Capital, Volume I

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Capital, Volume I is the first of three volumes in Karl Marx's monumental work, Das Kapital, and the only volume to be published during his lifetime. Originally published in 1867, Marx's aim in Capital, Volume I is to uncover and explain the laws specific to the capitalist mode of production and of the class struggles rooted in these capitalist social relations of production.

Contents

[edit] Part One: Commodities and Money

Chapters 1-3 begin with a dense theoretical discussion of the commodity, value, exchange, and the genesis of money. As Marx writes, "Beginnings are always difficult in all sciences ... the section that contains the analysis of commodities, will therefore present the greatest difficulty."[1]

[edit] Chapter 1: The Commodity

[edit] Section 1. The Two Factors Of The Commodity: Use-Value And Value (Substance Of Value, Magnitude Of Value)

Marx begins the chapter with this: “The wealth of societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails appears as an ‘immense collection of commodities’…”[2] A commodity, Marx states, is an external object that satisfies any human need; he adds that it does not matter how the commodity meets those needs. To be a commodity, something must have both a use-value and a value. A use-value is another way of noting how useful a commodity is, and it cannot be separated from the “physical body” of the commodity. Value is the thing that is common to different commodities, and a commodity's value is found in the labor that goes into producing it. When Marx says "substance of value,” he is equating it with “labor in the abstract”; abstract labor is not a strict definition of labor, but simply labor of some form or another. When Marx speaks of a commodity’s “magnitude of value,” he is referring to “socially necessary labor time.” This is, in other words, the way in which a commodity’s value is measured. “Socially necessary labor time” is defined as “the labor-time required to produce any use-value under the conditions of production normal for a given society and with the average degree of skill and intensity of labor prevalent in that society.”[3] And so the value of a commodity would rise, for instance, if the productivity of labor is low, but the labor time to produce it is high. (Think of a diamond; this is a rare commodity, and to find one usually requires a great deal of time.) Marx goes on to say that just because something is a use-value does not mean it has value. To understand this, think of such things as air, virgin soil, etc.; these are use-values, but they do not require labor to produce them, so therefore they have no value. One must think of a commodity going through the social function of exchange. If something is just a use-value for oneself, then it is not a commodity; something only becomes a commodity when it is produced for others. Finally, it is important to note that if labor is producing something that is useless, then, as Marx says, “the labor does not count as labor, and therefore creates no value."[4]

[edit] Section 2. The Dual Character Of The Labour Embodied In Commodities

Marx discusses the relationship between labor and value. Marx states if there is a change in the quantity of labor expended to produce an article, the value of the article will change. This is, in fact, a direct correlation. Marx gives an example of the value of linen versus cloth to explain the worth of each commodity in a capitalist society. Linen is hypothetically twice as valuable as thread because more socially necessary labor time was used to create it. Use-value of every commodity is produced by useful labor. Use-value measures the actual usefulness of a commodity, whereas value is a measurement of exchange value. The source of value is labor-power. Objectively speaking, linen and thread have some value. Different forms of labor create different kinds of use-values. The value of the different use-values created by different types of labor can be compared because both are expenditures of human labor. One coat and ten yards of linen take the same amount of socially necessary labor time to make, so they have the same value.

[edit] Section 3. The Value-Form or Exchange-Value

[edit] (a) The Simple, Isolated, or Accidental Form of Value

In this chapter Marx explains that commodities come in double form. Commodities come in natural form and value form. We don't know commodities value until we know how much human labor was put in it. Commodities are traded between each other, after their value is decided socially. Then there is value-relation, which lets us trade between different kind of commodities. Marx explains value with out using money. Marx uses 20 yards of linen and a coat to show the value of each other. (20 yards of linen = 1 coat, or: 20 yards of linen are worth 1 coat) pg. 139. Marx calls this an equivalent form. He adds that the value 20 yards of line is just 20 yards of linen, there is no expression of value. Linen is a object of utility and that we cannot tell its value until we compare it to another commodity. To figure out the value of commodity is depend on its position in the expression value. Also commodities value depends in its being expressed or a commodity which the value is being expressed.

[edit] (b) The Total or Expanded Form of Value

Marx begins this section with an equation for the expanded form of value: "z commodity A = u commodity B or = v commodity C or = w commodity D or = x commodity E or = etc." where the lower case letters (z,u,v,w, and x) represent quantities of a commodity and upper case letters (A,B,C,D, and E) represent specific commodities so that an example of this could be: "20 yards of linen = 1 coat or = 10 lb. tea or = 40 lb. coffee or = 1 quarter of corn or = 2 ounces of gold or = ½ ton of iron or = etc."[5] Marx explains that with this example of the expanded form of value the linen “is now expressed in terms of innumerable other members of the world of commodities. Every other commodity now becomes a mirror of linen’s value.”[6] At this point, the particular use-value of linen becomes unimportant, but rather it is the magnitude of value (determined by socially necessary labor time) possessed in a quantity of linen which determines its exchange with other commodities. This chain of particular kinds (different commodites) of values is endless in that it contains every commodity and is constantly changing as new commodities come into being.

[edit] (c) The General Form of Value

Marx Begins this section with the table:

1 coat
10 lb. of tea
40 lb. of coffee
1 quarter of corn   = 20 yards of linen
2 ounces of gold
½ ton of iron
x commodity A etc.[7]

In such a table, the value of specific quantities of various commodities are now expressed in relation to a specific quantity of one single commodity, so that the form of value is now both simple and unified. Marx writes, “through its equation with linen, the value of every commodity is now not only differentiated from its own use-value, but from all use-values, and is, by that very fact expressed as that which is common to all commodities. By this form commodities are, for the first time, really brought into relation with each other as values, or permitted to appear to each other as exchange-values”.[8] At this juncture, one commodity (here linen) becomes a universal equivalent. It establishes the exchange between all other commodities and loses its ability to function in the relative form of value because it cannot function as its own equivalent (20 yds. of linen = 20 yds. of linen is not a meaningful expression of value).

[edit] (d) The Money Form

When in the course of history, one commodity, through social custom takes the form of the universal equivalent that commodity becomes the money commodity and begins to serve as money. Marx claims that in European history that commodity is gold. Thus, in the first table gold and linen switch places creating:

1 coat
10 lb. of tea
40 lb. of coffee
1 quarter of corn   = 2 ounces of gold
20 yds. of linen
½ ton of iron
x commodity A etc.[9]

When the relative value of a commodity is expressed in terms of a commodity serving as the money commodity that is considered the price form.

