The Online Library of Liberty

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• Editor's Note to the First American Edition By Ernest Untermann
• Author's Prefaces to the First and Second Editions, By Karl Marx
• I.—TO The First Edition.
• II.—TO The Second Edition.
• Editor's Prefaces, to the First English Translation and Fourth German Edition By Frederick Engels
• Editor's Preface to the First English Translation.
• Editor's Preface to the Fourth German Edition.
• Volume I. The Process of Capitalist Production.
• Book I. Capitalist Production.
• Part I. Commodities and Money.
• Part I, Chapter I Commodities.
• Section 1.—THE Two Factors of a Commodity: Use-value and Value (the Substance of Value and the Magnitude of Value).
• Section 2.—THE Twofold Character of the Labour Embodied In Commodities.
• Section 3.—THE Form of Value Or Exchange Value.
• A. Elementary Or Accidental Form of Value.
• 1. the Two Poles of the Expression of Value: Relative Form and Equivalent Form.
• 2. the Relative Form of Value.
• (a.) the Nature and Import of This Form.
• (b.) Quantitative Determination of Relative Value.
• 3. the Equivalent Form of Value.
• 4. the Elementary Form of Value Considered As a Whole.
• B. Total Or Expanded Form of Value.
• 1. the Expanded Relative Form of Value.
• 2. the Particular Equivalent Form.
• 3. Defects of the Total Or Expanded Form of Value.
• C. the General Form of Value.
• 1. the Altered Character of the Form of Value.
• 2. the Interdependent Development of the Relative Form of Value, and of the Equivalent Form.
• 3. Transition From the General Form of Value to the Money Form.
• D. the Money Form.
• Section 4.—THE Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof.
• Part I, Chapter Ii Exchange.
• Part I, Chapter Iii Money, Or the Circulation of Commodities.
• Section 1. The Measure of Values.
• Section 2.—THE Medium of Circulation.
• A. the Metamorphosis of Commodities.
• B. the Currency 82 of Money.
• C. Coin and Symbols of Value.
• Section 3.—MONEY.
• A. Hoarding.
• B. Means of Payment.
• C. Universal Money.
• Part II. the Transformation of Money Into Capital.
• Part Ii, Chapter Iv the General Formula For Capital.
• Part Ii, Chapter V Contradictions In the General Formula of Capital.
• Part Ii, Chapter Vi the Buying and Selling of Labour-power.
• Part III. the Production of Absolute Surplus-value.
• Part Iii, Chapter Vii the Labour-process and the Process of Producing Surplus-value.
• Section 1.—THE Labour-process Or the Production of Use-values.
• Section 2.—THE Production of Surplus-value.
• Part Iii, Chapter Viii Constant Capital and Variable Capital
• Part Iii, Chapter Ix the Rate of Surplus-value.
• Section 1.—THE Degree of Exploitation of Labour-power.
• Section 2.—THE Representation of the Components of the Value of the Product By Corresponding Proportional Parts of the Product Itself.
• Section 3.—SENIOR'S "last Hour."
• Section 4.—SURPLUS Produce
• Part Iii, Chapter X the Working Day
• Section 1—the Limits of the Working Day
• Section 2.—THE Greed For Surplus Labor, Manufacturer and Boyard
• Section 3.—BRANCHES Of English Industry Without Legal Limits to Exploitation
• Section 4.—DAY And Night Work. the Relay System
• Section 5.—THE Struggle For a Normal Working Day. Compulsory Laws For the Extension of the Working Day From the Middle of the 14th to the End of the 17th Century
• Section 6.—THE Struggle For the Normal Working Day. Compulsory Limitation By Law of the Working Time. the English Factory Acts, 1833 to 1864.
• Section 7.—THE Struggle For the Normal Working-day. Re-action of the English Acts On Other Countries.
• Part Iii, Chapter Xi Rate and Mass of Surplus-value.
• Part IV. Production of Relative Surplus-value.
• Part Iv, Chapter Xii the Concept of Relative Surplus-value.
• Part Iv, Chapter Xiii Co-operation.
• Part Iv, Chapter Xiv Division of Labour and Manufacture.
• Section 1.—TWOFOLD Origin of Manufacture.
• Section 2.—THE Detail Labourer and His Implements.
• Section 3.—THE Two Fundamental Forms of Manufacture: Heterogeneous Manufacture, Serial Manufacture.
• Section 4.—DIVISION Of Labour In Manufacture, and Division of Labour In Society.
• Section 5.—THE Capitalistic Character of Manufacture.
• Part Iv, Chapter Xv Machinery and Modern Industry.
• Section 1.—THE Development of Machinery.
• Section 2.—THE Value Transferred By Machinery to the Product
• Section 3.—THE Approximate Effects of Machinery On the Workman.
• A. Appropriation of Supplementary Labour-power By Capital. the Employment of Women and Children.
• B. Prolongation of the Working-day.
• C. Intensification of Labour
• Section IV.—THE Factory
• Section 5.—THE Strife Between Workman and Machine
