Chapter XII.- The Concept of Relative Surplus Value
That portion of the working day which merely produces an equivalent for the value paid by the capitalist for his labour power, has, up to this point, been treated by us as a constant magnitude, and such in fact it is, under given conditions of production and at a given stage in the economic development of society. Beyond this, his necessary labour time, the labourer, we saw, could continue to work for 2, 3, 4, 6, &c, hours. The rate of surplus value and the length of the working day depended on the magnitude of this prolongation. Though the necessary labour time was constant, we saw, on the other hand, that the total working day was variable. Now suppose we have a working day whose length, and whose apportionment between necessary labour and surplus labour, are given. Let the whole line a c, a — b — c represent, for example, a working day of 12 hours; the portion of a b 10 hours of necessary labour, and the portion b c 2 hours of surplus labour. How now can the production of surplus value be increased, i. e., how can the surplus labour be prolonged, without, or independently of, any prolongation of a c?
Although the length of a c is given, b c appears to be capable of prolongation, if not by extension beyond its end c, which is also the end of the working day a c, yet, at all events, by pushing back its starting-point b in the direction of a. Assume that b'—b in the line a b ' b c is equal to half of b c
a
b' — b
c
or to one hour's labour time. If now, in a c, the working day of 12 hours, we move the point b to b', b c becomes b' c; the surplus labour increases by one half, from 2 hours to 3 hours, although the working day remains as before at 12 hours. This extension of the surplus labour time from b c to b' c, from 2 hours to 3 hours, is, however, evidently impossible, without a simultaneous contraction of the necessary labour time from a b into a b', from 10 hours to 9 hours. The prolongation of the surplus labour would correspond to a shortening of the necessary labour; or a portion of the labour time previously consumed, in reality, for the labourer's own benefit, would be converted into labour time for the benefit of the capitalist. There would be an alteration, not in the length of the working day, but in its division into necessary labour time and surplus labour time.
On the other hand, it is evident that the duration of the surplus labour is given, when the length of the working day, and the value of labour power, are given. The value of labour power, i. e., the labour time requisite to produce labour power, determines the labour time necessary for the reproduction of that value. If one working hour be embodied in sixpence, and the value of a day's labour power be five shillings, the labourer must work 10 hours a day, in order to replace the value paid by capital for his labour power, or to produce an equivalent for the value of his daily necessary means of subsistence. Given the value of these means of subsistence, the value of his labour power is given"; and given the value of his labour power , the duration of his necessary labour time is given. The duration of the surplus labour, however, is arrived at, by subtracting the necessary labour time from the total working day. Ten hours subtracted from twelve, leave two, and it is not easy to see, how, under the given conditions, the surplus labour can possibly be prolonged beyond two hours. No doubt, the capitalist can, instead of five shillings, pay the labourer four shillings
" The value of his average daily wages is determined by what the labourer requires "so as to live, labour, and generate" (Wm. Petty, Political Anatomy of Ireland, 1691, p. 64). "The price of Labour is always constituted of the price of necessaries ... whenever ... the labouring man's wages will not, suitably to his low rank and station, as a labouring man, support such a family as is often the lot of many of them to have", he does not receive proper wages (J. Vanderlint, 1. c, p. 15). "The mere workman, who has only his arms and his industry, has nothing unless he succeeds in selling his labour to others.... In every kind of work it cannot fail to happen, and as a matter of fact it does happen, that the wages of the workman are limited to what is necessary to procure him his subsistence" (Turgot, "Reflexions, &c", Oeuvres, ed. Daire, t. I, p. 10). "The price of the necessaries of life is, in fact, the cost of producing labour" (Malthus, Inquiry into, &c, Rent, London, 1815, p. 48, note).