[edit] Section 4. The Fetishism of the Commodity and Its Secret

Marx's inquiry in this section focuses on the nature of the commodity, apart from its basic use-value. In other words, why does the commodity in its value-form (exchange) appear to be something other than the aggregation of homogenous human labor? Marx contends that due to the historical circumstances of capitalist society, the values of commodities are usually studied by political economists in their most advanced form: money. These economists see the value of the commodity as something metaphysically autonomous from the social labor that is the actual determinant of value. Marx calls this fetishism - the process whereby the society that originally generated an idea eventually, through the distance of time, forgets that the idea is actually a social and therefore all-too-human product. What this means is that this society will not look beneath the veneer of the idea (in this case the value of commodities) as it currently exists. They will simply take the idea as a natural and/or God-given inevitability that they are powerless to alter. Marx compares this fetishism to the manufacturing of religious belief; people initially create a deity to fulfill whatever desire or need they have in present circumstances, but then these products of the human brain appear as autonomous figures endowed with a life of their own, which enter into a relation both with each other and with the human race (165). Similarly, commodities only enter into relation with each other through exchange, which is a purely social phenomenon. Before that, they are simply useful items, but not commodities. Value itself cannot come from use-value because there is no way to compare or contrast the usefulness of an item; there are simply too many potential functions. So once in exchange, their value is determined by the amount of socially useful labor-time put into them because labor can be generalized. It takes longer to mine diamonds than it does to dig for quartz, thus diamonds are worth more. Fetishism within capitalism occurs once labor has been socially divided and centrally coordinated, and the worker no longer owns the means of production. They no longer have access to the knowledge of how much labor went into a product because they no longer control its distribution. From there, the only obvious determinant of value to the mass of people is the value that has been assigned in the past. Thus the value of a commodity seems to arise from a mystical property inherent to it, rather than from the labor-time, the actual determinant of value.

[edit] Chapter 2: The Process of Exchange

Marx explains commodity exchange and the fact that commodities need assistance to be exchanged. Owners enable commodities to be exchanged. Commodities cannot hide from humans. Trading commodities requires relating the commodities in the sense of how much of commodity x equals how much of commodity y. Marx states that "humans are made for each other to be holders or representatives of commodities."[10] Commodities have no direct use-value to their owners. Owners’ commodities have exchange-value which must be realized “before they can be realized as use-values.”[11] As far as the value of owned commodities, the labor expended on them only counts in so far as it is expended in a form which is useful for others.”[12] Since commodities values must be related to other commodities and society must accept the equal value. Exchange requires a “universal equivalent” –- money -- “the money-form is merely the reflection thrown upon a single commodity by the relations between all other commodities.”[13] Money is a commodity and ultimately a symbol of human labor. Closing the chapter, Marx states that "Men are henceforth related to each other in their social process of production in a purely atomistic way. ... because the products of men's labour universally take on the form of commodities."[14]

[edit] Chapter 3: Money, or the Circulation of Commodities

[edit] 1. The Measure of Values

Functions of Metalic Money In chapter 3 section I Marx examines the functions of money commodities. According to Marx the main function of money is to provide commodities with the medium for the expression of their values, i.e. labor time. The function of money as a measure of value serves only in an imaginary or ideal capacity. That is, the money that performs the functions of a measure of value is only imaginary because it is society that has given the money its value. The value that is contained in one ton of iron for example, is expressed by an imaginary quantity of the money commodity, which contains the same amount of labor as the gold.

Multiple Forms of Metallic Money As a measure of value and a standard of price money performs two functions. First it is the measure of value as the social incarnation of human labor and secondly it serves as a standard of price as a quantity of metal with a fixed weight. As in any case where quantities of the same denomination are to be measured the stability of the measurement is of the utmost importance. Hence the less the unit of measurement is subject to variations the better it fulfills its role. Metallic currency may only serve as a measure of value because it is itself a product of human labor.

Commodities with definite prices appear in this form: a commodity A= x gold; b commodity B= y gold; c commodity C= z gold, etc where a,b,c represent definite quantities of the commodities A,B,C and x,y,z definite quantities of gold. In spite of the varieties of commodities their values become magnitudes of the same denomination, gold-magnitudes. Since these commodities are all magnitudes of gold they are comparable and interchangeable.

Price Price is the money-name of the labor objectified in a commodity. Like the relative form of value in general, price expresses the value of a commodity by asserting that a given quantity of the equivalent is directly interchangeable. The price form implies both the exchangeability of commodities for money and the necessity of exchange. Gold serves as an ideal measure of value only because it has already established itself as the money commodity in the process of exchange.

[edit] 2. The Means of Circulation

[edit] (a) The Metamorphosis of Commodities

In this section Marx further examines the paradoxical nature of the exchange of commodities. The contradictions that exist within the process of exchange provide the structure for “social metabolism”. The process of social metabolism “transfers commodities from hands in which they are non-use-values to hands in which they are use-values…” (198). Commodities can only exist as “values” for a seller and “use-values” for a buyer. In order for a commodity to be both a “value” and a “use-value” it must be produced for exchange. The process of exchange alienates the ordinary commodity when its antithesis, the “money commodity” becomes involved. During exchange, the money commodity confronts the ordinary commodity disguising the true form of the ordinary commodity. Commodities and money are at opposites spectrums, and exist as separate entities. In the process of exchange, gold or money, functions as “exchange-value” while commodities function as “use-values”. A commodity’s existence is only validated through the form of money and money is only validated through the form of a commodity. This dualistic phenomenon involving money and commodities is directly related to Marx’s concept of “use-value” and “value”.

Commodity-Money-Commodity
          C-M-C

Marx examines the two metamorphoses of the commodity through sale and purchase. In this process, “as far as concerns its material content, the movement is C-C, the exchange of one commodity for another, the metabolic interaction of social labor, in whose result the process itself becomes extinguished” (200).

C-M

First metamorphosis of the commodity, or sale. In the process of sale, the value of a commodity, which is measured by socially necessary labor-time, is then measured by the universal equivalent, gold.

M-C

The second or concluding metamorphosis of the commodity: purchase. Through the process of purchase all commodities lose their form by the universal alienator, money. “Since every commodity disappears when it becomes money it is impossible to tell from the money itself how it got into the hands of its possessor, or what article has been changed into it” (205).

M-C = C-M

A purchase represents a sale although they are two separate transformations. This process allows for the movement of commodities and the circulation of money.

[edit] (b) The Circulation of Money

The circulation of money is first initiated by the transformation of a commodity into money. The commodity is taken from its natural state and transformed into its monetary state. When this happens the commodity “falls out of circulation into consumption”. The previous commodity now in its monetary form replaces a new and different commodity continuing the circulation of money. In this process, money is the means for the movement and circulation of commodities. Money assumes the measure of value of a commodity (i.e.) the socially necessary labor-time. The repetition of this process constantly removes commodities from their starting places, taking them out of the sphere of circulation. Money circulates in the sphere and fluctuates with the sum of all the commodities that co-exist within the sphere. The price of commodities varies by three factors. “…the movement of prices, the quantity of commodities in circulation, and the velocity of circulation of money” (218).

[edit] (c) Coin. The Symbol of Value

Money takes the shape of a coin because of how it behaves in the sphere of circulation. Gold became the universal equivalent by the measurement of its weight in relation to commodities. This process was a job that belonged to the state. The problem with gold is that it wore down as it circulated from hand to hand. The introduction of paper money as a representation of gold arose from the state as a new circulating medium. This form of imaginary expression continues to mystifies and intrigue. For Marx he views money as a “symbolic existence” which haunts the sphere of circulation and arbitrarily measures the product of labor.

[edit] 3. Money

[edit] (a) Hoarding

The exchange of money is a continuous flow of sales and purchase. Marx goes on to say, “In order to be able to buy without selling, he must have previously sold without buying.” This simple illustration demonstrates the essence of hoarding. In order to potentially buy, without selling a commodity in your possession, you must have hoarded some degree of money in the past. Money becomes greatly desired due to potential purchasing power. If you have money, you can exchange this for commodities and vice versa. However, while satisfying this newly arisen fetish for gold, the hoard causes the hoarder to make personal sacrifices.