• Section 6.—THE Theory of Compensation As Regards the Workpeople Displaced By Machinery.
• Section 7.—REPULSION And Attraction of Workpeople By the Factory System. Crisis In the Cotton Trade.
• Section 8.—REVOLUTION Effected In Manufacture, Handicrafts. and Domestic Industry By Modern Industry.
• A. Overthrow of Co-operation Based On Handicraft and On the Division of Labour.
• B. Re-action of the Factory System On Manufacture and Domestic Industries.
• C. Modern Manufacture.
• D. Modern Domestic Industry.
• E. Passage of Modern Manufacture, and Domestic Industry Into Modern Mechanical Industry. the Hastening of This Revolution By the Application of the Factory Acts to Those Industries.
• Section 9.—THE Factory Acts. Sanitary and Education Clauses of the Same. Their General Extension In England.
• Section 10.—MODERN Industry and Agriculture.
• Part V. the Production of Absolute and of Relative Surplus-value.
• Part V, Chapter Xvi Absolute and Relative Surplus-value.
• Part V, Chapter Xvii Changes of Magnitude In the Price of Labour-power and In Surplus-value.
• 1. Length of the Working Day and Intensity of Labour Constant. Productiveness of Labour Variable.
• II. Working-day Constant. Productiveness of Labour Constant. Intensity of Labour Variable.
• III. Productiveness and Intensity of Labour Constant. Length of the Working-day Variable.
• IV.— Simultaneous Variations In the Duration, Productiveness, and Intensity of Labour.
• (1). Diminishing Productiveness of Labour With a Simultaneous Lengthening of the Working-day.
• (2) Increasing Intensity and Productiveness of Labour With Simultaneous Shortening of the Working-day.
• Part V, Chapter Xviii Various FormulÆ For the Rate of Surplus-value.
• Part VI. Wages.
• Part Vi, Chapter Xix the Transformation of the Value (and Respectively the Price) of Labour-power Into Wages.
• Part Vi, Chapter Xx Time-wages.
• Part Vi, Chapter Xxi Piece-wages.
• Part Vi, Chapter Xxii National Differences of Wages.
• Part VII. the Accumulation of Capital.
• Part Vii, Chapter Xxiii Simple Reproduction.
• Part Vii, Chapter Xxiv Conversion of Surplus-value Into Capital.
• Section I.—CAPITALIST Production On a Progressively Increasing Scale. Transition of the Laws of Property That Characterise Production of Commodities Into Laws of Capitalist Appropriation.
• Section 2.—ERRONEOUS Conception By Political Economy of Reproduction On a Progressively Increasing Scale.
• Section 3.—SEPARATION Of Surplus-value Into Capital and Revenue. the Abstinence Theory.
• Section 4.—CIRCUMSTANCES That, Independently of the Division of Surplus-value Into Capital and Revenue, Determine the Amount of Accumulation. Degree of Exploitation of Labour-power. Productivity of Labour. Growing Difference In Amount Between Capital Empl
• Section 5.—THE So-called Labour Fund.
• Part Vii, Chapter Xxv the General Law of Capitalist Accumulation.
• Section 1.—THE Increased Demand For Labour-power That Accompanies Accumulation, the Composition of Capital Remaining the Same.
• Section 2.—RELATIVE Diminution of the Variable Part of Capital Simultaneously With the Progress of Accumulation and of the Concentration That Accompanies It.
• Section 3.—PROGRESSIVE Production of a Relative Surplus-population Or Industrial Reserve Army.
• Section 4.—DIFFERENT Forms of the Relative Surplus-population. the General Law of Capitalistic Accumulation.
• Section 5.—ILLUSTRATIONS Of the General Law of Capitalist Accumulation.
• ( A. ) England From 1846-1866.
• (b). the Badly Paid Strata of the British Industrial Class.
• C. the Nomad Population.
• (d). Effect of Crises On the Best Paid Part of the Working Class.
• (e.) the British Agricultural Proletariat.
• (1.) Bedfordshire.
• (2.) Berkshire.
• (3.) Buckinghamshire.
• (4.) Cambridgeshire.
• (5.) Essex.
• (6.) Herefordshire.
• (7.) Huntingdon.
• (8.) Lincolnshire.
• (9.) Kent.
• (10.) Northamptonshire.
• (11.) Wiltshire.
• (12.) Worcestershire.
• (f.) Ireland.
• Part VIII. the So-called Primitive Accumulation.
• Part Viii, Chapter Xxvi the Secret of Primitive Accumulation.
• Part Viii, Chapter Xxvii Expropriation of the Agricultural Population From the Land.
• Part Viii, Chapter Xxviii Bloody Legislation Against the Expropriated, From the End of the 15th Century. Forcing Down of Wages By Acts of Parliament.
• Part Viii, Chapter Xxix Genesis of the Capitalist Farmer.
• Part Viii, Chapter Xxx Reaction of the Agricultural Revolution On Industry. Creation of the Home Market For Industrial Capital.
• Part Viii, Chapter Xxxi Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist.
• Part Viii, Chapter Xxxii Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation.
• Part Viii, Chapter Xxxiii the Modern Theory of Colonisation. 70
• Works and Authors Quoted In "capital"

