First presupposition with him, competition without restriction , and unhampered increase of products through industry. (19. R. 5.)  This means in other words nothing other than that the laws of capital are completely realized only within unlimited competition and industrial production. Capital develops adequately on the latter productive basis and in the former relation of production; i.e. its immanent laws enter completely into reality. Since this is so, it would have to be shown how this unlimited competition and industrial production are conditions of the realization of capital, conditions which it must itself little by little produce (instead of the hypothesis appearing here as merely that of the theoretician, who places free competition and the productive mode of capital s existence externally and arbitrarily into the relation of capital to itself as capital, not as developments of capital itself, but as imaginary presuppositions of capital for the sake of purity.) This by the way the only place in Ricardo where a faint notion of the historic nature of the laws of bourgeois economy. With this presupposition, the relative value of commodities (this word meaningless, since absolute value is nonsense) is determined by the different quantity which can be produced in the same labour time, or by the quantity of labour relatively realized in different commodities. (p. 4.) (Notebook, 19.) (Henceforth the first number for the page in the notebook; the second for the page in Ricardo.)  Now, how one gets from value as equivalent determined by labour to the non-equivalent, i.e. to the value which posits surplus value through exchange, i.e. how one gets from value to capital, from one aspect to its apparent opposite, this does not interest Ricardo. The only question for him: how the value relation between the commodities can remain the same and can and must be determined by relative quantities of labour, although the owners of accumulated labour do not exchange labour equivalents in living labour, i.e. despite the relation of capital and labour. It is then a very simple arithmetical proof that commodity A and commodity B can exchange in relation to the labour realized in them, although the producers of A or B distribute product A, or the product B exchanged for it, in different ways among themselves. But since all distribution here proceeds on the basis of exchange, it appears in fact altogether impossible to explain why one of the exchange values living labour is exchanged according to the amount of labour time realized in it, while the other exchange value accumulated labour, capital is not exchanged according to the standard of the labour time realized in it. Bray e.g. therefore believes that he is the first to draw the true conclusion from Ricardo with his equal exchange between living and dead labour.  That from the standpoint of exchange alone, the worker s pay would have to = the value of the product, i.e. the amount of labour in objective form which the worker obtains in pay, = the amount of labour in subjective form which he expends in labour, is so necessary a conclusion that A. Smith falls into it.  Ricardo, by contrast, avoids this fallacy, but how? The value of labour, and the quantity of commodities which a specific quantity of labour can buy, are not identical. Why not? Because the worker s product or an equivalent of this product is not = to the worker s pay. I.e. the identity does not exist, because a difference exists. Therefore (because this is not the case) it is not the value of labour which is the measure of value, but the quantity of labour bestowed on the commodity. (19, 3.)  Value of labour is not identical with wages of labour. Because they are different. Therefore they are not identical. This is a strange logic. There is basically no reason for this other than that it is not so in practice. But it ought to be so, according to the theory. For the exchange of values [is] determined by the labour time realized in them. Hence equivalents are exchanged. Thus a specific quantity of labour time in living form would have to exchange for the same quantity of labour time in accumulated form. What would have to be demonstrated is precisely that the law of exchange turns into its precise opposite. Not even a faint suspicion that it does so is expressed here. Or the suspicion would have to lie in the frequently repeated admonition against mixing them up; that the distinction between past and living labour cannot do the job either is readily admitted: The comparative quantity of commodities which a given quantity of labour will produce determines their past and present value (19, 9) where living labour thus even determines the value of past labour retroactively. Why then is capital not also exchanged for living labour in proportion to the labour realized in the capital? Why is it that a quantity of living labour is not itself = the quantity of labour in which it has objectified itself? Labour is by nature of different quality, and it is difficult to compare different hours of labour in different branches of business. But this scale is very soon established in practice. (19, 13.) For short periods, at least from year to year, the variation in this inequality is insignificant, and is therefore left out of account. (19, I 5.) This is nothing. If Ricardo had applied his own principle, the amounts of (simple) labour to which the different labour capacities are reducible, then the matter would have been simple. Generally, he is concerned straight away with the hours of labour. What the capitalist acquires through exchange is labour capacity: this is the exchange value which he pays for. Living labour is the use value which this exchange value has for him, and out of this use value springs the surplus value and the suspension of exchange as such. Because Ricardo allows exchange with living labour and thus falls straight into the production process it remains an insoluble antinomy in his system that a certain quantity of living labour does not = the commodity which it creates, in which it objectifies itself, although the value of the commodity = to the amount of labour contained in it. The value of the commodity includes also the labour of bringing the commodity to market . (19, 18.) We shall see that circulation time, in so far as it appears as determining value with Ricardo, is only the labour required to bring the commodities to market. The principle of value-determination by the relative amounts of labour contained in the commodity is considerably modified by the employment of machinery and other fixed and durable capital. A rise or fall in wages differently affects two capitals of which one is almost entirely circulating, the other almost entirely fixed; likewise the unequal duration of the fixed capital employed. Namely, there is added the profit on fixed capital (interest), as well as the compensation for the greater length of time which must elapse before the more valuable of the two commodities can be brought to market. (19, 29, 30.) The latter moment concerns only the duration of the production process, i.e. labour time directly