[edit] (b) Means of Payment

In this section Marx analyzes the relationship between debtor and creditor and exemplifies the idea of the transfer of debt. In relation to this, Marx discusses how the money-form has become a means of incremental payment for a service or purchase. He states that the “function of money as means of payment begins to spread out beyond the sphere of circulation of commodities. It becomes the universal material of contracts.” Due to fixed payments and the like, debtors are forced to hoard money in preparation for these dates. “While hoarding, as a distinct mode of acquiring riches, vanishes with the progress of civil society, the formation of reserves of the means of payment grows with that progress.”

[edit] (c) World Money

Countries have reserves of gold and silver for two purposes: (1) Home Circulation; and (2) External Circulation in World Markets. Marx says that it is essential for countries to hoard, as it is needed “as the medium of the home circulation and home payments, and in part out of its function of money of the world.” With all of this discussed hoarding and the aforementioned idea of hoarded money’s inability to contribute to the growth of a capitalist society, Marx states that banks are the relief to this problem. “Countries in which the bourgeois form of production is developed to a certain extent, limit the hoards concentrated in the strong rooms of the banks to the minimum required for the proper performance of their peculiar functions. Whenever these hoards are strikingly above their average level, it is, with some exceptions, an indication of stagnation in the circulation of commodities, of an interruption in the even flow of their metamorphoses.”

[edit] Part Two: The Transformation of Money into Capital

Chapters 4-6 connect the abstract discussion of commodities, money, and value begun in Part I with their role in the formation of class relations under capitalism.

[edit] Chapter 4: The General Formula For Capital

In this chapter, Marx explains what capital is and how it is produced. The form of capital is money, yet not all money is capital. In Marx’s words there is “money as money" and "money as capital" (247). For money to be converted into the form of capital, it must undergo a deliberate process based on the circulation of commodities in an exchange market.

There are two different forms of commodity circulation: the direct or simple form of circulation (C-M-C) and the capital-generating form (M-C-M). Two common elements can easily be identified: the sale of a commodity (C-M) and the purchase of a commodity (M-C). Clearly the two contrast simply by their order in which the sale and purchase occur.

In the first form (C-M-C), a commodity is produced in order that one may acquire the means to purchase another commodity i.e. “selling in order to buy” (247). This particular form of commodity circulation is essentially a closed system. Once a commodity has been obtained by the purchase (M-C), the commodity exits the exchange-market thereby achieving its aim as a use-value, consumed according to necessity. The money is simply expended achieving its objective as a medium of exchange between two qualitatively different commodities.

The second, capital-generating form of commodity production (M-C-M) is simply an inversion of the previous form. In this instance, money purchases a commodity (M-C) in order that it be sold for money i.e. "buying in order to sell" (248). In contrast to the simple form of circulation, the capital-generating form culminates in the reflux, or return of money back to the capitalist as the desired result. Essentially money is exchanged for money (M-M). Since money is the starting point and conclusion of the capital-generating form of circulation "its determining purpose, is therefore exchange-value" (250). Consequently, use-values of commodities become negligible while the exchange-value of a commodity acquires meaning solely in the context of exchange. Therefore, in order for money to retain its form as capital it must remain in circulation otherwise it would simply be expended.

Finally, we must consider the role and motivations of the capitalist in the capital-generating form of circulation. If one expends money for the sake of receiving its return, then the capitalist necessarily desires its augmentation known as surplus-value. Since capital must remain in circulation, it manifests itself as ongoing process without end. The new value (original + surplus) becomes the starting point of a new cycle for the capitalist to exchange his money for more money. Therefore, the general formula for capital becomes M-C-M' in which M'=M+ΔM or the original value of money plus some increment of money, or surplus-value.

[edit] Chapter 5: Contradictions in the General Formula

After distinguishing money as capital (M-C-M) from money in general, Marx raises the question of how the capitalist accrues surplus-value by buying a commodity and then selling it. The key problem is how the exchange of equivalent values can produce more value. He rejects 5 possibilities:

First: Marx recognizes that use-value changes among buyers. So, one could just sell the commodity to the buyer with the most use-value and charge more to them. However, use-value does not determine value which is what is being created as a surplus. Since money is the universal equivalent of value, “the circulation of commodities involves a change only in the form of their values”.[15] As above, one can exchange 2oz of gold for only 1 coat and get only 2oz of gold for that coat, so long as the socially necessary labor time remains constant. Use-value plays no role in these formulas.

Second: In principle, “commodities may be sold at prices which diverge from their values, but this divergence appears as an infringement of the laws governing the exchange of commodities”.[16] Yet, the capitalist may possess some privilege by which s/he can sell above value. However, other capitalists have this privilege and overcharge the first capitalist who then loses his/her profit. The result is nominal price inflation which only changes the purchasing power of money, but not the real value.[17]

Third: There could be a class of people who consume but do not produce. They pay for commodities, and thus have money, without having produced and sold some commodity beforehand. The “free” money they thus put into circulation can be used to artificially alter exchange-values. However, since the consumption class has money without producing anything, the money must come from those outside of the consumption class. (Marx gives the example of Roman taxes.) Thus this class uses others' money to buy those people's products. No actual surplus-value is being created.[18]

Fourth: It may be that the capitalist overcharges a buyer as in the second rejection, but the buyer cannot recover the lost value and the capitalist will not be overcharged him/herself. However, there is still no surplus-value. If the buyer has $40 and the capitalist a $10 shirt, there is a total value of $50 in circulation. If the buyer pays $20 for the $10 dollar shirt and has $20 left over, there is still a total value of $50. The only change is distribution of wealth.[19]

Fifth: Since the circulation of commodities is between equivalent values, any surplus-value must emerge outside of this circulation. However, outside of circulation, the value of a commodity is only the labor put into it. The producer “cannot create values which can valorize themselves.” Surplus-value thus cannot emerge outside of circulation.[20]

Conclusion: “Circulation, or the exchange of commodities, creates no value”.[21] Only labor does. And, since nothing external to circulation creates value, something must be operating within circulation which is not circulation itself. Marx closes with the contradiction: "The transformation of money into capital has to be developed on the basis of the immanent laws of the exchange of commodities, in such a way that the starting-point is the exchange of equivalents".[22]

[edit] Chapter 6: The Sale and Purchase of Labour-Power

Marx begins this chapter by explaining how a change in the value of money must take place in the first act of commodity circulation, M-C, where the commodity is bought, but must originate in the commodities' use-value. Such a change requires a commodity whose use-value possesses the property of being a source of value, and thus, inherently creates value through its consumption.

Labour-power embodies everything mentally and physically capable by labour, but is only realized through the production of use-values. Thus, labour-power becomes the commodity that inherently creates value. However, its possessor must be the free proprietor of their labour and be willing to sell it as a commodity. The sale of labour simultaneously alienates labour-power from the means of production while allowing them to maintain ownership rights. Marx even goes on to say, “the owner of money must find the free worker available on the commodity market; and this worker . . . can dispose of his labour-power as his own commodity, and . . . is free of all objects needed for the realization of his labour-power.”[23] This realization of labour-power can occur only when labour is used in conjunction with the means of production; hence, a separation from the means of production compels individuals’ to put their labour on the market because of an inability to sell commodities.

The value of labour-power is determined by the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the owner. These means of subsistence must be sufficient to maintain a “normal state” as a working individual, and, in order to perpetuate a presence in the marketplace, the means necessary for subsistence of the worker’s replacements.

