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 45 |
Format (IMT) |
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File Name | uhlib_2981922_044.jpg |
Transcript | •7 CHAPTER IX EFFECT OF CAPITALIST COMPETITION ON THE CAPITALIST CLASS, THE MIDDLE CLASS, AND THE WORKING CLASS We thus see how the method of production and the means of production are constantly enlarged, revolutionised, how division of labour necessarily draws after it greater division of labour, the employment of machinery greater employment of machinery, work upon a large scale work upon a still greater scale. This is the law that continually throws capitalist production out of its old ruts and compels capital to strain ever more the productive forces of labour for the very reason that it has already strained them— the law that grants it no respite, and constantly shouts in its ear: March! march! This is no other law than that which, within the periodical fluctuations of commerce, necessarily adjusts the price of a commodity to its cost of production. No matter how powerful the means of production which a capitalist may bring into the field, competition will make their adoption general; and from the moment that they have been generally adopted, the sole result of the greater productiveness of his capital will be that he must furnish at the same price, ten, twenty, one hundred times as much as before. But since he must find a market for, perhaps, a thousand times as much, in order to outweigh the lower selling price by the greater quantity of the sales; since now a more extensive sale is necessary not only to gain a greater profit, but also in order to replace the cost of production (the instrument of production itself grows always more' costly, as we have seen), and since this more extensive sale has become a question of life and death not only for him, but also for his rivals, the old struggle must begin again, and it is all the more violent the more powerful the means of production already invented are. The division of labour and the application of machinery will therefore take a fresh start, and upon an even greater scale. Whatever be the power of the means of production which are 43 ie y ie i- :s :- n e y e o a n r h h o f S |