Summary on Wage Labor and Capital

The pamphlet Wage Labor and Capital was written in 1847 and is a summary based on the original works which first appeared as an independent publication in several editions in a series of leading articles starting from April 4th, 1849.

The Introduction

The text presented in this book was particularly derived from Karl Marx's lectures. The series was never completed and no other follow-up was ever found after Marx's passing. A tender note to point out is that the pamphlet has been translated and re-interpreted by Marx's long-time friend and German communist Friedrich Engles, who has, in his contribution to actively theorize in Marxist analysis, altered the original works done by Marx.

The alteration is the following reference:

The original work by Marx state that the worker sells his labor for wages to live on which he receives from the capitalist. In contrast to its present form (the text), he sells his labor-power which later on further explained in more specific detail.

Marx was one of the first ever to investigate and carefully analyse the value-forming quality of labor and to discover that not all labor (necessary to the production of a commodity) imparts under all circumstances, to this commodity, a magnitude of value corresponding to how much labor is actually used up while in the process of production of commodities. Further information regarding this can be located in Marx's 'Critique of Political Economy', which appeared in 1859, comprising the first volume of his works in 'Capital'.

Additionally, as economists applied this determination of value by labor to commodities, they fell into numerous contradictions.

Thus, the question 'How is the value of labor determined?' leads us to the following response; 'by the necessary labor that is or has been embodied in it.'

In today's increasingly contemporary world, ridden with scientific methods and technological innovation in almost every area and aspect of life, we live under the regime of capitalist means of production to which an immensely large and steadily growing class of the population can live and survive solely upon the condition that it works for those that own the means of production and in return earns what we call wages that enable their co-existence.

A Sketch Example derived from the book:

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Means of Production: £3

Laborer (daily wage): £3

Hours: 12HRS

Material: £20

Other Material/Tools: £1

Total of Machinery: £24 (the machine itself)

£21/£27 already exist long before labor has been embodied.

Capitalist Means: approx. £27 (in this example, we are talking about £3>)

£20 was contained in raw material.

£1 was consumed in machinery, tools used and efficiency of its value of given amount.

£6 are the remainder.

This six shillings we are talking about here were added to the value of raw material but could only arise from labor-power and effort put into it.

Value of Labor: £6

Wage Earned: £3. (for the woman EVEN LESS. And in old times, for kids it was equivalent to a fraction of what an adult would get.)

Capitalist Strategic Layout:

The laborer earns £3 for his total of 12HRS labor. Agument stops there, those are his earnings regardless.

Our Conclusion:

For Laborer (Value of Labor): £3

For Capitalist (Value of Labor): £6

£6:

£3 for working-men £3 for capitalist to pocket

The laborer is cheated.

Two values can be clearly pointed out:

12HRS labor: £6 created

Value given for those 12HRS labor: £3

The laborer earned value of 6HRS which is the equivalent of £3 created (sold labor-power)

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As explained in more detail above, we get caught up in a messy tangle. The man to untangle us and show us the dead-end we simultaneously keep running into was Karl Marx. Marx used the term 'mode of production' to refer to the specific organization of economic production in a given society. According to him, history evolves through the interaction between the mode of production and the relations of production. Capitalism is a mode of production based on the private ownership of the means of production. Capitalists produce commodities for the exchange market and are engaged in competitiveness that they aim to get a lot of labor from, not excluding the very fact that they aim to do so at the lowest, most minimal price as well, as long as it is just about enough not to kill his workers' existence but recklessly spoils it. Therefore, the social relations of production are inherently antagonistic.

The worker, who i s alienated from the products he makes, is estranged from the production process which, to him, is but a pure means of surviving. The alienation of the worker from his work, as well as from the capitalist forms the base of antagonistic social relationship which will, sooner or later, lead to the overthrow of the capitalist system. Marx saw history as a succession of economic systems or modes of production, each one organized to satisfy human material needs at the same time, giving rise to antagonisms between different social classes. This, of course, led to the creation of new societies in an evolving pattern.

In a consistent appearing pattern, we have seen that there were different places where the struggle between social classes and nations took place. According to the working-class, wages are the amount of money they receive from the capitalist for a calculated amount of work. In reality, the working-class sells its labor-power to the capitalist. The working-class is not only enslaved by their capitalist, but a slave to the capitalist system.

There is an exchange value of a commodity which is usually in money and we refer to it as a 'price'. The laborer puts his labor power into action and begins to work and we come to understand that this is what we'd call the 'life activity' of the worker which is sold in return for earnings that will allow him to live. This 'labor-power' is not considered a part of life at all but rather the ultimate sacrifice for life. Wages are handled by the law which is very much similar to the laws that determine the price of the commodity. Now, the price of the commodity is determined by the competition of buyers and sellers, with the relation of demand and supply.

Those who sell the same product of the same quality at a cheaper rate, restores his place in the market. There's competition between sellers and the seller wants to sell his commodity at a cheaper price. Notably, wages rise and fall upon the relation between supply and demand. Time plays an important role in the cost of production of labor; the shorter the time required in training laborers, the less it will cost him of production and will result into low wages.

The growth of capital compromise of raw materials, instruments of labor and means of subsistence. These components of capital are created by labor and accumulated labor (a kind of labor that serves as a means to the new production of capital in certain circumstances or situations). In the production process, human beings not only work with the means of production, but also with other human beings which form social relations and connections that assist them in surviving the production process. These relations are given the term social relations and are an essential part of a society that have different characteristics such as, for example, bourgeois society or feudal society etc. Capital is also considered as the sum of commodities of the exchange value of the magnitudes. Capital can very much be manipulated by exchanging itself with labor-power ushering in wage labor.

In conclusion to this, when there is more productive capitalist growth, there's a more evident division of labor and more usage of mechanical machinery. This leads to the competition extending and results into wages shrinking. The last thing I shall also mention is that capital is not simply material means of production but actually is accumulated past labor which entirely controls the lives of living labor. In order to fight the class struggle, we must address this and focus on it as a starting point.

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