Marx continues with an example on the value of labour-power, which states that, “half a day of labour is required for the daily production of labour-power,” and that, “half a day of average social labour is present in 3 shillings, . . . the price corresponding to the value of a day’s labour-power”.[24] Subsequently, three shillings would now represent a buying and selling price for labour-power because the value of the necessary means of subsistence equals three shillings.

The creation of an obscure commodity, labour-power, isn’t without its consequences; for instance, the value of labour-power is determined prior to the sale of said labour-power. Coincidentally, the owner’s of labour-power will not realize their use-value until after production has occurred, and in most cases production must occur for an extended period before pay is obtained. Therefore, labour is forced to produce on credit because the money-owner consumes labour prior to payment. Furthermore, labour’s use-value can only manifest through the consumption of labour-power, and this consumption becomes the commodity production process as well as the creator of surplus value.

In the end Marx shifts from a transparent realm, “where everything takes place on the surface and in full view” to the reality of commodity production where, “the money-owner now strides out in front as a capitalist; the possessor of labour-power follows as his worker”.[25]

[edit] Chapter 7: The Labour Process and the Valorization Process

[edit] 2. The Valorization Process

The capitalist strives to produce a use-value with exchange-value (a commodity) that has a greater value than the sum of its parts (the means of production and labor-power). The process of production must therefore be understood as the synthesis of the labor process and the process of creating value.

Marx uses as an example of valorization the spinning of cotton into yarn. When the capitalist purchases 10 lb. of cotton at its full value of 10 shillings, the price conveys the labor objectified in the cotton. In addition, all of the socially necessary means of production used up in the cotton’s production, which Marx represents in the wear and tear of the spindle, have a value of 2 shillings.

To determine the value of the yarn, then, all of the successive processes necessary to produce the cotton, manufacture the spindle, and spin the yarn must be taken into account. The values of the means of production, the 12 shillings, are a part of the total value of the product.

There are two conditions that must be met for this process to produce value. First, a use-value must have been produced. Second, the labor-time used to produce the use-value (in this case yarn) must be no more than that which is socially-necessary.

Yet these factors still only amount to a portion of the total value of the yarn; labor constitutes the remainder. Since labor-power is “absorbed” by the raw material in the form of spinning, the resulting yarn “is now nothing more than a measure of the labor absorbed by the cotton.”[26]

Value is added to the yarn by the labor objectified in it. The value of a day’s labor-power (six hours of labor) is 3 shillings. Assuming the spinner can turn 10 lb. of cotton into 10 lb. of yarn in six hours, the cotton contains six hours of labor, the same amount contained by 3 shillings of gold. Spinning, then, has added a value of 3 shillings to the cotton.

The total value of the 10 lb. of yarn is calculated by adding all of the socially necessary means of production used up and all of the socially necessary labor absorbed. Two days of labor were absorbed by the cotton and spindle, a half a day by the process of spinning. The two and a half days of labor are represented by a piece of gold valued at 15 shillings. This is thus the price of the 10 lb. of yarn.

In this process, though, the capitalist has not created surplus-value, even though value has been added to the product (10 shillings to produce the cotton, 2 shillings for the worn spindle, and 3 shillings to purchase the labor-power). The capitalist has broken even, which is not why they entered business.

The capitalist realizes that the worker spins for only six hours to survive for twenty-four hours, and could remain effective for twelve hours. This increases the value created twofold. The two and a half days of labor become five, the 10 lb. of yarn becomes 20, and the value created becomes 30 shillings. The price of the 20 lb. of cotton is thus 30 shillings, but the total value of the labor and means of production is only 27 shillings. A surplus-value of three shillings has been created, and money has been transformed into capital.

Everything is exchanged equally and the capitalist pays the full value for each commodity consumed.

[edit] Part Three: The Production of Absolute-Surplus Value

In chapters 7-11, Marx elaborates his analysis of exploitation and the extraction of surplus-value. He highlights both the fundamental way in which capital seeks to increase the rate of surplus-value through lengthening the working day, as well as the variety of ways workers strive to resist this increased exploitation.


Chapter 8: Constant Capital and Variable Capital

In this chapter Marx explains how different factors in the overall labor process can have various roles in determining the value of a product. For instance, Marx states that the purpose of the workers labor is twofold in that, “it must at the same time create value through one of its properties and preserve or transfer value through another.”[27] Marx uses the example of converting cotton into yarn to further illustrate that if the worker could not spin the yarn productively then he would not be able to make the cotton into yarn, which would mean that he could not shift the values of the cotton and spindle to the yarn.[28] Thus, the value of cotton has a particular amount of socially necessary labor, and the amount of value of cotton that it can attribute to something else is the value it has. Marx therefore highlights a characteristic of what he terms constant capital. Constant capital represents the means of production (i.e. land, oil, cotton, steel, glass, etc.) for the capitalist. Its value remains the same for any additional use. Marx states, “[the] means of production never transfer more value to the product than they themselves lose.”[29] Next, Marx goes on to explain the concept of surplus-value, which he defines as the difference between the means of production and the labor-power.[30] Labor-power, Marx elaborates, “reproduces the equivalent of its own value and produces an excess.”[31] Marx then refers to labor power as “the variable part of capital” or variable capital.[32] Thus, variable capital is the value of the product produced.


Chapter 10: The Working Day

1. The Limits of the Working Day.

Value of labor power is the necessary labor time required for a worker to produce an amount equal to his means of subsistence. Any amount of time worked beyond the necessary labor time is called surplus labor.

The Working Day = A-------B----------C. The line AC represents the working day. AB is the necessary labor time and BC is surplus labor.

Under the Capitalist system, Marx says that a working day can never be reduced to necessary labor time only. This would not profit the capitalist. Marx then describes the two factors that limit the maximum length of the working day. First, there are physical limits to labor power. A worker can only work for so long before he must rest, eat, sleep, etc. In addition to physical limitations, there are moral obstacles that limit the working day. “The worker needs time in which to satisfy his intellectual and social requirements, and the extent and the number of these requirements is conditioned by the general level of civilization.” The capitalist seeks to create the most surplus value he can by extending the working day to absorb the greatest possible amount of surplus labor. In other words, the capitalist is like any other buyer of commodities; he wants to extract the maximum use value of his commodity, which in this case is labor power. The worker who sells his labor power must be able to reproduce it every day in order to resell it. If the working day is extended too far, the capitalist may extract a greater quantity of labor power than the worker is able to restore before his next shift begins. This will cause deterioration in the health of the worker. Marx goes on to describe how the process of overwork leads to the worker being unfairly compensated for his labor power in his daily wages. He gives this example: If the average length of time a worker can live and do a reasonable amount of work is 30 years, the value of his labor power for which he is paid from day to day is: 1 / 365 x 30 or 1 / 10,950 of its total value. If worked too hard and the value of his labor power is consumed in 10 years, he is still paid the same amount. That is 1 / 10,950 of his labor power daily instead of 1 / 3650. Therefore he is only paid 1 / 3 the value of his labor power daily, and is robbed of 2 / 3. Marx concludes this section saying that the establishment of a norm for the working day presents its self as a struggle between collective capital (class of capitalists) and collective labor (working classes).