employed, at least in Ricardo s example of the farmer and the baker. (If one farmer s wheat becomes ready for the market later than another s, then this so-called compensation already presupposes interest; thus already something derivative, not an original aspect.) Profit and wages are only portions in which the two classes, of capitalists and workers, partake in the original commodity, i.e. also in that exchanged for it. (p. 31.) The very great extent to which the production of the original commodity, its origin, is itself determined by these portions, the extent to which, therefore, it precedes these portions as basic determinant, proves that the original commodity [would] not be produced at all, if it did not contain surplus labour for capital. Commodities on which the same quantity of labour has been bestowed vary in relative value if they cannot be brought to market in the same amount of time. With a greater fixed capital, too, the higher value of a commodity is due to the greater length of time which must elapse before it can be brought to market The difference arises in both cases from the profits being accumulated as capital, and is only a compensation for the time during which profits were withheld. (34, 35.) This means absolutely nothing other than that capital lying fallow is reckoned in and up as if it were not lying fallow, but were being exchanged with surplus labour time. This has nothing to do with the determination of value. It belongs with price. (In the case of fixed capital it [enters] into the determination of value only as another method of paying for the objectified labour, abstracted from the profit.) There is another principle of labour which nothing points out to the economic inquirer in old countries, but of which every colonial capitalist has been made conscious in his own person. By far the greater part of the operations of industry, and especially those of which the produce is great in proportion to the capital and labour employed, require a considerable time for [their] completion. As to most of them, it is not worth while to make a commencement without the certainty of being able to carry them on for several years. A large portion of the capital employed in them is fixed, inconvertible, durable. If anything happens to stop the operation, all this capital is lost. If the harvest cannot be gathered, the whole outlay in making it grow has been thrown away This shows that constancy is a no less important principle than combination of labour. The importance of the principle of constancy is not seen here, because rarely indeed does it happen, that the labour which carries on a business, is stopped against the will of the capitalists But in the colonies just the opposite. Here capitalists are so much afraid of it that they avoid its occurrence as much as they can, by avoiding, as much as possible, operations which require much time for their completion. (Wakefield, 169, XIV, 71.)  There are numerous operations of so simple a kind as not to admit a division into parts, which cannot be performed without the cooperation of many pairs of hands. For example, the lifting of a large tree on to a wain, keeping down weeds in a large field of growing crops, shearing a large flock of sheep at the same time, gathering a harvest of corn at the time when it is ripe enough and not too ripe, moving any great weight; everything, in short, which cannot be done unless a good many pairs of hands help together in the same undivided employment, and at the same time. (168 loc. cit.) Combination and constancy of labour are provided for in old countries, without an effort or thought on the part of the capitalist, merely by the abundance of labourers for hire. The scarcity of labourers for hire is the universal complaint of colonies. (170 loc. cit.) Only the cheapest land in a colony is that whose price affects the labour market. The price of this land, as of all bare land, and of everything else which it costs nothing to produce, depends of course on the relation between the demand and supply. (p. 332.) In order that the price of waste land should accomplish its objects (namely of making the worker into a non-landowner), it must be sufficient for the purpose. Hitherto the price has been everywhere insufficient. (338 loc. cit.) This sufficient price: In founding a colony the price might be so low as to render the quantity of land appropriated by settlers practically unlimited: it might be high enough to occasion a proportion between land and people similar to that of old countries, in which case, if this very high price did not prevent emigration, the cheapest land in the colony might be as dear, and the superabundance of labourers as deplorable as in England: or it might be a just medium between the two, occasioning neither superabundance of people nor superabundance of land, but so limiting the quantity of land as to give the cheapest land a market value that would have the effect of compelling labourers to work some considerable time for wages before they could become landowners. (339 loc. cit.) (Notebook XIV, 71.) (These excerpts here quoted from Wakefield s Art of Colonization belong with the ones given above about the necessary separation of the worker from the conditions of property.) The capital laid out in labour is 2,600; the surplus value = 1,650 (850 interest + 150 rents etc., makes 1,000 + 650 profit). But 2,000:1,650 = 100:63 6/13. Thus the rate of surplus value is 63 6/13%. According to the profit calculation it would have to be 850 interest, 150 rents and 650 profit, or 1,650:15,350; nearly 10.1%. In the above example, the floating capital turns over 167/70 times per year; the fixed capital turns over once in 15 5/13 years; once in 200/13 year. Profit: 650 or about 4.2.  The wages of the operatives 1/6. The profit is indicated here as 4.2; say it were only 4%. This 4% figured on an outlay of 15,350. But then we also have 5% interest on 10,000 and 5% on 7,000; 850 = 5% of 17,000. From the actual annual advances made, we must deduct (1) the part of the fixed capital which does not figure in the sinking fund; (2) that which is figured as interest. (It is possible that capitalist A does not pocket the interest, but capitalist B. In any case they are revenue, not capital; surplus value.) From the 15,350 outlays thus deduct 850; leaves: 14,500. Of the 2,600 for wages and salaries there were 183 1/3 in the form of salary, since 1/6 of 14,500 is not 2,600 but 2,416 2/3, and 14,500 divided by this is 6. Thus, he sells the 14,500 at 16,000 or a profit of 1,500; makes 10 2/3%; but let us ignore these 2/3 and say 10%; 1/6 of 100 is 16 2/3. Thus, out of 100, he would give: 83 1/3 for advances, 16 2/3 wages and 10 profit. In detail: In his Principles of Political Economy, 2nd ed., 1836, Malthus has an inkling that profit, i.e. not profit, but real surplus value, has to be calculated not in respect of capital advanced, but of living labour advanced, whose value is expressed objectively in wages; but this leads him into playing games which become absurd if they are to serve as a basis for any determination of value, or for reasoning about the relation