and sixpence or even less. For the reproduction of this value of four shillings and sixpence, nine hours' labour time would suffice; and consequently three hours of surplus labour, instead of two, would accrue to the capitalist, and the surplus value would rise from one shilling to eighteenpence. This result, however, would be obtained only by lowering the wages of the labourer below the value of his labour power. With the four shillings and sixpence which he produces in nine hours, he commands one-tenth less of the necessaries of life than before, and consequently the proper reproduction of his labour power is crippled. The surplus labour would in this case be prolonged only by an overstepping of its normal limits; its domain would be extended only by a usurpation of part of the domain of necessary labour time. Despite the important part which this method plays in actual practice, we are excluded from considering it in this place, by our assumption, that all commodities, including labour power, are bought and sold at their full value. Granted this, it follows that the labour time necessary for the production of labour power, or for the reproduction of its value, cannot be lessened by a fall in the labourer's wages below the value of his labour power, but only by a fall in this value itself. Given the length of the working day, the prolongation of the surplus labour must of necessity originate in the curtailment of the necessary labour time; the latter cannot arise from the former. In the example we have taken, it is necessary that the value of labour power should actually fall by one-tenth, in order that the necessary labour time may be diminished by one-tenth, i. e., from ten hours to nine, and in order that the surplus labour may consequently be prolonged from two hours to three.
Such a fall in the value of labour power implies, however, that the same necessaries of life which were formerly produced in ten hours, can now be produced in nine hours. But this is impossible without an increase in the productiveness of labour. For example, suppose a shoe-maker, with given tools, makes in one working day of twelve hours, one pair of boots. If he must make two pairs in the same time, the productiveness of his labour must be doubled; and this cannot be done, except by an alteration in his tools or in his mode of working, or in both. Hence, the conditions of production, i.e., his mode of production, and the labour process itself, must be revolutionised. By increase in the productiveness of labour, we mean, generally, an alteration in the labour process, of such a kind as to shorten the labour time socially necessary for the production of a commodity, and to endow a given quantity of labour with the power of producing a greater quantity of use value.[1]' Hitherto in treating of surplus value, arising from a simple prolongation of the working day, we have assumed the mode of production to be given and invariable. But when surplus value has to be produced by the conversion of necessary labour into surplus labour, it by no means suffices for capital to take over the labour process in the form under which it has been historically handed down, and then simply to prolong the duration of that process. The technical and social conditions of the process, and consequently the very mode of production must be revolutionised, before the productiveness of labour can be increased. By that means alone can the value of labour power be made to sink, and the portion of the working day necessary for the reproduction of that value, be shortened.
The surplus value produced by prolongation of the working day, I call absolute surplus value. On the other hand, the surplus value arising from the curtailment of the necessary labour time, and from the corresponding alteration in the respective lengths of the two components of the working day, I call relative surplus value.
In order to effect a fall in the value of labour power, the increase in the productiveness of labour must seize upon those branches of industry, whose products determine the value of labour power, and consequently either belong to the class of customary means of subsistence, or are capable of supplying the place of those means. But the value of a commodity is determined, not only by the quantity of labour which the labourer directly bestows upon that commodity, but also by the labour contained in the means of production. For instance, the value of a pair of boots depends, not only on the cobbler's labour, but also on the value of the leather, wax, thread, &c. Hence, a fall in the value of labour power is also brought about by an increase in the productiveness of labour, and by a corresponding cheapening of commodities in those industries which supply the instruments of labour and the raw material, that form the material elements of the constant capital required for producing the necessaries of life. But an increase in the productiveness of labour in those branches of industry which supply neither the necessaries of life, nor the means of production for such necessaries, leaves the value of labour power undisturbed.
i; "Perfection of the crafts means nothing other than the discovery of new ways of making a product with fewer people, or (which is the same thing) in less time than previously" (Galiani, I.e., p. 159). "Economies in the cost of production can only be econo-mies in the quantity of labour employed in production" (Sismondi, Etudes, t. I, p. 22).
The cheapened commodity, of course, causes only a pro tanto fall in the value of labour power, a fall proportional to the extent of that commodity's employment in the reproduction of labour power. Shirts, for instance, are a necessary means of subsistence, but are only one out of many. The totality of the necessaries of life consists, however, of various commodities, each the product of a distinct industry; and the value of each of those commodities enters as a component part into the value of labour power. This latter value decreases with the decrease of the labour time necessary for its reproduction; the total decrease being the sum of all the different curtailments of labour time effected in those various and distinct industries. This general result is treated, here, as if it were the immediate result directly aimed at in each individual case. Whenever an individual capitalist cheapens shirts, for instance, by increasing the productiveness of labour, he by no means necessarily aims at reducing the value of labour power and shortening, pro tanto, the necessary labour time. But it is only in so far as he ultimately contributes to this result, that he assists in raising the general rate of surplus value.[1]' The general and necessary tendencies of capital must be distinguished from their forms of manifestation.