2. The Voracious Appetite for Surplus Labor. Manufacturer and Boyar.

“Capital did not invent surplus labor”, begins Marx. This section focuses of the historical tendency for the owners of the means of production to attempt to extract greater and greater amounts of surplus labor out of workers, often in an unscrupulous manner. He gives two main examples. The first is the system of the “corvée” in the Danubian provinces of precapitalist Russia. The second example is that of a fraudulent capitalist factory owner. Under the corvée system of the early 19th century, the peasant owed a specific quantity of labor to the landlord annually. This labor consisted of 12 general labor days, one day of field labor, and one day of wood carrying. This amounted to a total of 14 days a year. These days were not average work days, however. They amounted to the total time necessary to produce an average daily product. Russian leaders took such great liberties in deciding what an average daily product was that it turned out to be equal to three days of actual work. The 14 days of corvée became 42 days of required labor. Marx then gives a few more examples of ways the landlords were able to tack on more and more days to the corvée.

The second main example for the strong appetite for surplus labor is that of a fraudulent factory owner that illegally extends the working day. He does this by starting work 10 or 15 minutes early or by shaving a few minutes off of the beginning and ending of breaks and lunch hours. These small additions of work add up to hours of uncompensated surplus labor over the course of a week, and weeks of surplus labor over the course of a year.

3. Branches of English Industry without Legal Limits to Exploitation

In this section, Marx presents the historical debate regarding the work day and the exploitation of children. Using examples of match manufacturing and bread-making, Marx describes the issues children faced by working long hours in poor conditions at extremely young ages. In many cases, these children died or faced long-term ailments. Marx also covers similar issues of exploitation of children in both Ireland and Scotland.

4. Day-Work and Night-Work. The Shift-System

Means of production (constant capital) exists to be used to produce commodities. When not in use, no surplus-labor is occurring. This unproductive time can only be seen as good for the capitalist if the time the constant capital lies dormant is used so that the worker can rest and be more productive when again using the means of production to create a commodity. Although is it ideal for the capitalist to have people who could work constantly (24 hours a day), the workers would suffer and thus profits could not continue to increase. In order to produce 24 hours a day, the capitalist realized that by instituting shift-work, he could both maximize his profits while allowing the individual worker to get his necessary rest.

5. The Struggle for a Normal Working Day. Laws for the Compulsory Extension of the Working Day, from the Middle of the Fourteenth to the End of the Seventeenth Century

Ideally a capitalist would have an individual worker producing 24 hours a day with only so much rest time as the worker needed to continue to function. The worker is nothing more to the capitalist than labor-power and a means to accumulate surplus-value and so the worker’s personal time means nothing to the capitalist. Yet according to Marx, having this attitude is a double-edge sword in that if the capitalist had his way and exploited the worker to this extent, he would in essence be killing his own workforce. However the value of labor-power (the worker) includes all of the commodities that go into keeping the worker alive. In the end, it is more expensive for the capitalist to replace a worker than to keep one sustained adequately. Ultimately it is in capital’s best interest to not have an individual work 24 hours a day with only necessary breaks but to have a work day that is short enough to sustain healthy strong labor-power.

Marx summarizes this process in saying, “Establishment of a normal working day is the result of centuries of struggle between the capitalist and the worker” (382).


Chapter 11: The Rate and Mass of Surplus-Value

Having explained the rate of surplus-value earlier in Ch. 9, Marx focuses this chapter on the mass of surplus-value. The mass of surplus-value is completely dependant on the number of workers under the capitalist's control. We know that the rate of surplus value is equal to S/V or the Surplus Labor Time/Necessary Labor Time or the rate of Surplus Value/the rate of Exploitation. To increase this rate, the capitalist simply has to work his workers longer hours. This is simply a rate dependant on the degree of exploitation of the workers. The mass of surplus-value is determined by the rate of surplus value(S/V) multiplied by the number of workers. The more exploitation that exists, the more money the capitalist will possess.

This brief chapter is filled with typical Marxist theoritical situations to explain the mass of surplus-value but the core of the chapter lies in the three laws that Marx describes dealing with the rate of surplus-value. Marx explains as his first and most fundamental law that, "the mass of surplus-value produced is equal to the amount of the vairable capital advanced multiplied by the rate of surplus-value".[33] Basically, as stated above, the mass of surplus-value is totally dependant on the total numbers of workers being exploited by the same capitalist and how much exploitation is going on. The formula S={ s/v (x) V, P x a'/a (x) n} comes about, where s is equal to surplus value produced by the individual worker, v being equal to the varibal capital advanced in the purchase of an individual labor power, V being the total amount of variable capital, P being the value of an average labor-power, and a'/a represents the degree of exploitation(surplus labor/necessary labor).[34] Marx lets it be known that under this law, that the mass of surplus-value is not constant in nature, but that a decrease in one factor can be made up by an increase in another factor, such as variable capital dropping but the exploitation of the labor-power increasing to make up for this change.

Marx's second law deals with the limitation of compensating for lacking factors. He says that the "compensation for a decrease in the number of workers employed cannot be overcome"[35] What we see is the natural tendancy of capital automatically reducing the number of workers employed by the capitalist. It is important to note the average working day in terms of compensating for fluctauating factors, because it sets an absoute limit on such compensations. Marx's third law states that "The rate of surplus-value and the value of labor time, being given, it is self-evident that the greater the variable capital, the greater would be the mass of the value produced and of the surplus-value".[36] These two factors explained are completely dependant on the mass of labor performed by the worker, or better yet how heavily the worker is exploited. Marx states that this law, or the numerical value of the factors involved here, are determined by how much variable capital is advanced from the capitalist. He further suggests that we now know the capitalist divides his capital into two parts; one part on the means of production(a constant factor) and the other on the living labor-power, which is heavily exploited and forms his variable capital.

Insert non-formatted text here==Part Four: The Production of Relative-Surplus Value== Chapters 12-15 focus on the ways in which capital seeks to increase worker productivity as a means of increasing the rate of workers' exploitation.

   Sec  1 Development of Machinery

Marx explains the Development of Machinery. “The machine is a means for producing surplus-value” (Marx 492). Machines shorten the part of the working day that the worker works for his means of subsistence, in turn lengthening the work they do contributing to the capitalists Surplus Value.

