Wage labor and capital

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Wage labor and capital is a work by Karl Marx first published in 1849 .

Release history

According to Friedrich Engels , the text is based on lectures that Marx gave to the German workers' association in Brussels in 1847. The fragmentary text was first published in the form of five editorials in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung published by Marx between April 5 and 11, 1849. Due to the political situation, the publication of the series had to be interrupted; a continuation of the manuscript was in Marx's estate not findable. The text published in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung later appeared in various, largely unchanged individual prints, for example in Zurich in 1884 . In 1891, a version revised by Engels was published in Berlin (for example, the term “work” was replaced by “ work force ”) with a foreword in an edition of 10,000. The script is available in 16 languages ​​on the Marxists Internet Archive . The online catalog of the German National Library contains around 140 publications of the font from 1891 to 2002.

content

1st article of April 5th

Table of contents of the English version from the estate of Toshihiko Sakai , handwritten
Introduction and overview

Marx begins the article with the remark that it has been criticized from different sides that the economic conditions, which are supposed to form the basis of the national and class struggles , have not been adequately presented so far. The series of articles is intended to present, in a generally understandable manner, those economic conditions which are the foundation of the “existence of the bourgeoisie and its class rule” and “the slavery of the workers ”. It should be presented in three large departments:

  1. "The relation of wage labor to capital , the slavery of the worker, the rule of the capitalist ",
  2. "The inevitable decline of the middle class and the peasant class under the current system",
  3. "The commercial subjugation and exploitation of the bourgeois classes of the various European nations by the despot of the world market - England."
What is the wage? How is it determined?

According to Marx, the first question is what wages are and how they are determined. According to Marx, wages are the sum of money “which the capitalist pays for a certain working time or for a certain delivery of labor.” With the money with which the capitalist buys labor power, “e.g. For example, with 2 marks, he could have bought 2 pounds of sugar or some other commodity for a certain amount. "According to Marx, labor is a commodity," no more, no less than sugar. The first is measured with the clock, the other with the scales. ”The workers exchange labor in a certain ratio“ for the commodity of the capitalist, for money ”.

“[The amount of the wage expresses] the ratio in which labor power is exchanged for other commodities, the exchange value [of] labor power. The exchange value of a commodity, estimated in money, is called its price . Wages are therefore only a special name for the price of labor. ... The capitalist buys the weaver's labor with part of his existing fortune, his capital, just as he has bought the raw material - the yarn - and the working tool - the loom - with another part of his fortune. ... The wages are therefore not a share of the worker in the goods he produces. Wages are the part of already available commodities with which the capitalist buys a certain amount of productive labor. "

Labor power is therefore a commodity that its owner, the wage worker, sells to capital. The question now arises, why is he selling his labor? According to Marx, the answer is simple: “In order to live.” The worker sells his life's activity “to a third party in order to secure the necessary food. His life activity is only a means for him to exist. He works to live. ”Marx ends by stating:

“As we have seen, wages are the price of a certain commodity, labor. Wages are therefore determined by the same laws that determine the price of every other commodity. So how is the price of a commodity determined? "

2nd article of April 6th

How is the price of a commodity determined?

There is competition between the sellers of the same commodity, which depresses the price of the commodity, and there is competition between the buyers, which raises the price. There is also competition between sellers and buyers, the result of which is determined by the competition in the groups. “Industry brings two armies into battle against each other, each of which in its own ranks again fights a battle between its own troops. The army mass, among whose troops the slightest fight takes place, wins the victory over the opposing party. "

When the supply of a commodity is weaker than its demand, there is “little or no competition among sellers. In the same proportion as this competition decreases, so does the competition among buyers. Result: more or less significant rise in commodity prices. It is known that the reverse case with the reverse result occurs more frequently. Substantial excess of supply over demand: desperate competition among sellers; Lack of buyers: selling the goods at ridiculous prices. "

Now if the price is determined by the relationship between demand and supply, what determines the relationship between demand and supply?

Measure of profit; Production costs

If you get back a sum of goods in exchange for goods that cost less to produce, you have generally "lost". If you get a sum of other goods back in exchange for a commodity, the production of which cost more, you have "won". The rise or fall in profit is calculated "according to the degree in which the exchange value of a commodity is below or above zero - the cost of production."

If the price of a commodity rises, then the price of all “other commodities which have remained at their old prices” has fallen proportionally.