It is not our intention to consider, here, the way in which the laws, immanent in capitalist production, manifest themselves in the movements of individual masses of capital, where they assert themselves as coercive laws of competition, and are brought home to the mind and consciousness of the individual capitalist as the directing motives of his operations. But this much is clear; a scientific analysis of competition is not possible, before we have a conception of the inner nature of capital, just as the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies are not intelligible to any but him, who is acquainted with their real motions, motions which are not directly perceptible by the senses. Nevertheless, for the better comprehension of the production of relative surplus value, we may add the following remarks, in which we assume nothing more than the results we have already obtained.
If one hour's labour is embodied in sixpence, a value of six shillings will be produced in a working day of 12 hours. Suppose, that with the prevailing productiveness of labour, 12 articles are produced in these
1! "Let us suppose ... the products ... of the manufacturer are doubled by improvement in machinery ... he will be able to clothe his workmen by means of a smaller proportion of the entire return ... and thus his profit will be raised. But in no other way will it be influenced" (Ramsay, 1. c, pp. 168, 169).
12 hours. Let the value of the means of production used up in each article be sixpence. Under these circumstances, each article costs one shilling: sixpence for the value of the means of production, and sixpence for the value newly added in working with those means. Now let some one capitalist contrive to double the productiveness of labour, and to produce in the working day of 12 hours, 24 instead of 12 such articles. The value of the means of production remaining the same, the value of each article will fall to ninepence, made up of sixpence for the value of the means of production and threepence for the value newly added by the labour. Despite the doubled productiveness of labour, the day's labour creates, as before, a new value of six shillings and no more, which, however, is now spread over twice as many articles. Of this value each article now has embodied in it ^:th, instead of i^th, threepence instead of sixpence; or, what amounts to the same thing, only half an hour's instead of a whole hour's labour time, is now added to the means of production while they are being transformed into each article. The individual value of these articles is now below their social value; in other words, they have cost less labour time than the great bulk of the same article produced under the average social conditions. Each article costs, on an average, one shilling, and represents 2 hours of social labour; but under the altered mode of production it costs only ninepence, or contains only 1^ hours' labour. The real value of a commodity is, however, not its individual value, but its social value; that is to say, the real value is not measured by the labour time that the article in each individual case costs the producer, but by the labour time socially required for its production. If therefore, the capitalist who applies the new method, sells his commodity at its social value of one shilling, he sells it for threepence above its individual value, and thus realises an extra surplus value of threepence. On the other hand, the working day of 12 hours is, as regards him, now represented by 24 articles instead of 12. Hence, in order to get rid of the product of one working day, the demand must be double what it was, i. e., the market must become twice as extensive. Other things being equal, his commodities can command a more extended market only by a diminution of their prices. He will therefore sell them above their individual but under their social value, say at tenpence each. By this means he still squeezes an extra surplus value of one penny out of each. This augmentation of surplus value is pocketed by him, whether his commodities belong or not to the class of necessary means of subsistence that participate in determining the general value of labour power. Hence, independently of this latter circumstance, there is a motive for each individual capitalist to cheapen his commodities, by increasing the productiveness of labour. Nevertheless, even in this case, the increased production of surplus value arises from the curtailment of the necessary labour time, and from the corresponding prolongation of the surplus labour.