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Karl Marx
Wage Labour and Capital
The Interests of Capital and Wage-Labour are diametrically opposed
Effect of growth of productive Capital on Wages
We thus see that, even if we keep ourselves within
the relation of capital and wage-labor, the interests of capitals and the
interests of wage-labor are diameterically opposed to each other.
A rapid growth of capital is synonymous with a rapid growth of
profits. Profits can grow rapidly only when the price of labor – the relative
wages – decrease just as rapidly. Relative wages may fall, although real
wages rise simultaneously with nominal wages, with the money value of labor,
provided only that the real wage does not rise in the same proportion
as the profit. If, for instance, in good business years wages rise 5 per
cent, while profits rise 30 per cent, the proportional, the relative wage
has not increased, but decreased.
If, therefore, the income of the worker increased with the rapid
growth of capital, there is at the same time a widening of the social chasm
that divides the worker from the capitalist, and increase in the power
of capital over labor, a greater dependence of labor upon capital.
To say that "the worker has an interest in the rapid growth of
capital", means only this: that the more speedily the worker augments the
wealth of the capitalist, the larger will be the crumbs which fall to him,
the greater will be the number of workers than can be called into existence,
the more can the mass of slaves dependent upon capital be increased.
We have thus seen that even the most favorable situation for the
working class, namely, the most rapid growth of capital, however much it
may improve the material life of the worker, does not abolish the antagonism
between his interests and the interests of the capitalist. Profit and wages
remain as before, in inverse proportion.
If capital grows rapidly, wages may rise, but the profit of capital
rises disproportionately faster. The material position of the worker has
improved, but at the cost of his social position. The social chasm that
separates him from the capitalist has widened.
Finally, to say that "the most favorable condition for wage-labor
is the fastest possible growth of productive capital", is the same as to
say: the quicker the working class multiplies and augments the power inimical
to it – the wealth of another which lords over that class – the more
favorable will be the conditions under which it will be permitted to toil
anew at the multiplication of bourgeois wealth, at the enlargement of the
power of capital, content thus to forge for itself the golden chains by
which the bourgeoisie drags it in its train.
Growth of productive capital and rise of wages, are they really
so indissolubly united as the bourgeois economists maintain? We must not
believe their mere words. We dare not believe them even when they claim
that the fatter capital is the more will its slave be pampered. The bourgeoisie
is too much enlightened, it keeps its accounts much too carefully, to share
the prejudices of the feudal lord, who makes an ostentatious display of
the magnificence of his retinue. The conditions of existence of the bourgeoisie
compel it to attend carefully to its bookkeeping. We must therefore examine
more closely into the following question:
In what manner does the growth of productive capital affect wages?
If as a whole, the productive capital of bourgeois society grows, there
takes place a more many-sided accumulation of labor. The individual capitals
increase in number and in magnitude. The multiplications of individual
capitals increases the competition among capitalists. The increasing magnitude
of increasing capitals provides the means of leading more powerful armies
of workers with more gigantic instruments of war upon the industrial battlefield.
The one capitalist can drive the other from the field and carry
off his capital only by selling more cheaply. In order to sell more cheaply
without ruining himself, he must produce more cheaply – i.e., increase
the productive forces of labor as much as possible.
But the productive forces of labor is increased above all by a
greater division of labor and by a more general introduction and constant
improvement of machinery. The larger the army of workers among whom the
labor is subdivided, the more gigantic the scale upon which machinery is
introduced, the more in proportion does the cost of production decrease,
the more fruitful is the labor. And so there arises among the capitalists
a universal rivalry for the increase of the division of labor and of machinery
and for their exploitation upon the greatest possible scale.
If, now, by a greater division of labor, by the application and
improvement of new machines, by a more advantageous exploitation of the
forces of nature on a larger scale, a capitalist has found the means of
producing with the same amount of labor (whether it be direct or accumulated
labor) a larger amount of products of commodities than his competitors
– if, for instance, he can produce a whole yard of linen in the same labor-time
in which his competitors weave half-a-yard – how will this capitalist
act?
He could keep on selling half-a-yard of linen at old market price;
but this would not have the effect of driving his opponents from the field
and enlarging his own market. But his need of a market has increased in
the same measure in which his productive power has extended. The more powerful
and costly means of production that he has called into existence enable
him, it is true, to sell his wares more cheaply, but they compel him at
the same time to sell more wares, to get control of a very much greater
market for his commodities; consequently, this capitalist will sell his
half-yard of linen more cheaply than his competitors.
But the capitalist will not sell the whole yard so cheaply as
his competitors sell the half-yard, although the production of the whole
yard costs him no more than does that of the half-yard to the others. Otherwise,
he would make no extra profit, and would get back in exchange only the
cost of production. He might obtain a greater income from having set in
motion a larger capital, but not from having made a greater profit on his
capital than the others. Moreover, he attains the object he is aiming at
if he prices his goods only a small percentage lower than his competitors.
He drives them off the field, he wrests from them at least part of their
market, by underselling them.
And finally, let us remember that the current price always stands
either above or below the cost of production, according as the sale of
a commodity takes place in the favorable or unfavorable period of the industry.
According as the market price of the yard of linen stands above or below
its former cost of production, will the percentage vary at which the capitalist
who has made use of the new and more faithful means of production sell
above his real cost of production.
But the privilege of our capitalist is not of long duration. Other
competing capitalists introduce the same machines, the same division of
labor, and introduce them upon the same or even upon a greater scale. And
finally this introduction becomes so universal that the price of the linen
is lowered not only below its old, but even below its new cost of production.
The capitalists therefore find themselves, in their mutual relations,
in the same situation in which they were before the introduction of the
new means of production; and if they are by these means enabled to offer
double the product at the old price, they are now forced to furnish double
the product for less than the old price. Having arrived at the new point,
the new cost of production, the battle for supremacy in the market has
to be fought out anew. Given more division of labor and more machinery,
and there results a greater scale upon which division of labor and machinery
are exploited. And competition again brings the same reaction against this
result.
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