of labour to the determination of value. For example, if I take the total value of the finished product, then I can compare every part of the product advanced with the part of the outlay corresponding to it; and the percentage of profit in relation to the whole product is naturally the same percentage for any fractional part of the product. Say e.g. that 100 thalers brought 110; thus 10% the whole product; 75%, say, for the invariable part of capital, 25 for labour, i.e. 3/4 for the former, 1/4 for living labour. Now if I take 1/4 of the total product, i.e. of 110, then I obtain 27 2/4 or 27 1/2. On an outlay of 25 for labour, the capitalist would have a gain of 2 1/2, i.e. 10%. Likewise Malthus could have said that if I take 3/4 of the total product, i.e. 75, then these 3/4 are represented in the total product by 82 1/2; then 7 1/2 out of 75 is exactly 10%. This obviously means nothing other than that if I gain 10% on 100 then the gain on every part of 100 amounts to as much as, when added together, will be 10% on the total sum. If I have gained 10 on 100, then on 2 50 I have gained 5 each time etc. The fact that, if I gain 10 on 100, I gain 2 1/2 on 1/4 of 100 and 7 1/2 on 3/4 takes us not a single step further. If I have gained 10 on 100, how much have I then won on 1/4 of 100 or on 3/4? Malthus s insight can be reduced to this childishness. The advance for labour amounted to 1/4 of the 100, and the gain on it amounted to 10%. 10% of 25 is 2 1/2. Or the capitalist, if he has gained 10 on 100, has gained 1/10 on every part of his capital, i.e. 10%. This gives the parts of the capital no qualitative character whatever, and it therefore holds for fixed capital etc. just as well as for the part advanced in labour. Moreover, this only expresses the illusion that each part of the capital is involved to an equal degree in the newly created value. Nor has the 1/4 of the capital advanced for wages created the surplus value; rather, the unpaid living labour has done so. However, from the relation of the total value here the 10 thalers to wages we can see what percentage of labour was not paid, or, how much surplus labour there was. In the above relation, the necessary labour is objectified in 25 thalers, the surplus labour in 10; thus they relate as 25:10 = 100:40; 40% of the labour was surplus labour, or, what is the same, 40% of the value it produced was surplus value. It is quite true that the capitalist can make this reckoning: if I make 10 on 100, then, on wages, = 25, I have made 2 1/2. It is impossible to see what use this calculation is. But what Malthus wants to do with it will be seen shortly when we go into his determination of value. However, it is clear from the following that he indeed believes that his simple arithmetical example contains a real determination: Suppose the capital be expended only for wages, 100 expended in immediate labour. The returns at the end of the year 110, 120, or 130; it is evident that in each case the profits will be determinated by the proportion of the value of the whole produce which is required to pay the labour employed. If the value of the produce in the market = 110, the proportion required to pay the labourers = 10/11 of the value of the produce, or the profits = 10%. (Here Mr Malthus does nothing more than to express the original advance, 100, as a relation to the total product. 100 is 10/11 of 110. Whether I say I gain 10 on 100, i.e. 1/10 of 100, or I say 1/11 of the 110 are gain, it is the same.) If the value of the product is 120, the proportion for labour = 10/12 and the gain 20%; if 130, the proportion required to pay the labour = 10/13 and the gain = 30%. (Instead of saying: I gain 10 on 100, I can also say that 10/11 of the 110 were the advances; or, 20 on the 100, the advances amount only to 10/12 of 120 etc. The character of these advances, whether in labour or otherwise, has absolutely nothing to do with this other arithmetic form of expressing the matter. If a capital of 100 has brought in 110, then either I can start with the capital and say I gained 10 on it, or I can start with the product, with 110, and say that I advanced only 10/11 on it beforehand. The relation is, of course, the same.) Now assume that the capitalist s advances do not consist entirely of labour. The capitalist expects an equal benefit on all parts of the capital he advances (that means simply that he distributes the benefit he has made, and whose origin may be quite obscure to him, among all parts of his outlays equally, entirely abstracting away their qualitative difference). Suppose 1/4 of the advances, for labour (direct), 3/4 consisting of accumulated labour and profits, with any additions which may arise of rents, taxes and other outgoings. Then strictly true that the profits of the capitalist will vary with the varying value of this 1/4 of the produce compared with the quantity of labour employed. (Not quantity with Mr Malthus, but rather compared with the salary paid.) (Thus strictly true that his profits will vary with the varying value of the 3/4 of his profits compared with the advances in accumulated labour, i.e. the gain relates to the total capital advanced (10:100) as every part of the total product (110) does to the part of the advance corresponding to it.) For example, Malthus continues, a farmer employs 2,000 in cultivation, of which 1,500 in seed, keep of horses, wear and tear of his fixed capital, etc., and 500 on immediate labour, and the returns at the end are 2,400. His profit 400, on 2,000 = 20%. And it is immediately obvious that if we took 1/4 of the value of the produce, namely 600, and compared it with the amount paid in the wages of the immediate labour, the result would show exactly the same rate of profits. (loc. cit. 267, 268. Notebook X, 41, 42.) (It is equally obvious that if we took 3/4 of the value of the produce, namely 1,800, and compared it with the amount paid in the advances on accumulated labour, namely with 1,500, the result would show exactly the same rate of profits. 1,800:1,500 = 18:15 = 6:5. And 6 is 1/5 more than 5, hence 20%.) (Malthus here has two different arithmetic formulae in mind and gets them mixed up: firstly, if I make 10 on 100, then on every part of the 100 my gain is not 10 but 10%: i.e. 5 on 50, 2 1/2 on 25 etc.; to gain 10 on 100 means to gain 1/10 on each part of the 100, and consequently the profit has to show up also as 1/10 profit on wages, and if the profit is distributed evenly among all parts of the capital, then I can say that the rate of profit on the total capital varies with the rate of profit on each of its parts, including e.g. the part advanced as wages; secondly if I gained 10% on 100, then the total product 110. Now, if wages formed 1/4 of the advances = 25, then they form only a 4 2/5 part of 110; i.e. they form a fraction that is smaller by 2/5, and it will form an ever smaller part of the total product in proportion as the latter has risen in comparison with the original. This is again only another way of calculating. 