[1]' Let the necessary labour time amount to 10 hours, the value of a day's labour power to five shillings, the surplus labour time to 2 hours, and the daily surplus value to one shilling. But the capitalist now produces 24 articles, which he sells at tenpence a-piece, making twenty shillings in all. Since the value of the means of production is twelve shillings, 14--^ of these articles merely replace the constant capital advanced. The labour of the 12 hours' working day is represented by the remaining 9-5 articles. Since the price of the labour power is five shillings, 6 articles represent the necessary labour time, and 3 ^ articles the surplus labour. The ratio of the necessary labour to the surplus labour, which under average social conditions was 5:1, is now only 5:3. The same result may be arrived at in the following way. The value of the product of the working day of 12 hours is twenty shillings. Of this sum, twelve shillings belong to the value of the means of production, a value that merely re-appears. There remain eight shillings, which are the expression in money, of the value newly created during the working day. This sum is greater than the sum in which average social labour of the same kind is expressed: twelve hours of the latter labour are expressed by six shillings only. The exceptionally productive labour operates as intensified labour; it creates in equal periods of time greater values than average social labour of the same kind. (See Ch. I. Sect. 2. pp. 11-12.) But our capitalist still continues to pay as before only five shillings as the value of a day's labour power. Hence, instead of 10 hours, the labourer need now work only 1 \ hours, in order to reproduce this value. His surplus labour is, therefore, increased by 2\ hours, and the surplus value he produces grows from one, into three shillings. Hence, the capitalist who applies the improved method of production, appropriates to surplus labour a great-
" "A man's profit does not depend upon his command of the produce of other men's labour, but upon his command of labour itself. If he can sell his goods at a higher price, while his workmen's wages remain unaltered, he is clearly benefited... A smaller proportion of what he produces is sufficient to put that labour into motion, and a larger proportion consequently remains for himself ([J. Cazenove,] Outlines of Pol. Econ.-, London, 1832, pp. 49, 50).
er portion of the working day, than the other capitalists in the same trade. He does individually, what the whole body of capitalists engaged in producing relative surplus value, do collectively. On the other hand, however, this extra surplus value vanishes, so soon as the new method of production has become general, and has consequently caused the difference between the individual value of the cheapened commodity and its social value to vanish. The law of the determination of value by labour time, a law which brings under its sway the individual capitalist who applies the new method of production, by compelling him to sell his goods under their social value, this same law, acting as a coercive law of competition, forces his competitors to adopt the new method." The general rate of surplus value is, therefore, ultimately affected by the whole process, only when the increase in the productiveness of labour, has seized upon those branches of production that are connecfed with, and has cheapened those commodities that form part of, the necessary means of subsistence, and are therefore elements of the value of labour power.
The value of commodities is in inverse ratio to the productiveness of labour. And so, too, is the value of labour power, because it depends on the values of commodities. Relative surplus value is, on the contrary, directly proportional to that productiveness. It rises with rising and falls with falling productiveness. The value of money being assumed to be constant, an average social working day of 12 hours always produces the same new value, six shillings, no matter how this sum may be apportioned between surplus value and wages. But if, in consequence of increased productiveness, the value of the necessaries of life fall, and the value of a day's labour power be thereby reduced from five shillings to three, the surplus value increases from one shilling to three. Ten hours were necessary for the reproduction of the value of the labour power; now only six are required. Four hours have been set free, and can be annexed to the domain of surplus labour. Hence there is immanent in capital an inclination and constant tendency, to heighten the productiveness of labour, in order to cheap-l! "If my neighbour by doing much with little labour, can sell cheap, I must con-trive to sell as cheap as he. So that every art, trade, or engine, doing work with labour of fewer hands, and consequently cheaper, begets in others a kind of necessity and emulation, either of using the same art, trade, or engine, or inventing something like it, that every man may be upon the square, that no man may be able to undersell his neighbour" ('[H. Martyn,] The Advantages of the East India Trade to England, London, 1720, p. 67).
en commodities, and by such cheapening to cheapen the labourer himself.[1]'
The value of a commodity is, in itself, of no interest to the capitalist. What alone interests him, is the surplus value that dwells in it, and is realisable by sale. Realisation of the surplus value necessarily carries with it the refunding of the value that was advanced. Now, since relative surplus value increases in direct proportion to the development of the productiveness of labour, while, on the other hand, the value of commodities diminishes in the same proportion; since one and the same process cheapens commodities, and augments the surplus value contained in them; we have here the solution of the riddle: why does the capitalist, whose sole concern is the production of exchange value, continually strive to depress the exchange value of commodities? A riddle with which Quesnay, one of the founders of Political Economy, tormented his opponents, and to which they could give him no answer.