      Marx explains the three parts of machinery. The motor mechanism, the transmitting mechanism, and the working machine.  1 The motor mechanism powers the mechanism. Be it a steam engine, water wheel or a person’s caloric engine. 2 The transmitting mechanism, wheels, screws, and ramps and pulleys. These are the moving parts of the machine. 3 The working machine uses itself to sculpt whatever it was built to do. Machines do tasks that workers formerly did with hand tools, but a bit more efficiently. Workers still must run these machines and maybe even power them. This is where animal power comes into play. Marx says that if a man is found operating a machine where an animal could do just as well, “it is purely accidental that the motive power seems to be clothed in the form of a human”(Marx 497).  Marx states obviously that the bigger the size of the machine, the more motive power it will need to be run. 
  As far as the development of machinery, necessity is the mother of invention. “Men wore clothes before there were any tailors”(Marx 503). Inventors started inventing machines to complete necessary tasks, the machine making industry grew larger and workers efforts started going toward building machines. Many machines being made, spawned need for new machines.  For example, the spinning machine started a need for printing and dying, and the designing of the cotton gin. Here, started the building of machines, by machines. “Without steam engines, the hydraulic press could not have been made.” Along with the press, came the mechanical lathe and an iron cutting machine. Labor assumes a material mode of existence which necessitates the replacement of human force by natural forces” (Marx 508). Human labor is often taken over by practical/natural forces, saving the laborer work time done for his means of subsistence and increasing his Surplus Value.
   Sec  2 The Value Transferred by Machinery to the Product
           Machines have been introduced to capital.  Workers now go to work, not to handle tools, but to operate machines that handle tools.  These machines ‘raise the productivity of labor’ without an increase in labor expended. “Machinery, like every other component of constant capital (C), creates no new value, but yields up it’s own value to the product it serves to beget. In so far as the machine has value and, as a result, transfers value to the product” (Marx 509).  Since machines have high cost to make, the product that they make will have a higher value.  Machine made goods have a higher value than a craft made by any given person. Machines give value to products as well as making products, the longer a machine operates and depreciates, the greater the difference is of the two. 
   The value given to a product my means of the machine differs due to the size of the product. The value given to the product also depends on the value of he machinery, and the labor used to make the machine.  
    As far as the use of machines, ‘if the machine costs as much labor to make it, as is saved by the use of it, labor was only displaced.  Labor to make a commodity has not been lessened.’ “The productivity of the machine is therefore measured by the human labor-power it replaces” (Marx 513). In addition to this, “The use of machinery is limited by the requirement that less labor must be expended in producing the machinery than is displaced by the employment of that machinery” (Marx 515).  Marx goes on explaining how machines took the place of naked girls and women working in mines.  Women were also used to haul barges in England, “The land of machinery” (Marx 517).


[edit] Part 4: The Production of Relative Surplus-Value

Chapter 12: The Concept of Relative Surplus-Value

In the beginning of this chapter, Marx provides an illustration of the working day whose length is defined, and its division between necessary labor and surplus labor is marked as well. The line, AC, looks like this:

 A - - - - - - - - - - B - - C

The section AB represents necessary labor, and the section BC represents surplus labor. He then poses the question, “How can the production of surplus-value be increased, i.e. how can surplus labor be prolonged, without any prolongation, or independently of any prolongation, of the line AC?” [37]. Marx proposes that it is in the best interest of the capitalist to divide the working day like this:

 A - - - - - - - - - B’ - B - - C

This is showing that the amount of surplus labor is increased, while the amount of necessary labor is decreased. Through this, part of the labor-time that was used by the worker for the worker is lost, and the lost time there would be used as labor-time for the benefit of the capitalist. When there is a change in the amount of necessary labor-time, and therefore an increase in surplus-value, Marx calls this “relative surplus-value.” (Whereas when there is an actual lengthening in the working day and surplus value is produced, this is called “absolute surplus-value.”) Marx then goes onto discuss what can decrease the value of labor-power. First, remember that the value of labor-power is “the labor-time necessary to produce labor-power” [38]. With this in mind, Marx says that the value of labor-power can be decreased if there is an increase in the productivity of labor. But productivity of labor cannot be increased without there first being a change in the mode of production, i.e. there must be innovations in both the technical and social conditions of the process of labor. And when the value of labor-power falls alongside an increase in the productivity of labor, commodities become cheaper. Along with this, Marx states that, as the productivity of labor increases, so, too, does the relative surplus-value; on the other hand, when there is a decrease in the productivity of labor, the relative surplus-value decreases as well. In other words, there is a direct proportion between the two things. The perpetual drive of capital according to Marx is to increase the productivity of labor, so that commodities can become cheaper. Through this process, the worker himself becomes cheaper. The reader is reminded that the capitalist is not interested in the absolute value of a commodity; instead, he is concerned with the surplus-value that is there in it, a value that is recognized through the sale of that commodity. Marx concludes that, through the increase of the productivity of labor, the aim of capitalist production “is the shortening of that part of the working day in which the worker must work for himself, and the lengthening, thereby, of the other part of the day, in which he is free to work for nothing for the capitalist” [39].


Chapter 13:Co-operation

Marx states capitalist production can only begin when a large number of workers are working together at the same time in the same place in order to produce the same type of commodity under the same capitalist (Marx 439). Marx says we have already seen that the surplus-value produced by a given capital is equal to the surplus-value produced by each worker multiplied by the number of workers simultaneously employed (Marx 439). If the number of workers employed simulatneously increases, there is an increase in the productive power of the individual. Marx states a dozen people will produce far more, in their collective working day of 144 hours than twelve isolated men each working for 12 hours, and far more than one man who works 12 days in succession (Marx 444). Marx gives the example of masons moving stones from the foot of a ladder to the summit. The job gets done in a smaller amount of time if the masons work together to move the stones than if they individually carry the stones up and down the ladder. Marx states the necessary labor time for the completion of the whole work is shorted if more workers are employed simultaneously (Marx 445). Marx defines co-operation as such: When numerous workers work together side by side in accordance with a plan, whether in the same process, or in a different but connected processes, this form of labor is called co-operation (Marx 443). There is no co-operation, however, if workers are not brought together. Marx says the relation between labor and capital is that the capitalist, instead of buying the labor-power of one man, he buys that of 100 men and enters into separate contracts with 100 unconnected men instead of one; he does not pay for the combined labor-power of the 100 (Marx 451). A transformation of the labor process to a social process is a method used by the capitalist for the exploitation of labor, by increasing its productive power (Marx 453).

[edit] Chapter 14: The Division of Labour and Manufacture

In section I, “The Dual Origin of Manufacture” Marx identifies two was in which manufacture originates. The first method occurs when a series of workers with different trades are brought together to work for one capitalist under the same roof, in such a way that a single product passes from one worker to the next. This becomes a particularly capitalist phenomenon when these tradesmen find themselves making only one type of product, so that a locksmith working for a carriage company would make locks only for carriages when he used to make locks for a variety of different products ”.[40]. The second form occurs when a capitalist hires a number of workers, each worker making an entire product himself. Under external circumstances requiring a need to speed up production this method changes so that each worker is given a specific task within the making of a product”.[41]. In section 2, “The Specialized Worker and His Tools” Marx argues that a worker who performs only one task throughout his life will perform his job at a faster and more productive rate, forcing Capital to favor the specialized worker to the traditional craftsmen”.[42]. In this section Marx also demonstrates that a specialized worker doing only one task can use a more specialized tool, which cannot do many jobs but can do the one job well, in a more efficient manner than a traditional craftsman using a multi-purpose tool on any specific task ”.[43]. In Section 3 Marx argues that the production of various commodities produces a hierarchy of skilled and unskilled labor. Skilled labor requires, takes large amounts of training or skill and tends to command a higher value of labor-power, while unskilled labor which any man can do, takes little to no training, and commands a lower value of labor-power”.[44]. In section 4, “The Division of Labour in Manufacture and the Division of Labour in Society” Marx argues that the division of labor in society has existed throughout time and space. However, Marx sees the division of labour within a factory or workshop as something totally unique to the capitalist mode of production”.[45]. While physiological and social circumstances may mediate the division of labour in society, it is the need to produce surplus value which creates the need for a division of labour within manufacture. In section 5, “The Capitalist Character of Manufacture” Marx considers the way in which a division of labour within manufacture limits the mind and education of a worker. Marx also points to the revolution of machinery as a way to increase surplus-value by increasing the productivity of each worker.