10 is 1/10 of 100 but only 1/11 of 110. I can therefore say that as the total product grows larger, each of the fractional parts of the original capital forms a relatively smaller part of it. Tautology.) In his work The Measure of Value Stated and Illustrated, London, 1823 (Notebook IX), Malthus asserts that the value of labour is constant and is hence the true Measure of Value generally. Any given quantity of labour must be of the same value as the wages which command it, or for which it actually exchanges. (p. 5, loc. cit.) (IX, 29.) He is speaking here, of course, about wage labour. The truth is rather: any given quantity of labour is = the same quantity of labour expressed in a product; or, each product is only a specific quantity of labour, objectified in the value of the product, which is measured with respect to other products by this quantity. Wages, however, express the value of living labour capacity, but in no way the value of living labour, which is expressed, rather, in wages + profit. Wages are the price of necessary labour. If the worker had to work 6 hours in order to live, and if he produced for himself as mere worker, then he would daily receive the commodity of 6 hours of labour, say 6d. Now the capitalist makes him work 12 hours, and pays him 6d. He pays him 1/2d. per hour, i.e. a given quantity of 12 hours of labour has the value of 12d., and 12d. is indeed the value for which the product exchanges, when it gets sold. On the other hand, the capitalist commands with this value, if he could re-invest it in mere labour, 24 hours. The wages command, therefore, a much greater quantity of labour than they consist of, and a given quantity of living labour actually exchanges for a much smaller one of accumulated labour. The only thing that is sure is that the price of labour, wages, must always express the quantity of labour which the labourers want in order to keep soul and body together. The wages of any quantity of labour must be equal to the quantity of labour which the labourer must expend upon his own reproduction. In the above instance a man would set to work two men for 12 hours each together 24 hours with the quantity of labour afforded by one man. In the case above, the product would be exchanged for another product with a value of 12d., or for 12 hours of labour, and this would be the source of its profit of 6d. (its surplus value for the capitalist). The value of products is determined by the labour contained in them, not by that part of the labour in them which the employer pays for. The value of the product is constituted by labour done, including that not paid for; but wages only express paid labour, never all labour done. The measure of this payment itself depends on the productivity of labour, for the latter determines the amount of necessary labour time. And since these wages constitute the value of labour (labour itself posited as commodity), this value is constantly variable, and is the opposite of constant. The amount of labour which the worker works is very different from the amount of labour that is worked up into his labour capacity, or which is required to reproduce his labour capacity. But he does not sell as commodity the use made of him, he sells himself not as cause but as effect. Let us listen how Mr Malthus exerts himself to get the matter clear: The conditions of the supply of commodities do not require that they should retain always the same relative values, but that each should retain its proper natural value, or the means of obtaining those objects which will continue to the producer the same power of production AND accumulation profits are calculated upon the advances necessary to production the specific advances of capitalists do not consist of cloth, but of labour; AND as no other object whatever can represent a given quantity of labour, it is clear that it is the quantity of labour which a commodity will command, and not the quantity of any other commodity, which can represent the condition of its supply, or its natural value. (17, 18.) (IX, 29.) Already, from the fact that the capitalist s advances consist of labour, Malthus could have seen that the matter has not become clear. Posit that the necessary labour time is 6 hours; also A, B, two men each of whom works for himself but who exchange with one another. Let A work 6 hours, B 12 hours. Now if A wants to eat up the 6 extra hours worked by B, if he wants to consume the product of B s 6 surplus hours, there is nothing he can give him other than 6 hours of living labour, say the next day. B now has a product of 6 hours of labour more than A. Now posit that under these circumstances he begins to fancy himself a capitalist and stops working altogether. Then on the third day, the only thing he could give in exchange for A s 6 hours is his own accumulated product of 6 hours, and, as soon as this exchange was accomplished, he would have to begin working again himself, or starve. But if he continues to work 12 hours for A, and A continues to work 6 hours for himself and 6 for B, then they exchange exactly 12 hours with one another. The natural value of the commodity, says Malthus, consists in its giving back to its possessor through exchange the same power of production AND accumulation. His commodity consists of 2 quantities of labour, one quantity of accumulated labour + one quantity of immediate labour. Thus if he exchanges his commodity for another which contains exactly the same total quantity of labour, then his power of production and accumulation has remained at least the same, equal. But it grew, because a part of the immediate labour has cost him nothing, while he sells it nevertheless. Yet Malthus comes to the conclusion that the quantity of labour of which the product consists is paid labour only, hence = to the sum of the wages, or, that wages are the measuring rod of the value of the commodity. If every amount of labour contained in the commodity were paid for, then Mr Malthus s doctrine would be correct, but it would be equally true that his capitalist would have no advances of labour to make, and his powers of accumulation would become totally forfeited . Where is the profit to come from, if no unpaid labour is performed? Well, thinks Mr Malthus, [from] the wages for accumulated labour. But since labour done has ceased to work, it also ceases to draw wages. True, the product in which it exists could now be again exchanged for living labour, but posit that this product = 6 hours of labour; then the worker would give 6 hours of living labour and would receive the advances, the capitalist s 6 hours of done labour, in return; so that the capitalist would not have budged a single step forward. Living labour would very soon be in possession of his dead labour. The reason Malthus gives, however, is that because no other object whatsoever can represent a given quantity of labour , the natural value of a commodity consists of the quantity of labour which a commodity will command, and not the quantity of any other commodity . That means a given quantity of labour can be represented only by a quantity of living (immediate) labour. Not no other object whatsoever but rather every object whatsoever can represent a given quantity of labour, namely every