"You acknowledge", he says, "that the more expenses and the cost of labour can, in the manufacture of industrial products, be reduced without injury to production, the more advantageous is such reduction, because it diminishes the price of the finished article. And yet, you believe that the production of wealth, which arises from the labour of the workpeople, consists in the augmentation of the exchange value of their products."[21]
The shortening of the working day is, therefore, by no means what is aimed at, in capitalist production, when labour is economised by
" "In whatever proportion the expenses of a labourer are diminished, in the same proportion will his wages be diminished, if the restraints upon industry are at the same time taken off' [Considerations Concerning Taking off the Bounty on Corn Exported, &c, London, 1753, p. 7). "The interest of trade requires, that corn and all provisions should be as cheap as possible; for whatever makes them dear, must make labour dear also ... in all countries, where industry is not restrained, the price of provisions must affect the price of labour. This will always be diminished when the necessaries of life grow cheaper" (I.e., p. 3). "Wages are decreased in the same proportion as the powers of production increase. Machinery, it is true, cheapens the necessaries of life, but it also cheapens the labourer" (An Essay, in Answer to the Question, Whether Does the Principle of Competition... Form the Most Secure Basis for the Formation of Society?, London, 1834, p. 27).
5: "Ils conviennet que plus on peut, sans préjudice, épargner de frais ou de travaux dispendieux dans la fabrication des ouvrages des artisans, plus cette épargne est profitable par la diminution des prix de ces ouvrages. Cependant ils croient que la production de richesse qui résulte des travaux des artisans consiste dans l'augmentation de la valeur vénale de leurs ouvrages" (Quesnay, Dialogues sur le Commerce et les Travaux des Artisans, pp. 188, 189).
increasing its productiveness.(1)' It is only the shortening of the labour time, necessary for the production of a definite quantity of commodities, that is aimed at. The fact that the workman, when the productiveness of his labour has been increased, produces, say 10 times as many commodities as before, and thus spends one-tenth as much labour time on each, by no means prevents him from continuing to work 12 hours as before, nor from producing in those 12 hours 1,200 articles instead of 120. Nay, more, his working day may be prolonged at the same time, so as to make him produce, say 1,400 articles in 14 hours. In the treatises, therefore, of economists of the stamp of Mac-Culloch, Ure, Senior, and tutti quanti,* we may read upon one page, that the labourer owes a debt of gratitude to capital for developing his productiveness, because the necessary labour time is thereby shortened, and on the next page, that he must prove his gratitude by working in future for 15 hours instead of 10. The object of all development of the productiveness of labour, within the limits of capitalist production, is to shorten that part of the working day, during which the workman must labour for his own benefit, and by that very shortening, to lengthen the other part of the day, during which he is at liberty to work gratis for the capitalist. How far this result is also at-tainable, without cheapening commodities, will appear from an examination of the particular modes of producing relative surplus value, to which examination we now proceed.
Endnotes
[21] The Anti-Corn Law League was founded in 1838 by the Manchester factory owners Cobden and Bright. Defending the interests of manufacturers, the League secured the repeal of the Corn Laws which provided for the limitation and prohibition of grain imports, which served the interests of the landed aristocracy. The Corn Law adopted in 1815 prohibited the import of corn while the price of bread in England itself remained less than 80 sh. per quarter. In 1822 this law was slightly altered, and in 1828 a sliding scale was introduced, according to which there was a rise in import duties on corn when its price fell on the home market and vice versa. Trying to achieve the repeal of corn laws and to establish trade in corn, the League aimed at reducing domestic prices for corn and thus at reducing wages for wage-workers.The slogan of free trade was widely used by the League in its advocacy of the unity of interests of workers and manufacturers. The Corn Laws were repealed in 1846.'— 15, 296, 458, 462, 667, 703
[1] Capital—Marx's major work to which he devoted four decades (from the early 1840s till the end of his life). Marx started studying political economy at the end of 1843 in Paris. His aim was to write a treatise containing a critical analysis of political economy. As a result of his research in this field appeared such works as the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, The German Ideology, The Poverty of Philosophy, Wage Labour and Capital, Manifesto of the Communist Party and others. After an interval caused by the 1848-49 revolution, Marx continued his economic studies in London, where he lived as a refugee from August 1849. Here he studied the works of different economists, the history of economic development and the economics of his time in various countries, especially in England which was then a classic example of a