Chapter 15: Machinery and Large-Scale Industry

4. The Factory

Marx begins this section with two descriptions of the factory as a whole.

“Combined co-operation of many orders of workpeople, adult and young, in tending with assiduous skill, a system of productive machines, continuously impelled by a central power” (the prime mover); on the other hand, as “a vast automaton, composed of various mechanical and intellectual organs, acting in uninterrupted concert for the production of a common object, all of them being subordinate to a self-regulated moving force.” (544-545)

This two-fold description shows the characteristics of the relationship between the collective body of labor power and the machine. In the first description, the workers, or collective labor power, are viewed as separate entities from the machine. In the second description, the machine is the dominant force, with the collective labor acting as mere appendages of the self operating machine. Marx uses the latter description to display the characteristics of the modern factory system under capitalism.

In the factory, the tools of the worker disappear, and the worker’s skill is passed on to the machine. The division of labor and specialization of skills re-appear in the factory, only now as a more exploitative form of capitalist production. Work is still organized into co-operative groups. Work in the factory usually consists of two groups, people who are employed on the machines and those who attend to the machines. The third group, outside of the factory, is a superior class of workers, trained in the maintenance and repair of the machines.

Factory work begins at childhood to ensure that a person may adapt to the systematic movements of the automated machine, therefore increasing productivity for the capitalist. Marx describes this work as being extremely exhausting to the nervous system and void of intellectual activity. Factory work robs workers of basic working conditions like clean air, light, space, and protection. Marx ends the section by asking if Fourier was wrong when he called factories ‘mitigated jails’?


5. The Struggle between Worker and Machine

In the beginning of this section Marx recounts the introduction of machinery and the resistance among workers that followed it. Marx does not criticize the machines themselves or technology, but the capitalist system that envelopes the machines. He states that,

“It took both time and experience before workers learnt to distinguish between machinery and their employment by capital, and therefore to transfer their attacks from the material instruments of production to the form of society which utilizes those instruments.” (554)

Marx describes the machine as the instrument of labor for the capitalists’ material mode of existence. The machine competes with the worker, diminishing the use-value of the worker’s labor-power. Marx also points out that with the advance in technology of machines led to the substitution of less skilled work for more skilled work which ultimately led to a change in wages. During the progression of machinery the numbers of skilled workers decreased, while child labor flourished, increasing profits for the capitalist.

[edit] Part Five: The Production of Absolute and Relative Surplus-Value

Chapters 16-18 examine how the capitalist strategies for the production of both absolute and relative surplus-value are combined and can function simultaneously.

[edit] Part Six: Wages

Chapters 19-22 examine the ways in which capital manipulates the money wage as ways of both concealing exploitation and of extorting increased amounts of unpaid labor from workers.

[edit] Chapter 20: Time-Wages

In the first part of his analysis of the forms wages take, Marx presents time-wages; whereby, a worker is paid a certain amount per certain period of time. An example of a time-wage is working for $10.00/hr. The time-wage and price of labor are independent of one another. The price of labor for Marx is the average daily value of labor-power divided by the hours in the average working day. [46] Time-wages are the compensation workers get per unit of time. Thus, if the value of labor-power falls, the price of labor will fall though the time-wage may not. This independence allows the capitalist to pay the worker less than the value of their labor-power while still appearing to offer fair compensation. [47] For the worker to survive then, she must work more hours or get a second job. To both the worker and capitalist, time-wages seem to demonstrate the connection between working harder and being more successful. To Marx, this appearance only hides the fact that time-wages are ways of increasing the rate of surplus-value by reducing variable costs and the length of the working day.


[edit] Ch. 21: Piece-Wages

Marx is determined to explain the exploitative nature of the piece-wage system. Paying workers a pre-determined amount for each piece they produce is what defines the piece-wage system, but it is only a modified form of the time-wage system. A key difference is the fact that the piece-wage system provides an exact measure of the intensity of labor. Meaning that the capitalists’ know about how long it takes to produce one piece of finished product. Those who cannot meet these standards of production will not be allowed to keep their jobs. This system also allows for middlemen to usurp positions between the capitalists and laborers. These middlemen make their money solely from paying labor less than capitalists are actually allotting, thus, bringing about worker on worker exploitation. Logic would lead a laborer to believe that straining one’s labor power “as intensely as possible” works in one’s own interests because the more efficiently they produce the more they will be paid. Therefore, the workday will lengthen to the extent that worker’s allow and necessitate. However, prolongation in the workday requires the price of labor to fall. Marx elucidates that, “The piece-wage therefore has a tendency, while raising the wages of individuals above the average, to lower this average itself”, and “it is apparent that the piece-wage is the form of wage most appropriate to the capitalist mode of production” [48].

[edit] Part Seven: The Process of Accumulation of Capital

Chapters 23-25 explore the ways in which profits are used to recreate capitalist class relations on an ever expanding scale and the ways in which this expansion of capitalism creates periodic crises for capitalist accumulation. For Marx, these crises in accumulation are also always crises in the perpetuation of the class relations necessary for capitalist production and so are also opportunities for revolutionary change.

[edit] Part Eight: So-Called Primitive Accumulation

Chapters 26-33 concern the history and origins of capitalism and of capitalist class relations.

[edit] Chapter 26: The Secret of Primitive Accumulation

Primitive accumulation is the accumulation of wealth that takes place prior to the capitalist era of production and provides the starting point that makes possible subsequent capitalist accumulation. This chapter describes the creation of capitalist society in terms of the creation of two classes: workers and capitalists. Marx argues that it is not just the accumulation of money that is required in order for capitalism to begin, but also the creation and accumulation of large numbers of “free” workers who are willing, able, and needing to work for a monetary wage. The “secret” of this primitive accumulation lies in the fact that it emerges from a history of systematic violence and brutality, rather than from the simple hard work and thrift of a few would-be capitalists. The “freeing” of serfs and slaves from their feudal lords at the same time “frees” them of their land and homes i.e. their means of production and means of subsistence. “So-called primitive accumulation, therefore, is nothing else than the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production.”[49] This process dates from about the sixteenth century and is far from idyllic and peaceful. The history of this primitive accumulation of both capital and workers as it was experienced in England is continued in the following chapters.

[edit] Chapter 27: The Expropriation of the Agricultural Population from the Land

The last third of the 15th Century marked the beginning of the era that provided for the rise of capitalist mode of production and the initial creation of the working class. In England, the process of primitive accumulation has its roots in the transition from communal land ownership by peasants and feudal lords alike, to the private ownership of a few would-be capitalists. The manufacture of textiles and its accompanying higher prices for wool, serve as motivation for the feudal lords to drive peasantry from communal property. Feudal tenure is abolished as estates are seized and farmlands are liquidated into the hands of a few landowners. Marx refers to this process as a time of "turning arable lands into sheepwalks," and thus, usurping and using the land strictly for the purpose of industry, only to later be turned into deer preserves stil yet keeping men from their native soil. Similarly, the dissolution of monasteries and the property associated with the Catholic church added to the bulk of land and property that transferred hands. The peasant farmers are initially driven off the land by brute force, later sanctified by the Parliament in the 18th Century as initiated by the ‘Bills for Inclosure of Commons,’ a decree legally enforcing the ability of landowners to claim rights to peoples’ land as private property. No longer able to provide their own means of subsistence and without ties to the land, a body of wage-laborers is created in need of employment for survival. The seized, liquidated and privately owned land provides the means for large-scale agricultural production providing market and employment for the new "free and rightless" proletariat class who now depend on its industry.

