery itself can seldom be applied with success to abridge the labours of an individual: more time would be lost in its construction than could be saved by its application. It is only really useful when it acts on great masses, when a single machine can assist the labours of thousands. It is accordingly in the most populous countries where there are most idle men that it is always most abundant. It is not called into action by scarcity of men, but by the facility with which they are brought together … Not 1/4 of the English population provides everything that is consumed by all. Under William the Conqueror for example the amount of those directly participating in production much greater relative to the idle men.’ (Ravenstone, IX, 32.) [15]

Just as capital on one side creates surplus labour, surplus labour is at the same time equally the presupposition of the existence of capital. The whole development of wealth rests on the creation of disposable time. The relation of necessary labour time to the superfluous (such it is, initially, from the standpoint of necessary labour) changes with the different stages in the development of the productive forces. In the less productive [16] stages of exchange, people exchange nothing more than their superfluous labour time; this is the measure of their exchange, which therefore extends only to superfluous products. In production resting on capital, the existence of necessary labour time is conditional on the creation of superfluous labour time. In the lowest stages of production, firstly, few human needs have yet been produced, and thus few to be satisfied. Necessary labour is therefore restricted, not because labour is productive, but because it is not very necessary; and secondly, in all stages of production there is a certain common quality [Gemeinsamkeit] of labour, social character of the same, etc. The force of social production develops later etc. (Return to this.) [17]

Increase of surplus labour time. Increase of simultaneous working days (Population). (Population can increase in proportion as necessary labour time becomes smaller, i.e. the time required to produce living labour capacities decreases.) – Surplus capital and surplus population. – Creation of free time for society

Surplus time is the excess of the working day above that part of it which we call necessary labour time; it exists secondly as the multiplication of simultaneous working days, i.e. of the labouring population. (It can also be created – but this is mentioned here only in passing, belongs in the chapter on wage labour – by means of forcible prolongation of the working day beyond its natural limits; by the addition of women and children to the labouring population.) The first relation, that of the surplus time and the necessary time in the day, can be and is modified by the development of the productive forces, so that necessary labour is restricted to a constantly smaller fractional part. The same thing then holds relatively for the population. A labouring population of, say, 6 million can be regarded as one working day of 6 × 12, i.e. 72 million hours: so that the same laws applicable here.

It is a law of capital, as we saw, to create surplus labour, disposable time; it can do this only by setting necessary labour in motion – i.e. entering into exchange with the worker. It is its tendency, therefore, to create as much labour as possible; just as it is equally its tendency to reduce necessary labour to a minimum. It is therefore equally a tendency of capital to increase the labouring population, as well as constantly to posit a part of it as surplus population – population which is useless until such time as capital can utilize it. (Hence the correctness of the theory of surplus population and surplus capital.) It is equally a tendency of capital to make human labour (relatively) superfluous, so as to drive it, as human labour, towards infinity. Value is nothing but objectified labour, and surplus value (realization of capital) is only the excess above that part of objectified labour which is necessary for the reproduction of labouring capacity. But labour as such is and remains the presupposition, and surplus labour exists only in relation with the necessary, hence only in so far as the latter exists. Capital must therefore constantly posit necessary labour in order to posit surplus labour; it has to multiply it (namely the simultaneous working days) in order to multiply the surplus; but at the same time it must suspend them as necessary, in order to posit them as surplus labour. As regards the single working day, the process is of course simple: (1) to lengthen it up to the limits of natural possibility; (2) to shorten the necessary part of it more and more (i.e. to increase the productive forces without limit). But the working day, regarded spatially – time itself regarded as space – is many working days alongside one another. The more working days capital can enter into exchange with at once, during which it exchanges objectified for living labour, the greater its realization at once. It can leap over the natural limit formed by one individual’s living, working day, at a given stage in the development of the forces of production (and it does not in itself change anything that this stage is changing) only by positing another working day alongside the first at the same time – by the spatial addition of more simultaneous working days. E.g. I can drive the surplus labour of A no higher than 3 hours; but if I add the days of B, C, D etc., then it becomes 12 hours. In place of a surplus time of 3, I have created one of 12. This is why capital solicits the increase of population; and the very process by means of which necessary labour is reduced makes it possible to put new necessary labour (and hence surplus labour) to work. (I.e. the production of workers becomes cheaper, more workers can be produced in the same time, in proportion as necessary labour time becomes smaller or the time required for the production of living labour capacity becomes relatively smaller. These are identical statements.) (This still without regard to the fact that the increase in population increases the productive force of labour, since it makes possible a greater division and combination of labour etc. The increase of population is a natural force of labour, for which nothing is paid. From this standpoint, we use the term natural force to refer to the social force. All natural forces of social labour are themselves historical products.) It is, on the other side, a tendency of capital – just as in the case of the single working day – to reduce the many simultaneous necessary working days (which, as regards their value, can be taken as one working day) to the minimum, i.e. to posit as many as possible of them as not necessary. Just as in the previous case of the single working day it was a tendency of capital to reduce the necessary working hours, so now the necessary working days are reduced in relation to the total amount of objectified labour time. (If 6 are necessary to produce 12 superfluous working hours, then capital works towards the reduction of these 6 to 4. Or 6 working days can be regarded as one working day of 72 hours; if necessary labour time is reduced by 24 hours, then two days of necessary labour fall away – i.e. 2 workers.) At the same time, the newly created surplus capital can be realized as such only by being again exchanged for living labour. Hence the tendency of capital simultaneously to increase the labouring population as well as to reduce constantly its necessary part (constantly to posit a part of it as reserve). And the increase of population itself the chief means for reducing the necessary part. At bottom this is only an application of the relation of the single working day. Here already lie, then, all the contradictions which modern population theory expresses as such, but does not grasp. Capital, as the positing of surplus labour, is equally and in the same moment the positing and the not-positing of necessary labour; it exists only in so far as necessary labour both exists and does not exist. *

If the relation of the necessary working days to the total number of objectified working days was = 9:12 (hence surplus labour = 1/4), then the striving of capital is to reduce it to 6:9 (i.e. 2/3, hence surplus labour = 1/3). (Develop this more closely later; still, the major basic traits here, where we are dealing with the general concept of capital.)

* It does not belong here, but can already be recalled here, that the creation of surplus labour on the one side corresponds to the creation of minus-labour, relative idleness (or not-productive labour at best), on the other. This goes without saying as regards capital itself; but holds then also for the classes with which it shares; hence of the paupers, flunkeys, lickspittles etc. living from the surplus product, in short, the whole train of retainers; the part of the servant [dienenden] class which lives not from capital but from revenue. Essential difference between this servant class and the working class. In relation to the whole of society, the creation of disposable time is then also creation of time for the production of science, art etc. The course of social development is by no means that because one individual has satisfied his need he then proceeds to create a superfluity for himself; but rather because one individual or class of individuals is forced to work more than required for the satisfaction of its need – because surplus labour is on one side, therefore not-labour and surplus wealth are posited on the other. In reality the development of wealth exists only in these opposites [Gegensätze]: in potentiality, its development is the possibility of the suspension of these opposites. [18] Or because an individual can satisfy his own need only by simultaneously satisfying the need of and providing a surplus above that for another individual. This brutal under slavery. Only under the conditions of wage labour does it lead to industry, industrial labour. – Malthus therefore quite consistent when, along with surplus labour and surplus capital, he raises the demand for surplus idlers, consuming without producing, or the necessity of waste, luxury, lavish spending etc.