object in which the same quantity of labour is contained. But Malthus wants the quantity of labour contained in the commodity to be measured by, to be equal to, not the quantity of living labour which it can set in motion, but the quantity of paid labour which it sets in motion. Posit that the commodity contains 24 hours of labour; he thinks, then, that the capitalist can buy 2 working days with it; and if the capitalist paid all of this labour, or if the quantity of labour done = the quantity of paid living labour, then he could buy only 24 hours of living labour with his 24 hours of done labour, and his powers of accumulation would have gone to the wall. But the capitalist does not pay the worker the labour time, the amount of labour, but rather pays him only the necessary labour, while forcing him to work the rest free of charge. Thus, with the 24 hours of done labour he may perhaps set 48 hours of living labour into motion. Thus he in fact pays 1 hour of done labour for 2 hours of living labour, and thus gains 100% on the exchange. The value of his commodity now = 48 hours, but is in no way equal to the wages exchanged for them, nor equal to the wages for which it then in turn exchanges. If he continues in the same way, his 48 hours of done labour will buy 96 hours of living labour. Posit that no capitalists exist at all, but that the independent and mutually exchanging workers worked more than necessary to live, because they want to accumulate too, etc. Call that part of the work which the worker does in order to live, wages; and the surplus time he works in order to accumulate, profit. Then the value of his commodity would be = to the total amount of labour contained in it, = to the total sum of living labour time; but in no way = to the wages he paid himself, or equal to the part of the commodity which he would have to reproduce in order to live. Because the value of a commodity = a specific quantity of labour, Malthus says it is = to the quantity of necessary labour (i.e. wages) contained in it, and not = to the total sum of labour contained in it; its totality is = to a fraction of it. But the worker s powers of accumulation evidently would arise only because he has worked more than necessary to pay himself his wages. If a specific quantity of living labour time were = to the time required for the worker to live, then a specific quantity of living labour would be = to the wages which he produces, or the wages would be exactly equal to the living labour which they set in motion. If such were the case, capital would of course be impossible. If the worker, in the whole of his working time, can produce not a farthing more than his wages, then with the best of wills he cannot squeeze out a farthing for the capitalist. Property is the offspring of the productivity of labour. If one can produce only for one, everyone a worker; there can be no property. If one man s labour can maintain 5, there will be 4 idle men for 1 employed in production. (Ravenstone.)  We saw above how Malthus s fantasizing profundity expressed itself in a purely childish kind of calculation. What lay behind this, by the way, was the doctrine that the value of labour was constant and that wages constituted price. Because the rate of profit on a total capital can be expressed as the same rate on the fraction of the capital made up by wages, he asserts that this fractional part constitutes and determines the price. Exactly the same profundity as here. If commodity A = an amount of x commodity, he thinks that this can mean nothing else than that it = x living labour, for only labour can represent labour. From this he concludes that commodity A = the amount of wage labour which it can command, and that therefore the value of labour is constant, because always = to the commodity by which it is set in motion. The nub of it is simply that the amount of living labour and the amount of wage labour are identical for him, and that he believes that every fractional part of wage labour is really paid for. But x living labour can be (and, as wage labour, always is) = x y necessary labour (wages) + y surplus labour. x dead labour can therefore set in motion x y necessary labour (wages) + y surplus labour time; i.e. it always sets in motion as many additional hours of living labour time as there are hours of surplus labour time over and above necessary labour time contained within x hours of labour. Wage labour always consists of paid and unpaid labour. The value of labour is constant, thus means nothing other than that all labour time is necessary, i.e. wage-producing labour time. There is no surplus labour time but nevertheless there are powers of accumulation and capital. Since wages are always equal to a given quantity of labour, namely the quantity of living labour which they set in motion, and since this is the same quantity of labour contained in the wages, therefore the value of labour is constant, for it is always = to the quantity of objectified labour. The rise and fall in the price of commodities, not of the value of labour. If a worker gets 8s. silver per week or 16, this comes about only because the price of shillings has risen or fallen, but the value of labour has remained the same. In both cases he obtains a week of done labour for a week of living labour. Mr M. proves this as follows: If labour alone, without capital, were employed in procuring the fruits of the earth, the greater facility of procuring one sort of them compared with another would not, it is acknowledged, alter the value of labour, or the exchangeable value of the whole produce obtained by a given quantity of exertion.  This means nothing but that each of the commodities, regardless of their quantity, would be determined by the labour contained in it, despite the fact that, depending on the degree of its productivity, it would express itself in one case in more, in another in fewer, use values. We should, without hesitation, allow that the difference was in the cheapness or dearness of the produce, not of the labour.  We would say labour is more productive in one branch than in the other, or, alternatively, the product costs more or less labour. We could not speak of cheapness or dearness of labour, since no wage labour existed, and hence an hour of immediate labour would always command an hour of objectified labour, which would naturally not prevent one hour from being more productive than another. But still, to the extent that we distinguish the part of labour necessary for subsistence from the part that is surplus labour and if any hours of the day are at all worked as surplus time, then it is the same as if every fractional part of labour time consisted of a part necessary and a part surplus labour done by the immediate labourers, it could still not be said that the value of labour, i.e. wages (the part of the product exchanged for necessary labour, or the part of the total labour which is employed for the necessary product), are constant. The fractional part of labour time which reproduces wages would vary with productivity; thus, with the productivity of labour, the value of labour, i.e. wages, would