Karl Marx 1818–1883

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died 100 years ago on March 14. We reprint a brief review by his co-thinker that its use is a source of new value, is a creation of new value. This commodity is labour-power.

What is the value of labour power? The value of every commodity is measured by the labour required for its production. Labour power exists in the shape of the living worker who needs a definite amount of means of subsistence for himself and for his family, which ensures the continuance of labour power even after his death. Hence the labour time necessary for producing these means of subsistence represents the value of labour power. The capitalist pays him weekly and thereby purchases the use of one week's labour of the worker. So far Messrs. the economists will pretty well agree with us as to the value of labour power.

The capitalist now sets his worker to work. In a certain time the worker will have delivered as much lavuur as was itprestutu by his weekly wage. Supposing that the weekly wage of a worker represents three labour days, then, if the worker begins on Monday he has by Wednesday evening replaced for the capitalist the full value of the wage paid. But does he then stop working? By no means. The capitalist has bought his week's labour and the worker must go on working during the last three days of the week too. This surplus labour of the worker, over and above the time necessary to replace his wage, is the source of surplus value, of profit, of the continually growing accumulation of capital.

Do not say it is an arbitrary assumption that the worker earns in three days the wages he has received and works the remaining three days for the capitalist. Whether he takes exactly three days to replace his wages, or two or four, is, of course, quite immaterial here and depends upon circumstances; the main point is that the capitalist, besides the labour he pays for, also extracts labour that he does not pay for; and this is no arbitrary assumption, for if the capitalist extracted from the worker over a long period only as much labour as he paid him for in wages, he would shut down his workshops, since indeed his whole profit would come to nought.

Here we have the solutinn of all thnos mantra. LULL dictions. The origin of surpluş value (of which the capitalist's profit forms an important part) is now quite clear and natural. The value of the labour power is paid for, but this value is far less than that which the capitalist can extract from the labour power, and it is precisely the difference, the unpaid labour, that constitutes the share of the capitalist, or more accurately, of the capitalist class.

For even the profit that the cotton dealer made on his cotton in the above example must consist of unpaid labour, if cotton prices-have not risen. The trader must have sold it to a cotton manufacturer, who is able to extract from his product a profit for himself besides the original 100 talers, and therefore shares with him the unpaid labour he has pocketed. In general, it is this unpaid labour which maintains all the non-working members of society: The state and municipal taxes, as far as they affect the capitalist class, the rent of the landowners, etc., are paid from it. On it rests the whole existing social system.

Let us assume that the worker works three days of the week to replace his wages and three days to produce surplus value for che capitalist •. Putting il otherwise, it means that with a twelve-hour working day he works six hours daily for his wages and six hours for the production of surpius value. vne can get Ans ann cont pnly six days out of the week, seven at most, even by including Sundav. but one can extract six, eight, ten, twelve, fifteen or even more hours of labour out of every working day. The worker sells the capitalist a working day for his day's wages. But what is a working day?

Eight hours or eighteen?

It is in the capitalist's interest to make the working day as long as possible. The longer it is, the more surplus value is produced. The worker correctly feels Organuser no.123 March 1983 Page that every hour of labour which he performs over and above the replacement of his wage is unjustly taken from him; he experiences with his own body what it means to work excessive hours. The capitalist fights for his profit, the worker for his health, for a fen hours of daily rest, to be able, as a human being, to have other occupations than working, sleeping and eating. It may be remarked in passing that it does not depend at all upon the good will of the individual capitalists whether they desire to embark on this struggle or not, since competition compels even the most philanthropic among them to join with his colleagues and to make a working time as long as theirs the rule.

The struggle for the fixing of the working day has lasted from the first appearance of free workers in history up to the present We will pass over a number of other very fine investigations of more theoretical interest and come to the final chapter which deals with the accumulation of capital. Here it is first shown that the capitalist mode of production, i.e., that which presupposes capitalists on the one hand and wageworkers on the other, not only continually reproduces the capital of the capitalist, but also continually reproduces the poverty of the workers at the same time; so that it is ensured that there always exist anew, on the one hand, capitalists who are the owners of all means of subsistence, raw materials and instruments of labour, and, on the other, the great mass of workers who are compelled to sell their labour power to these capitalists for an amount of the means of subsistence which at best just suffices to maintain them capable of working and to bring up a new generation of ablebodies proletarians.

But capital is not merely reproduced; it is continually increased and multiplied - and so is its power over the propertyless workers also on an evergreater scale and in evergreater numbers...

The laws of capitalism These, strictly scientifically proved - and the official economists take great care not to make even an attempt at refutation -are some of the chief laws of the modern, capitalist social system. But with this is everything said? By no means.

Just as sharply Marx stresses the bad sides of capitalist production, does he also clearly prove that this social form was necessary to develop the productive forces of society to a level which will make possible an equal development, worthy of human beings, for all members of society. All earlier forms of society were too poor for this. Capitalist production for the first time creates the wealth and the productive forces necessary for this, but at the same time it also creates in the mass of oppressed workers the social class which is more and more compelied to