The Socialism of to-day

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 835096955

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-28834

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Laveleye, Émile de

Title:: The Socialism of to-day

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Field & Tuer

Year of publication:: 1884

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (XLIV, 331 S.)

Collection:: Economics Books

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^A/ÍL MAUX. 31 to spend on his living ; he will therefore be able to sell his labour-force for a remuneration reduced by one half. All these deductions appear to be irrefutable, and we thus arrive at this singular conclusion, that the more the employ ment of machines and of improved methods increases the productivity of labour, the lower wages fall and the greater the profits of the capitalist become. Capital of itself does not create value, says Marx. The work of manufacture only reproduces the value consumed. If in order to make i cwt. of cotton yam 5 qrs. are wanted, because i qr. goes in waste, in the cost price the i cwt. will be set down at the same price as the 5 qrs. If five shillings represents the wear of the machine and ten the fuel, these sums must also be added, and the selling price must be such as to cover them completely. “ The machine does not produce value ; it merely transmits its own value to the articles which it serves to fabricate.” The profit must then proceed exclu sively from labour, the sole source of all value. If after a bad harvest the price of cotton or corn increases, although the labour employed in their cultivation remains the same, the reason is that the cost of this same amount of labour, being divided by a smaller number of bushels, gives for each bushel a larger expenditure of labour. If, for example, by means of a thousand days of labour I obtain a hundred bushels of corn, each bushel will have a value equivalent to ten days of labour ; if I get in only half that amount, each bushel will have a value equivalent to twenty days of labour. In short, all “ surplus value ” {mehrwerth), under whatever form it is crystallized, whether as interest, rent, or profits, is only the “materialization” of a certain duration of unpaid labour. “The mystery of productive labour resolves itself into this fact, that a certain quantity of labour is employed without being paid for.” “ By itself capital is inert : it is dead labour which can revive only by sucking, vampire-like, the blood of living labour, and which lives and thrives with all the tnore vigour the more blood it absorbs.” According to Marx, the capitalist régime is of recent origin. It dates from the sixteenth century, when the large proprietors.

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