constantly vary. Wages would be measured both before and after by a definite use value, and since the latter constantly varies in its exchange value depending on the productivity of labour, wages would change, or [in other words] the value of labour. Value of labour presupposes in principle that living labour is not equal to its product, or, what is the same, that it is sold not as an acting cause, but as itself a produced effect. The value of labour is constant means nothing further than that it is constantly measured by the quantity of labour contained in it. A product may contain more or less labour. Therefore sometimes a greater, sometimes a lesser portion of product A may exchange for product B. But the quantity of living labour which the product buys can never be greater or smaller than the done labour which it represents, for a given quantity of labour is always a given quantity of labour, whether it exists in the form of objectified or in the form of living labour. Thus if more or less of a product is given for a specific quantity of living labour, i.e. if wages rise and fall, then this comes about not because the value of labour rose or fell, for the value of a specific quantity of labour is always equal to the same specific quantity of labour, but rather because the products have cost more or less labour, because a greater or lesser quantity of the products thus represents the same quantity of labour. Thus the value of labour remains constant. Only the value of the products changes, i.e. the productivity of labour changes, not its values. This is the pith of the theory of Malthus, if you can call such a shallow fallacy a theory. First of all, a product which has cost only half a working day may suffice for me to live and work a whole day. Whether or not the product possesses this quality depends not on its value, i.e. the labour time bestowed on it, but rather on its use value, and the exchange which takes place in this regard between living labour and the product of labour is not an exchange between both as use values, but rather their relation lies on the one side in the use value of the product, on the other side in the conditions of the existence of living labour capacity. Now, if objectified labour were exchanged for living labour, then according to the laws of exchange value the product which = half a day of work could only buy half a day of living labour, even though the worker could live from it for a whole day of work; and if his entire working day were to be bought, then he would have to obtain a whole working day in the product, with which, according to the assumption, he could live for two working days. But on the basis of capital, living labour and done labour do not exchange with one another as exchange values, as identical quantities: the same quantity of labour in objectified form as value being equivalent to the same quantity of labour in living form. Rather, what is exchanged is a product, and labour capacity, which is itself a product. Labour capacity is not = to the living labour which it can do, = to the quantity of labour which it can get done this is its use value. It is equal to the quantity of labour by means of which it must itself be produced and can be reproduced. The product is thus in fact exchanged not for living labour, but for objectified labour, labour objectified in labour capacity. Living labour itself is a use value possessed by the exchange value [, labour capacity,] which the possessor of the product [, the capitalist,] has acquired in trade, and whether he has acquired less or more of this living labour than he has spent in the form of the product [, wages,] for labour capacity depends on the amount of living labour paid to the worker in the product. If an amount of labour were exchanged for an amount of labour, regardless of whether it were living or objectified, then of course every amount of labour would be equal to itself and its value equal to its amount. The product of half a working day thus could buy only half a working day. But then in fact no wages would exist, and no value of labour. Labour would have no value distinct from that of its product or the equivalent of its product, no specific value, and it is precisely the latter which constitutes the value of labour, wages. From the fact, therefore, that a specific quantity of labour = a specific quantity of labour, or also that a specific quantity = itself, from the great discovery that a specific quantity is a specific quantity, Mr Malthus concludes that wages are constant, that the value of labour is constant, namely = to the same amount of labour objectified. This would be correct if living labour and stored-up labour were exchanged for one another as exchange values. But then there would exist neither value of labour, nor wages, nor capital, nor wage labour, nor Malthus s inquiries. All of these are based on the fact that living labour appears as a use value and living labour capacity as an exchange value opposite the labour stored up in capital. Malthus calmly proceeds: The same holds if capital and profits enter into the computation of value and the demand for labour varies.  Here we have the whole profundity. As soon as capital and profits are introduced, living labour capacity begins to be bought, and therefore a smaller portion of stored-up labour is exchanged for a larger portion of living labour. It is a general characteristic of this profundity that the entry of capital, which posits wage labour and which for the first time transforms labour into wage labour and labour capacity into a commodity, introduces no change whatever, either into the realization of labour or into the realization of stored-up labour. Capital, a specific form of the relation of labour to its product and to its value, is, according to Malthus, entering without changing anything. It is just as if he allowed of no change in the constitution of the Roman Republic other than the introduction, the entering of emperors . He continues: If an increased reward of the labourers takes place without an increase in the produce, this is possible only with a fall of profits To obtain any given portion of the produce the same quantity of labour is necessary as before, but profit being diminished, the value of the produce is decreased; while this diminution of profits in reference to the value of wages is just counterbalanced by the increased quantity of labour necessary to procure the increased produce awarded to the labourer, leaving the value of labour the same as before. (p. 33, 34 loc. cit. Notebook IX, 29.) According to the presupposition, the product contains the same quantity of labour. But its value is supposed to have diminished because profits have fallen. However, if the labour time contained in the product has remained the same, how can profits fall? If wages rise while total labour time remains the same not for momentary causes such as e.g. that competition has become favourable for the workers then this means nothing other than that the productivity of labour has fallen, that a greater amount of time is necessary to reproduce labour capacity; that, therefore, a