^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.