“What will be the consequence of the rising price of a commodity? A mass of capital will throw itself on the flourishing branch of industry… Vice versa. If the price of a commodity falls below its production costs, the capitals will withdraw from the production of this commodity. ... We see how capital is constantly emigrating and immigrating from one industry to another. The high price leads to excessive immigration and the low price leads to excessive emigration. ... We have just seen how fluctuations in supply and demand lead the price of a commodity back to production costs. "

According to Marx, “the determination of the price through the production costs” is “equal to the determination of the price through the labor time required to manufacture a commodity, because the production costs consist of 1. Raw materials and wear and tear of instruments, ie. H. from industrial products, the production of which took a certain amount of working days , which therefore represent a certain amount of working time, and 2. from immediate work, the measure of which is precisely the time. "

Labor cost of production

According to Marx, the same laws that regulate the price of commodities in general also regulate wages. Wages move according to the relationship between demand and supply, “as the competition between the buyers of labor, the capitalists, and the sellers of labor, the workers, is shaped. The fluctuations in wages correspond to fluctuations in commodity prices in general. Within these fluctuations, however, the price of labor will be determined by the cost of production, by the labor time that is required to produce this commodity, labor power. "The production costs of labor power are those" costs that are required to make the worker To get workers and to train him to work. "

The less educational time a job requires, the lower the worker's production costs and the lower his wages. In branches of industry in which almost no training is required and “the mere physical existence of the worker is sufficient, the production costs necessary for his manufacture are almost limited to the goods that are necessary to keep him able to work. The price of his labor will therefore be determined by the price of the necessary food, "the" subsistence and reproduction costs of the worker "or the" minimum wage ".

“Individual workers, millions of workers, are not given enough to exist and reproduce; but the wages of the whole working class equalize within their fluctuations at this minimum. Now, after we have come to an understanding about the most general laws which regulate wages as well as the price of every other commodity, we can go into our subject more specifically. "

3rd article of April 7th

Capital as a social production relationship

In production, according to Marx, people “not only affect nature, but also one another,” they enter into certain relationships with one another. Social relations will differ according to the nature of the means of production .

“The social relations in which individuals produce, the social production relations change, change with the change and development of the material means of production, the production forces. The relations of production in their totality form what is called social relations, society, namely a society at a specific, historical stage of development, a society with a peculiar, distinctive character. Ancient society, feudal society, and bourgeois society are aggregates of relations of production, each of which at the same time denotes a particular stage of development in the history of mankind. "

Even the capital is a social relation of production. “It is a bourgeois production relation, a production relation of bourgeois society. ... Capital does not consist only of food , work tools and raw materials , not only of material products ; it also consists of exchange values . All products of which they are made are goods . So capital is not just a sum of material products, it is a sum of goods, of exchange values, of social values. "

Requirement for the capital

In order for a sum of commodities, of exchange values, to become capital, they must be an “independent social power”, that is, as the “power of a part of society”, they must be maintained and increased through the “exchange for living labor . The existence of a class that has nothing but the ability to work is a necessary condition of capital. The domination of the accumulated, past, objectified labor over immediate, living labor makes the accumulated labor into capital. "

Relationship between capital and wage labor

In exchange for food, the worker relinquishes his productive activity to the capitalist, whereby the worker "gives the accumulated labor a greater value than it had before." According to Marx, he has lost his productive activity "for himself." The worker produces capital , he produces values ​​"which serve again to command his work and through the same to create new values."

“Capital can only multiply by exchanging itself for labor power, by creating wage labor. The labor of the wage laborer can only be exchanged for capital by increasing capital by strengthening the power of which it is a slave. An increase in capital is an increase in the proletariat; H. the working class. ... Capital goes to bed if it does not exploit labor , and in order to exploit it it has to buy it. The faster the capital destined for production, the productive capital, increases, the more prosperous industry is, the more the bourgeoisie gets rich, the better business goes, the more workers the capitalist needs, the more dearly the worker sells . The indispensable condition for an acceptable position of the worker is, therefore, the fastest possible growth of productive capital. But what is growth of productive capital? Increase in the power of accumulated labor over living labor. Growth in the rule of the bourgeoisie over the working class. When wage labor produces the foreign wealth that dominates it, the power that is hostile to it, capital, its employment, ie. H. Food returned from it, on the condition that it makes itself anew a part of the capital, the lever which anew throws the same into an accelerated movement of growth.
As long as the wage worker is a wage worker, his lot depends on capital. That is the much-vaunted commonality of interests of worker and capitalist. "

4th article of April 8th

Social need

According to Marx, our needs and enjoyments arise from society; “We therefore measure them against society; we do not measure them by the objects of their satisfaction. Because they are social in nature, they are relative in nature. "

“A house may be big or small, as long as the houses around it are also small, it satisfies all social demands on an apartment. But if a palace rises next to the little house, and the little house shrinks into a hut. ... and no matter how much it shoots up in the course of civilization, when the neighboring palace shoots up in the same or even more, the inhabitant of the relatively small house becomes more and more uncomfortable, unsatisfied, more depressed in his four stakes Find."