larger part of the living labour set in motion by capital falls to necessary labour and a smaller part to surplus labour. Let us leave these trivia for later. Only the following final quotation now for the sake of completeness: Inversely in the opposite case. A smaller quantity of the produce would be awarded to the labourer and profits would rise. A given quantity of produce, which had been obtained by the same quantity of labour as before, would rise in value on account of the rise of profits; while this rise of profits, in reference to the wages of the labourer, would be balanced by the smaller quantity of labour necessary to obtain the diminished produce awarded to the labourer. (M. p. 35) (loc. cit. IX, 29.) What he says on this occasion about money prices in different countries, proceeding from his principles, to be looked at later. <For example, commodity A can buy one working day; it pays only a half (the necessary half), but it exchanges for the whole. The amount of the total labour purchased by the commodity is then equal to necessary + surplus time. Thus if I know the price of necessary labour = x, then the price of the whole labour = 2x, and I could in this way appraise the newly created commodity in terms of wages, and thus establish the prices of all commodities in wages. But this would indeed be anything but a constant value. Through the confusion that in civilized countries an average time must indeed be worked for wages, say 12 hours, regardless of the wages and regardless of how many of these 12 hours are necessary or surplus labour time, Mr Carey as well who reduces the amount of labour to working days (and indeed they can be reduced to living work days) is led to make the assertion that, because the same capital costs constantly less labour time to reproduce, a machine of 100 will, for example, cost after a time only 50 owing to the growth of the productive forces, and hence will be the result of half as much labour time, working days or hours, whichever you like. From this Mr Carey concludes that the worker can buy, can obtain this machine, with half as many working days as before.  He commits the little mistake of regarding the growth of surplus labour time as if it had been gained for the worker, whereas the whole matter comes down to just the opposite, namely that the worker spends less of his whole working day working for himself, and more for capital, hence that the objective power of capital grows rapidly over against him, in a specific relation with the increase of the productive forces. Mr Carey lets the worker buy or borrow the machine; in short, he transforms him into a capitalist. And he is supposed to achieve this increased power over capital precisely because the reproduction of a specific quantity of capital costs less necessary labour, i.e. less paid labour, thus wages fall in relation to profit. In America, as long as the worker there still appropriates a part of his surplus labour for himself, he may accumulate enough to become e.g. a farmer etc. (although that too is already coming to a halt now). In places where wage labour in America can still get somewhere rapidly, this happens through the reproduction of earlier modes of production and property on the foundation of capital (e.g. the independent peasantry). In short, he regards the working days as working days belonging to the worker, and instead of concluding that he has to produce more capital in order to be employed for the same labour time, he concludes that he has to work less in order to buy the capital (to appropriate the conditions of production for himself).  If he produced 20 machines and can now produce 40 owing to increased productivity, then indeed the single machine becomes cheaper, but, because a smaller part of the working day is necessary in order to produce a given quantity of it, it does not follow that the product of the working day rose for the worker, but rather the reverse, that less living labour is employed for the production of a given quantity of machinery. By the way, Mr Carey, whose aim is harmony, himself finds that if the rate of profit declines, then the gross profit rises, because an ever larger capital is required in proportion to employed living labour, and it therefore becomes ever more impossible for the worker to appropriate the necessary sum of capital, the minimum of capital required for the productive employment of labour at the new stage of production. A fractional part of the capital requires less labour time for its reproduction, but a larger mass of capital is required in order to realize the lesser labour time. The growth of the productive forces expresses itself in a continuous decline of the part of capital consisting of labour compared with that laid out in advances, machinery etc. Carey s entire bad joke, which was of course grist to Bastiat s mill, rests on his transformation of the labour time or working days necessary for production into labour time belonging to the worker, whereas this time belongs in fact to capital, and an ever smaller portion of it remains for the worker in proportion to the growth in the productive force of labour. The less living labour time a given capital has to buy or, the greater the total sum of the capital and the less the living labour employed by it relative to its size the greater, according to Mr Carey, the chance for the worker to become owner of capital, because capital is reproduced by less living labour. The greater the capital and the smaller the number of workers it employs, relatively, the greater the chance these workers have of becoming capitalists, for has not capital now been reproduced with fewer working days? Cannot it therefore also be bought, gained with fewer working days? Take a capital of 100, employing 50 on advances, 50 on labour, and making 50% profit, for the decline of the rate of profit is Carey s chief hobby horse and belongs with his theory. Let each in wages be equal to 1 working day = 1 worker. Now take another capital of 16,000, which uses 14,500 in advances, 1,500 in wages (let this also = 1,500 workers) and makes only 20% profit. In the first case the product = 150; in the second (for convenient calculation s sake let the fixed capital turn over in one year) = 19,200 (3,200 profit). Here we have the most advantageous case for Mr Carey. The rate of profit has declined from 50% to 20, i.e. by 3/5 or by 60%. In the one case, a product of 50 is the result of 50 living work days. In the other case, a product of 3,200 by 1,500 workers. In the first case the result of 1 working day a product of 1; in the second the result of 1 working day a product of 2 2/15. In the second case less than half the labour time is necessary to produce a value of 1 as in the first. Now, does this mean that in the second case half the worker s day produces 1/15 for himself, while the other produces only 1 in twice the time, i.e. that he is on the high road to becoming a capitalist? He would first have to acquire a capital of 16,000, and buy alien labour instead of working himself, before this decrease in necessary labour time would aid him in the