C Capitalism and the Labor Process Chapter 9 Wage-Lahour and Capital [1847] Karl Marx ... What are wages? How are they determined? If workers were asked: 'How much are your wages?' one would reply: 'I get a mark a day from my employer'; another, 'I get two marks,\" and so on. According to the different trades to which they belong, they would mention different sums of money which they receive from their respective employers for the performance of a particular piece of work, for example, weaving a yard of linen or type-setting a printed sheet. In spite of the variety of their statements, they would all agree on one point: wages are the sum of money paid by the capitalist for a particular labour time or for a particular output of labour. The capitalist, it seems, therefore, buys their labour with money. They sell him their labour for money. For the same sum with which the capitalist has bought their tabour, for example, two marks, he could have bought two pounds of sugar or a definite amount of any other commodity. The two marks, which he bought two pounds of sugar, are the price of the two pounds of sugar. The two marks, with which he bought twelve hours' use of labour, are the price of twelve hours' labour. Labour, therefore, is a commodity, neither more nor less than sugar. The former is measured by the clock, the latter by the scales. The workers exchange their commodity, labour, for the commodity of the capi- talist, for money, and this exchange takes place in a definite ratio. So much money for so much labour. For twelve hours' weaving, two marks. And do not the two marks represent all the other commodities which I can buy for two marks? In fact, therefore, the worker has exchanged his commodity, labour, for other commodities of all kinds and that in a definite ratio. By giving him two marks, the capitalist has given him so much meat, so much clothing, so much fuel, light, etc., in exchange for his day's labour. Accordingly, the two marks express the ratio in which labour is exchanged for other commodities, the exchange value of his labour. The exchange Karl Marx, \"Wage-Labour and Capital,\" pp. 249-50, 251-2, 255, 257-8, 258-9, 261-2, 263, 264, 265-6, 2678 from David McLellan (ed.), Karl Marx: Selected Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977). Introduction and compilation David McLellan 1977. Wage-Lahour and Capital value of a commodity, reckoned in money, is what is called its price. Wages are only a special name for the price of labour, for the price of this peculiar commodity which has no other repository than human flesh and blood. Let us take any worker, say, a weaver. The capitalist supplies him with the loom and yarn. The weaver sets to work and the yarn is converted into linen. The capi- talist takes possession of the linen and sells it, say, for twenty marks. Now are the wages of the weaver a share in the linen, in the twenty marks, in the product of his labour? By no means. Long before the linen is sold, perhaps long before its weaving is finished, the weaver has received his wages. The capitalist, therefore, does not pay these wages with the money which he will obtain from the linen, but with money already in reserve. Just as the loom and the yarn are not the product of the weaver to whom they are supplied by his employer, so likewise with the commodities which the weaver receives in exchange for his commodity, labour. It was possible that his employer found no purchaser at all for his linen. It was possible that he did not get even the amount of the wages by its sale. It is possible that he sells it very profitably in comparison with the weaver's wages. All that has nothing to do with the weaver. The capitalist buys the labour of the weaver with a part of his available wealth, of his capital, just as he has bought the raw material the yarn ~ and the instrument of labour the loom with another part of his wealth. After he has made these purchases, and these purchases include the labour necessary for the production of linen, he produces only with the raw materials and instruments of labour belong- ing to him. For the latter include now, true enough, our good weaver as well, who has as little share in the product or the price of the product as the loom has. Wages are, therefore, not the worker's share in the commodity produced by him. Wages are the part of already existing commodities with which the capitalist buys for himself a definite amount of productive labour. Labour is, therefore, a commodity which its possessor, the wage-worker, sells to capital. Why does he sell it? In order to live. Wages, as we have seen, are the price of a definite commodity, of labour. Wages are, therefore, determined by the same laws that determine the price of every other commodity. The question, therefore, is, how is the price of a commodity determined? By competition between buyers and sellers, by the relation of inquiry to delivery, of demand to supply. Competition, by which the price of a commodity is deter- mined, is three-sided. The same commaodity is offered by various sellers. With goods of the same quality, the one who sells most cheaply is certain of driving the others out of the field and securing the greatest sale for himself. Thus, the sellers mutually contend among themselves for sales, for the market. Each of them desires to sell, to sell as much as possible and, if possible, to sell alone, to the exclusion of the other sellers. Hence, one sells cheaper than another. Consequently, competition takes place among the sellers, which depresses the price of the commodities offered by them. But competition also takes place among the buyers, which in its turn causes the commodities offered to rise in price