capitalist country. He investigated theories of money, credit and the causes of economic crises, the history of landownership and the theory of ground rent, the socio-economic condition of the working class and questions of population, the history of technology and other problems. -By 1857 he had completed his enormous preparatory work and then proceeded to the final stage — the systématisation and generalisation of the collected material. From January 1857 to June 1858, Marx wrote a manuscript containing 50 signatures, which was, in fact, the first rough draft of Capital. In the present edition it was published in vols 28 and 29. At first Marx intended to publish his work in separate instalments, and the first instalment, as he wrote, "should form a relative whole" (see present edition, Vol. 40, p. 287), which embraces only the first section of Book I — the section consisting of 3 chapters: 1) The Commodity; 2) Money or Simple Circulation and 3) Capital. However, the final variant of the first instalment — A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy — does not contain the third chapter. Marx wrote the chapter on commodity especially. He wrote the chapter on money for "the first instalment" on the basis of the manuscript of 1857-58. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Part One was published in 1859 (present edition, Vol. 29). It was to be followed by "the second instalment", i. e. by the chapter on capital. However, soon afterwards, Marx had to postpone this work for a year and a half as he was occupied in writing the pamphlet Herr Vogt (present edition, Vol. 17) and in other urgent matters. Only in August 1861, did he begin work on "the second instalment". By the middle of 1863, he had written a new rough draft which was considerably longer than the manuscript of 1857-58 — 23 notebooks, having a total volume of about 200 signatures. The complete manuscript of 1861-63, which is considered to be the second rough draft of Capital, is reproduced in vols 30-34 of the present edition. Later on Marx decided to divide the theoretical part of the work on capital into 3 parts. The historico-critical section was to be the fourth and concluding part, and was to be based on the part of the 1861-63 manuscript entitled "Theories of Surplus Value". In his letter to Kugelmann dated October 13, 1866, Marx writes, "The whole work is thus divided into the following parts: Book I. The Process of Production of Capital. Book II. The Process of Circulation of Capital. Book III. Structure of the Process as a Whole. Book IV. On the History of the Theory" (see present edition, Vol. 42, p. 328). Marx also gave up his plan to publish the work in separate instalments and decided first to complete the whole work and then to publish it. Marx continued his work, concentrating mainly on those parts that were not sufficiently elaborated in the 1861-63 manuscript. He studied an enormous quantity of economic and technical literature, including books on agriculture, on credit and money and turnover. He also studied statistical material, various parliamentary documents, official reports on child labour in industry, on housing conditions of the British working class, etc. Marx then wrote a new manuscript (from August 1863 to the end of 1865), which constituted a more detailed variant of the three theoretical volumes of Capital. Only after the whole work was completed (January 1866), did Marx begin preparing it for the press, having decided, on Engels' advice, not to prepare the whole work but only Volume I of Capital. The final touches were made by Marx with great thoroughness and, in fact, became yet another recasting of Volume I of Capital as a whole. To ensure the integrity, completeness and clarity of the exposition, Marx thought it necessary to reproduce in a comparatively short form the major problems dealt with in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (published in 1859) at the beginning of Volume I of Capital—they now constitute the whole of the first part "Commodities and Money" (in the first edition which was not yet subdivided into parts the first chapter bore this title). After the publication of Volume I of Capital (September 1867), Marx continued work on it in preparation for publication in German and translation into foreign lan-guages. For the second edition (1872) he made more subdivisions and also a lot of changes in the text (see this volume, pp. 12-13), gave important instructions for the Russian edition, published in Petersburg in 1872 and the first foreign translation of Capital, once more changed the book's structure and thoroughly edited the French edition (1872-75). Marx intended to take into consideration most of the changes made in the French edition when preparing the third German edition of Volume I. At the same time, after the publication of Volume I of Capital Marx continued his work on the subsequent volumes, intending to finish the whole edition as soon as possible. However, he was unable to do so. A lot of time was taken up by his activities in the General Council of the First International, and his work was increasingly hampered by poor health. After Marx's death, Engels finished preparing the third (1883) German edition of Volume I of Capital for press, which was taken as the basis for the translation into English made by Samuel Moore and Eduard Aveling and edited by Engels (1887).— 1,311