least. All it has done this way is created an infinite gap between his labour and the conditions of its employment, and decreased the rate of necessary labour, thus, in proportion to the first relation, thrown more than 6 times as many workers into the street. These workers thrown into the street are now supposed to console themselves with the thought that if they had the conditions to work independently, or rather to work as capitalists, then they themselves would have to hire fewer workers. In the first case the entire capital necessary is 100, and there is more of a chance here for the individual worker in an exceptional case to save up enough, and, with a special combination of luck, himself become a capitalist at the same level as capitalist A. The labour time which the worker works is the same with A and B, although the total sum of working days needed by the capitalists is essentially different. For every 6 workers needed by the first capitalist, the second needs not quite 1. The remainder therefore have to work just as much and more surplus time. That capital needs fewer living work days at the stage of production to which it has risen along with the forces of production is the same thing, according to Carey, as that the worker needs fewer working days to appropriate capital for himself; probably with the working days of the un- occupied workers.> Because the capitalist needs fewer workers to realize his immense capital, the worker employed by him can, with less labour, make the greater capital his own. Such is the logic of Mr Carey, the harmonizer. In connection with Ricardo s theory, Wakefield says (Notebook VII, p. 74) loc. cit. p. 231 note: Treating labour as a commodity, and capital, the produce of labour, as another, then, if the value of these two commodities were regulated by equal quantities of labour, a given amount of labour would, under all circumstances, exchange for that quantity of capital which had been produced by the same amount of labour; antecedent labour would always exchange for the same amount as present labour But the value of labour, in relation to other commodities, in so far, at least, as wages depend upon share, is determined, not by equal quantities of labour, but by the proportion between supply and demand.  Thus, in order that money may become transformed into capital, it is necessary not only that it should be able to set surplus labour in motion, but also that there should be a certain quantity of surplus labour, the surplus labour of a given mass of necessary labour, i.e. of many workers at once, so that their combined sum is sufficient for it not only to lead an existence as capital, i.e. to represent wealth in consumption in contrast to the worker s life, but also to set aside surplus labour for accumulation. From the outset, capital does not produce for use value, for immediate subsistence. Surplus labour must therefore be large enough from the beginning to allow a part of it to be re-employed as capital. Thus, whenever the stage is reached where a certain mass of social wealth is already concentrated in one hand, which is objectively capable of appearing as capital, first as the exchange with many workers, later as production by many workers in combination, and is capable of setting a certain quantity of living labour capacities to work simultaneously, then, at that point, production by capital begins, which thus from the outset appears as the collective force, the social force, the suspension of individual isolation, first that of exchange with the workers, then that of the workers themselves. The workers individual isolation still implies their relative independence. Hence their regroupment around the individual capital as the exclusive base of their subsistence implies full dependence on capital, complete dissolution of the ties between the workers and the conditions of production. The result will be the same or it is the same in another form when the point of departure is the particular form of exchange which is presupposed for capital to exchange as capital, where money must already represent many exchangers or possess a buying power surpassing that of the individual and his individual surplus, one which, while belonging to an individual, is already more than individual, and belongs to him as a social function, in his capacity as representative, within exchange, of the social wealth and it arises on the other side from the conditions of free labour. The detachment of the individual from the production conditions of labour = the regroupment of many around one capital. *> This continual progression of knowledge and of experience, says Babbage, is our great power.  This progression, this social progress belongs [to] and is exploited by capital. All earlier forms of property condemn the greater part of humanity, the slaves, to be pure instruments of labour. Historical development, political development, art, science etc. take place in higher circles over their heads. But only capital has subjugated historical progress to the service of wealth. <Before accumulation by capital, there is presupposed an accumulation which constitutes capital, which is a part of its conceptual determination; we can hardly call it concentration yet, because this takes place in distinction to many capitals; but if one still speaks only of capital generally, then concentration still coincides with accumulation or with the concept of capital. I.e. it does not yet form a particular aspect. However, capital does indeed exist from the outset as One or Unity as opposed to the workers as Many. And it thus appears as the concentration of workers as distinct from that of work, as a unity falling outside them. In this respect, concentration is contained in the concept of capital the concentration of many living labour capacities for one purpose; a concentration which does not in any way need to have been established in production, or penetrated production, at the origin. Centralizing effect of capital on labour capacities, or positing of itself as the independent and external unity of these many available existences.> <Rossi says in his Cours d conomie politique  (Notebook, p. 26): Social progress cannot consist in the dissolution of all association, but in the replacement of the forced and oppressive associations of times past by voluntary and equitable associations. The highest degree of isolation is the condition of the savage; the highest degree of forced, oppressive association is barbarism. Apart from these extremes, history shows us a great diversity of varieties and shadings. Perfection is found in voluntary associations, which by their union multiply the forces, without taking away the energy, the morality and the responsibility of individual authority. (p. 354.) Under capital, the association of workers is not compelled through direct physical force, forced labour, statute labour, slave labour; it is compelled by the fact that the conditions of production are alien property and are themselves present as objective association, which is the same as accumulation and concentration of the conditions of production.>
Grundrisse 11