Although the enjoyments of the worker have increased under capitalism, "the social satisfaction they afford has fallen in comparison with the increased enjoyments of the capitalist, which are inaccessible to the worker, in comparison with the level of development of society as a whole."

Wages and prize money

According to Marx, the monetary price of labor does not coincide with real wages, "that is, with the sum of commodities that are actually given in exchange for wages." Neither “nominal wages, ie. H. the sum of money for which the worker sells himself to the capitalist, nor the real wages; d. H. the amount of goods that he can buy for this money exhausts the relationships contained in wages. Wages are still determined above all by their relationship to profit, to the profit of the capitalist - proportionate, relative wages. "Real wages express" the price of labor in relation to the price of other commodities, while relative wages express the price of immediate commodities Labor in relation to the price of the accumulated labor. "

"We assume z. For example, the price of all groceries has fallen by 2/3, while the daily wage only drops by 1/3. B. from 3 francs to 2. Although the worker has a larger sum of goods with these 2 francs than he used to with 3 francs, his wages have nevertheless decreased in proportion to the profit of the capitalist. The profit of the capitalist (e.g. the manufacturer) has increased by 1 franc; H. for a smaller sum of exchange values ​​which he pays the worker, the worker must produce a larger sum of exchange values ​​than before. The value of capital in relation to the value of labor has increased. The distribution of social wealth between capital and labor has become even more uneven. The capitalist commands a greater quantity of labor with the same capital. The power of the capitalist class over the working class has grown, the social position of the worker has deteriorated, has been pushed down one step below the capitalists. "
Wages and profit

According to Marx, wages and profit are reciprocally reciprocally related, the "exchange value of capital, profit, rises in the same ratio in which the exchange value of labor, the daily wage, falls, and vice versa."

According to Marx, one may object that “the capitalist can gain through the advantageous exchange of his products with other capitalists, through an increase in the demand for his commodity, ... that the capitalist's profit can thus increase through taking advantage of third capitalists, regardless of the increase or decrease Falling wages, the exchange value of labor, or the capitalist's profit could also rise through improvement of labor instruments, new use of natural forces, etc. ”According to Marx, the result remains the same“ although it is brought about in the opposite direction. ... With the same amount of labor, the capitalist has bought a larger amount of exchange values ​​without having paid more for labor. "

In addition, Marx recalls that “the average price of any commodity, the ratio in which it is exchanged for other commodities, is determined by its cost of production. The overreactions within the capitalist class therefore necessarily balance each other out. The improvement of machinery, the new application of natural forces in the service of production enable, in a given labor time, to create a greater mass of products with the same sum of labor and capital, but by no means a greater mass of exchange values. If, by using the spinning machine, I can deliver as much web in an hour as before it was invented, e.g. For example, 100 pounds instead of 50, I don't get more goods back in exchange for these 100 pounds than I used to for 50 because the production costs have fallen by half, or because I can deliver twice the product at the same cost. " The capitalist class, be it in a country or in the whole world market, “is always only the sum by which the accumulated labor has by and large been increased by living labor . So this total increases in the proportion in which labor increases capital; H. in the ratio in which profit increases against wages. "

According to Marx, one now recognizes that “within the relationship between capital and wage labor ... the interests of capital and the interests of wage labor are directly opposed to one another.” A rapid increase in capital equals a rapid increase in profit, which in turn can only increase rapidly, when the exchange value of labor and the relative wages decrease just as rapidly. “Relative wages can fall, although real wages rise at the same time as nominal wages, with the monetary value of labor, but they just do not rise in the same proportion as profit. Increases z. If, for example, wages are 5 percent in good business hours and profit, on the other hand, 30 percent, the relative wages have not increased but decreased. "

