Title | Wage labour and capital |
Creator (LCNAF) |
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Contributor (LCNAF) |
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Publisher | International Publishers |
Place of Creation (TGN) |
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Date | 1932 |
Subject.Topical (LCSH) |
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Genre (AAT) |
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Language | English |
Type (DCMI) |
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Original Item Extent | 48 pages; 20 cm |
Original Item Location | HB301.M3813 1932 |
Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b8302360~S11 |
Original Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
Digital Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/scpamp |
Repository | Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries |
Repository URL | http://libraries.uh.edu/branches/special-collections |
Use and Reproduction | In Copyright: This item is protected by copyright. Copyright to this resource is held by the creator or current rights holder, and the resource is provided here for educational purposes. It may not be reproduced or distributed in any format without permission of the copyright owner. Users assume full responsibility for any infringement of copyright or related rights. |
Note | Translation of Lohnarbeit und Kapital. |
File Name | index.cpd |
Title | Image 33 |
Format (IMT) |
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File Name | uhlib_2981922_032.jpg |
Transcript | CHAPTER VI RELATION OF WAGE-LABOUR TO CAPITAL What is it that takes place in the exchange between the capitalist and the wage-labour? The labourer receives means of subsistence in exchange for his labour-power; but the capitalist receives, in exchange for his means of subsistence, labour, the productive activity of the labourer, the creative force by which the worker not only replaces what he consumes, but also gives to the accumulated labour a greater value than it previously possessed. The labourer gets from the capitalist a portion of the existing means of subsistence. For what purpose do these means of subsistence serve him ? For immediate consumption. But as soon as I consume means of subsistence, they are irrevocably lost to me, unless I employ the time during which these means sustain my life in producing new means of subsistence, in creating by my labour new values in place of the values lost in consumption. But it is just this noble reproductive power that the labourer surrenders to the capitalist in exchange for means of subsistence received. Consequently, he has lost it for himself. Let us take an example. For one shilling a labourer works all day long in the fields of a farmer, to whom he thus secures a return of two shillings. The farmer not only receives the replaced value which he has given to the day-labourer; he has doubled it. Therefore he has consumed the one shilling that he gave to the day-labourer in a fruitful, productive manner. For the one shilling he has bought the labour-power of the day- labourer, which creates products of the soil of twice the value, and out of one shilling makes two. The day-labourer, on the contrary, receives in the place of his productive force, whose results he has just surrendered to the farmer, one shilling, which he exchanges for means of subsistence, which he consumes more or less 3i |