[edit] Chapter 28: Bloody Legislation against the Expropriated since the End of the Fifteenth Century. The Forcing Down of Wages by Act of Parliament

Marx begins this chapter describing how the new class of landless proletarians created by the destruction of feudalism was far too large to be fully consumed by the new capitalist job market. The supply of workers far exceeded the demand for labor. The vast majority of people had few career options other than to become beggars, thieves, and vagabonds. The governments of western Europe responded with several centuries of harsh legislation against beggars and vagrants. Marx gives examples of several laws from the time period. Branding, flogging, enslavement, imprisonment, and execution were all acceptable forms of punishment for the crimes of begging and idleness. Marx goes on to describe how the rising elite used the power of the state to regulate wages and the length of the working day to make the most profit. One example is the Statute of Labourers, a law that fixed maximum wages in England in 1349. It forbade paying higher wages than those set by the statute, however the punishment for receiving higher wages was usually much higher than the punishment for paying them. Legislation was also passed that made it a serious crime for workers to form "combinations" or unions. Through out most of western Europe these and other similar laws were kept in effect for several centuries to come.

[edit] Chapter 29: The Genesis of the Capitalist Farmer

In this brief chapter Marx describes the creation of a small, but relatively wealthy, class of capitalist farmers. The land of the expropriated agricultural population was divided among an elite class of landed proprietors. They became increasingly wealthy due to three factors. First, the Agricultural Revolution of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries increased the productivity of the newly acquired lands. Second, there was a decrease in the value of precious metals which translated into lower wages payed to farm laborers. Finally, an increase in the value of farm crops resulted in massive profits for the new proprietors of the agricultural lands.

[edit] Chapter 30: Impact of the Agricultural Revolution on Industry. The Creation of a Home Market for Industrial Capital

The loss of agriculturally-based subsistence living lead a large population of displaced farmers to urban and newly industrialized areas in search of a means of survival. In doing so, they provided much needed labor power in order for capitalism to flourish. Also inherent to capitalism’s survival is the creation of a class of consumers. Prior to industrialization, farmers were able to provide basic good and services for themselves, as new wage-laborers, not only were they no longer in a position to provide these good for themselves, but for the first time had a wage in which to become consumers. In this sense, capitalism was only able to survive as a result of transforming this group into both a necessary labor force and consumer market.

[edit] Chapter 31: The Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist

With the dissolution of feudalism and the expropriation of the agricultural class, money had the power to create the industrial capitalist. In order to have the vast amounts of capital necessary to reorganize the social and economic structures of the time, Countries turned to extirpation (destruction), enslavement and pilfering of lands such as India, Mexico and the Americas to amass resources. Equally as necessary to resource accumulation was the arrival of the system of public credit and debt, believed by Marx to be, “one of the most powerful levers of primitive accumulation,” as well as the modern system of taxation.

[edit] Chapter 32: The Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation

In this chapter, Marx is explaining the direction that Capitalist Accumulation is going, which is ultimately the downfall of capitalism through a revolution of the mass workers. Marx begins this chapter with a question, "What does the primitive accumulation of capital resolve itself into?" The answer to that question is "the dissolution of private property based on the labour of its owners, i.e expropriation of the immediate producers".[50] We now see that a mass expropriation of the worker lays the foundation for capitalist history. Private property is now replaced with capitalist private property,by the highest form of exploitation, and we now see the shift from the days of free labour to immigrant/alien labour. Workers are turned into proletarians and their means of labour are transformed into capital by the capitalist who is exploiting the workers on a large scale. Capitalist private property is formed from the capital mode of appropriation, which has dwindled away the once existent private property that was founded on personal labour of workers.[51] The nature of capitalism,though, brings about its own demise. In a system that "exlcudes co-operation, the social control and regulation of forces of nature, and the free development of the productive forces of society" it allows no room for modes of production outside of it's own.[52] The nature of capitalism brings about its own destruction and is now faced with being expropriated by the workers through a "centralization of capitals"[53] With a working class that is strong in number and fully united, this group soon becomes "incompatible with their capitalist integument" and "the expropriators are exropriated" and the we know have a situation in which "the expropriation of a few usurpers by the mass of people".[54]

[edit] Chapter 33: The Modern Theory of Colonization

The chapter begins with the explanation of two different kinds of private property. The first "rests on the labour of the producer himself", while the second, "(rests) on the exploitation of the labour of others".[55] Marx says that the second type was a result of the first and only grows off the first type.[56] With the advent of colonies, capitalist nature has to take a different structure than that of "Homeland Capitalism". E.G. Wakefield said, "in the colonies capital is not a thing but a social relation between persons which is mediated through things".[57] The wage labourer of colonies is not willing to sell himself of his own free will, as many do back in the mother country. Capitalism has to turn the means of production from the individual producers into capital. This can be achieved by heavy exploitation of the worker. If domination over the workers free will cannot be achieved, Marx then asks, "how did capital and wage-labour come into existence?"[58] This comes about through the division of workers into owners of capital and owners of labour and have essential expropriated themself in order to accumulate capital.[59] This self-expropriation is the basis for capitalist mode of production and is the only way that colonial weath existed. Once the social dependence of the worker is towards the capitalist(through some artificial means[60]) and the workers continue to increase in number, the mode of production will generate capital. But it is important to realize the difference in the dependence of the worker to the mother land compared to the colony. We have seen that the capitalist practice of primitive accumulation has been presecribed for use in the colonies now and also the continual expropriation of the worker.[61] Though the chapter is heavy on the establishment of colonies and the implementation of capitalist methods in the new areas, Marx makes his point fairly clear in the last paragraph of Chapter 33. He is letting the reader know that capitalist private properity can only exist once the private property of the individual producer has been expropriated and annihilated.

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 89.
  2. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 125.
  3. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 129.
  4. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 131.
  5. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 154, 155.
  6. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 155.
  7. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 157.
  8. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 158.
  9. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 162.
  10. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 179.
  11. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 179.
  12. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 180.
  13. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 184.
  14. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 187.
  15. ^ ibid. 260
  16. ^ ibid. 261
  17. ^ ibid. 263
  18. ^ ibid. 264-5
  19. ^ ibid. 265
  20. ^ ibid. 268
  21. ^ ibid. 266
  22. ^ ibid. 268-9
  23. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 272.
  24. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 276.
  25. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 280.
  26. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 297.
  27. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 307.
  28. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 308.
  29. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 312.
  30. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 317.
  31. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 317.
  32. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 874-875.
  33. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990.418
  34. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990.418
  35. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990.419
  36. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 420
  37. ^ ibid. 429
  38. ^ ibid. 430
  39. ^ ibid. 438
  40. ^ ibid. 455
  41. ^ ibid. 456
  42. ^ ibid. 458
  43. ^ ibid. 460
  44. ^ ibid. 470
  45. ^ ibid. 480
  46. ^ ibid. 684
  47. ^ ibid. 686
  48. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 697-698
  49. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 874-875.
  50. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 927
  51. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 929
  52. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 927
  53. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990.929
  54. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 929
  55. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 931
  56. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 931
  57. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 932
  58. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 933
  59. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 934
  60. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 934
  61. ^ Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume I. Trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990. 939

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