“Even the most favorable situation for the working class, the rapid growth of capital, no matter how much it may improve the material life of the worker, does not remove the opposition between his interests and the interests of the bourgeoisie, the interests of the capitalist. Profit and wages are still inversely related. If capital grows rapidly, wages may rise; The profit of capital rises disproportionately faster. The material situation of the worker has improved, but at the expense of his social situation. The social divide that separates him from the capitalist has widened. Finally: The most favorable condition for wage labor is the fastest possible growth of productive capital, simply means: the faster the working class increases and enlarges the power that is hostile to it, the foreign wealth that dominates it, the more favorable conditions it is allowed to do again Increase in bourgeois wealth, to work on increasing the power of capital, content to forge the golden chains by which the bourgeoisie dragged them behind them. "

5th article of April 11th

Because he does not follow the assertion of the bourgeois economists that a growth in productive capital (i.e. the capital reinvested in the production process) raises wages, since, in his opinion, the bourgeoisie (which historically emerged from the urban bourgeoisie) is and is too enlightened calculate well, "in order to share the prejudices of the feudal, who flaunts the splendor of his servants" (p. 35), simply because their conditions of existence force them to do so - even the class enemy is shown understanding -, Marx throws just this in this last article question to be examined more closely: “ How does the growth of productive capital affect wages? "(P. 36).

Before Marx actually goes to answer the question, however, he first examines its precondition, the growth of productive, bourgeois capital. This can be increased in three ways: "through greater division of labor, through the use and improvement of new machines, through more advantageous and massive exploitation of natural forces" (p. 36). This growth, this increase in capital now (first of all) causes an increase in competition among the capitalists , those who own the means of production, after it had previously increased the pressure on the individual capitalist, because now they produce more at the same price of production and thus offer them cheaper can, he must also sell this surplus of products, “the need for sales has expanded for him” (p. 36) and “ more difficult conditions for realizing his capital ” (p. 38) have arisen. In addition, the competitive pressure among capitalists means that not only the individual retains the production advantage - sooner or later it will become

“Other competing capitalists […] introduce the same machines, the same division of labor, introduce them on the same or greater scale, and this introduction will become so general that the price of the [commodity] does not just fall below their old ones but is reduced below their new production costs. "(p. 37.)

As before the introduction of the new, more efficient means of production, the producers / suppliers are now competing again with the same equipment of their production power, except that "they are now forced ['are'] to deliver twice the product under the old price" (p. 37). And this dynamic, which dominates the entire world market, does not stop after this one-time cycle, as just described, with every technological innovation new, more powerful machines are introduced, with every scientific breakthrough the forces of nature are exploited more efficiently and, as a result, the work is continually shared.

“We see how the mode of production, the means of production, are constantly being revolutionized, how the division of labor necessitates a greater division of labor, the use of machinery, greater use of the machinery, working on a large scale, working on a larger scale . "(P. 37)

To the same extent that the production instrument becomes more and more expensive (purchase of new and ever newer machines), the price of the goods becomes cheaper, so that in order to replace the production costs - the economic actors are subject to the "law, which within the fluctuations of the trading epochs necessarily equalize the price of a commodity to its production costs ”and have to follow it unconditionally -“ a more massive sale is now necessary ”(p. 38).

“This is the law that throws bourgeois production out of its old track again and again and forces capital to tense up the productive forces of labor because it has tensed them, the law that gives it no rest and keeps saying: March! March! "(P. 37 f.)

After this clarification of the events on the part of the capitalists - the growth of productive capital - Marx can finally proceed to answer the real question - its effect on wages - but not without first asking the same question again, albeit varied : “But how do these circumstances, which are inseparable from the growth of productive capital, affect the determination of wages? "(P. 39). Contrary to the bourgeois assertion of the positive correlation between these two factors, which he disputed, Marx (now also) states an increase in competition among workers on three levels, the effect of which is a reduction in wages: first of all, "make yourself" Workers'] competition in that one sells himself more cheaply than the other; [then] ['they'] compete with each other in that one does the work of 5, 10, 20 ”(p. 39), that is, a single worker alone has to endure the workload and the competitive pressure that used to be five, ten or twenty Workers had to endure together because he now does the work of this number of workers and therefore displaces just as many with his employment, but without receiving the corresponding multiple of wages; and thirdly, the division of labor simplifies the work in such a way that

“[S] a work [a] work ['becomes'] accessible to all. Competitors are pressing in on him from all sides, and we also remind you that the simpler the work is, the easier it is to learn, the lower the production costs are required to acquire it, the lower the wages ['fall'] [... ], because like the price of any other commodity, it is determined by the cost of production. ”(p. 39)