(1). Diminishing productiveness of labour with a simultaneous lengthening of the working-day.

In speaking of diminishing productiveness of labour, we here refer to diminution in those industries whose products determine the value of labour-power; such a diminution, for example, as results from decreasing fertility of the soil, and from the corresponding dearness of its products. Take the working-day at 12 hours and the value created by it at 6 shillings, of which one half replaces the value of the labour-power, the other forms the surplus-value. Suppose, in consequence of the increased dearness of the products of the soil, that the value of labour-power rises from 3 shillings to 4, and therefore the necessary labour-time from 6 hours to 8. If there be no change in the length of the working-day, the surplus-labour would fall from 6 hours to 4, the surplus-value from 3 shillings to 2. If the day be lengthened by 2 hours, i.e., from 12 hours to 14, the surplus-labour remains at 6 hours, the surplus-value at 6 shillings, but the surplus-value decreases compared with the value of labour-power, as measured by the necessary labour-time. If the day be lengthened by 4 hours, viz., from 12 hours to 16, the proportional magnitudes of surplus-value and value of labour-power, of surplus-labour and necessary labour, continue unchanged, but the absolute magnitude of surplus-value rises from 3 shillings to 4, that of the surplus-labour from 6 hours to 8, an increment of 33 1/3%. Therefore, with diminishing productiveness of labour and a simultaneous lengthening of the working-day, the absolute magnitude of surplus-value may continue unaltered, at the same time that its relative magnitude diminishes; its relative magnitude may continue unchanged, at the same time that its absolute magnitude increases; and, provided the lengthening of the day be sufficient, both may increase.

In the period between 1799 and 1815 the increasing price of provisions led in England to a nominal rise in wages, although the real wages, expressed in the necessaries of life, fell. From this fact West and Ricardo drew the conclusion, that the diminution in the productiveness of agricultural labour had brought about a fall in the rate of surplus-value, and they made this assumption of a fact that existed only in their imaginations, the starting-point of important investigations into the relative magnitudes of wages, profits, and rent. But, as a matter of fact, surplus-value had at that time, thanks to the increased intensity of labour, and to the prolongation of the working-day, increased both in absolute and relative magnitude. This was the period in which the right to prolong the hours of labour to an outrageous extent was established;18 the period that was especially characterised by an accelerated accumulation of capital here, by pauperism there.19

[18.][18] "Corn and labour rarely march quite abreast; but there is an obvious limit beyond which they cannot be separated. With regard to the unusual exertions made by the labouring classes in periods of dearness, which produce the fall of wages noticed in the evidence" (namely, before the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry, 1814-15), "they are most meritorious in the individuals, and certainly favour the growth of capital. But no man of humanity could wish to see them constant and unremitted. They are most admirable as a temporary relief; but if they were constantly in action, effects of a similar kind would result from them, as from the population of a country being pushed to the very extreme limits of its food." (Malthus: "Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent," Lond., 1815, p. 48, note.) All honour to Malthus that he lays stress on the lengthening of the hours of labour, a fact to which he elsewhere in his pamphlet draws attention, while Ricardo and others, in face of the most notorious facts, make invariability in the length of the working-day the ground-work of all their investigations. But the conservative interests, which Malthus served, prevented him from seeing that an unlimited prolongation of the working-day, combined with an extraordinary development of machinery, and the exploitation of women and children, must inevitably have made a great portion of the working class "supernumerary," particularly whenever the war should have ceased, and the monopoly of England in the markets of the world should have come to an end. It was, of course, far more convenient, and much more in conformity with the interests of the ruling classes, whom Malthus adored like a true priest, to explain this "over-population" by the eternal laws of Nature, rather than by the historical laws of capitalist production.

[19.][19] "A principal cause of the increase of capital, during the war, proceeded from the greater exertions, and perhaps the greater privations of the labouring classes, the most numerous in every society. More women and children were compelled by necessitous circumstances, to enter upon laborious occupations, and former workmen were, from the same cause, obliged to devote a greater portion of their time to increase production." (Essays on Pol. Econ., in which are illustrated the principal causes of the present national distress. Lond., 1830, p. 248.)