Marx concludes that “in the same measure in which work becomes more unsatisfactory, more disgusting, in the same measure competition increases and wages decrease ” and that “the more he [the worker] works, the more so he receives less wages ”, with“ the machinery ”playing a major role (p. 39). The image of the “industrial war” (p. 40) is used: this “ war has the peculiarity that the battles in it are won less by recruiting than by abdicating the workers' army. The generals, the capitalists, compete with each other to see who can fire the most industrial soldiers . ”(P. 40)

It is true that the bourgeois economists against whom Marx opposes do not say that the workers displaced by the newly introduced machines would find new (adequate) employment, since this would obviously not correspond to the truth, but they claim that this is "for other components of the Working class , for example, for that part of the young generation of workers who were already ready to enter the collapsed branch of industry ”(p. 40) would apply. Should this be true, which Marx denies - much more he thinks he sees consoling words in them that bourgeois economy directs to the capitalists, whose class would also perish if that of the wage-worker disappeared by the machines - but then he would Wages for this new work will be lower. "[T] he modern industry ['brings'] it with it, always to subordinate a simpler, subordinate employment to the more complex, higher one." (P. 40), which - as already shown above - is paid less. Marx can also refute the argument that “the employment of workers in machine manufacturing” (p. 40) would increase through the increased use of machines by stating that “for the manufacture of machines [...] highly artistic [...] machines […] [Are] applied against [which] the workers employed in the machine works […] can only play the role of highly artless machines ”(p. 41).

Through this "movement [...] to exploit existing gigantic means of production on a larger scale" (p. 41), the small industrialist who can no longer keep up with it is destroyed; as a result of his bankruptcy he has to “throw himself on industry [...] and ['help'] so that the candidates for the proletariat multiply” (p. 41): “This is how the forest of arms stretched up high and demanding work always becomes denser, and the arms themselves are becoming increasingly thin. ”(p. 41) The crises -“ the industrial earthquakes ”(p. 41), correlate with the expansion of the product mass, the“ need for extensive markets ”(p. 42) - to:

“They are becoming more frequent and more violent because […] the world market is contracting more and more, fewer and fewer new markets remain for exploitation, since every previous crisis has subjugated a previously unconquered or only superficially exploited market to world trade. [... G] anze worker hecatombs that perish in crises. "(P. 42.)

After clarifying and presenting all these facts, Marx can finally draw the conclusion that “ [j] e the more productive capital grows, the more the division of labor and the use of machinery expand. The more the division of labor and the use of machinery expand, the more the competition among the workers expands, the more their wages contract ”(p. 41) and this 5th article of April 11, 1849 The dominant question about the mutual relationship between the growth of productive capital on the one hand and the level of wages on the other hand can be answered as follows:

“So we see: if capital grows rapidly, the competition among the workers grows incomparably faster, that is, the more the means of employment and the means of subsistence for the working class decrease proportionally, and nevertheless the rapid growth of capital is the most favorable condition for wage labor . "(P. 42.)

effect

Alfred Müller takes from the text a number of arguments for the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall .

Web links

Wikiquote: Wage Labor and Capital  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Under "national struggles" is to be understood here the struggle for the establishment of the nation state within the framework of the bourgeois revolution, which was the result of the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the feudal nobility.
  2. ↑ The term "production costs" comes from Ricardo and was used synonymously with the term " production price ". It must not be confused with the “ cost price ”, which describes the costs that the production of a commodity costs the entrepreneur, since the production price also includes the added value.
  3. ^ Marx: wage labor and capital. P. 32.Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, P. 2719 (cf. MEW Vol. 6, P. 412)
  4. ^ Marx: wage labor and capital. P. 31. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 2718 (see MEW Vol. 6, p. 411)
  5. ^ Marx: wage labor and capital. P. 32.Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, P. 2719 (cf. MEW Vol. 6, P. 412)
  6. ^ Marx: wage labor and capital. P. 34.Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 2721 (see MEW Vol. 6, p. 413)
  7. ^ Marx: wage labor and capital. P. 35. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, P. 2722 (cf. MEW Vol. 6, P. 413-414)
  8. ^ Marx: wage labor and capital. P. 35.Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, P. 2722 (see MEW Vol. 6, P. 414)
  9. ^ Marx: wage labor and capital. P. 37.Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 2724 (cf. MEW Vol. 6, p. 415)
  10. ↑ Alfred Müller: Die Marxsche Konjunkturtheorie - An over-accumulation-theoretical interpretation. PapyRossa Köln, 2009 (dissertation 1981), p. 171ff. These are passages in Marx-Engels-Werke 6 on p. 417ff. It is about building up fixed capital , which, however, cannot be fully utilized by all capitalists at the same time.