KARL  MARK.

29

is  what  the  capitalist  has  to  pay  according  to  the  principles  of
exchange.
In  reality,  Marx  merely  explains  here,  in  other  terms,
Ricardo’s  law  of  wages.  According  to  the  English  economist,
wages  on  the  average  always  tend  to  approach  that  which  is  indispensable ­
  for  the  existence  of  the  labourers  and  for  keeping  up
their  number.  If  wages  fall  below  this  level,  the  less  fortunate
working  men  die  of  privations,  and  then  the  demand  for  hands
causes  wages  to  rise  to  the  normal  rate.  If  wages  exceed  this
level,  the  number  of  labourers  increases,  and  the  increased
,  supply  of  hands  causes  wages  to  fall  The  average  cost  of
the  maintenance  of  the  labourer  varies  in  different  countries,
and  according  to  the  degree  of  civilization,  but,  whatever  it
is,  it  constitutes  the  natural  price  of  labour,  its  cost  of
production.
Let  us  now  disclose  the  mystery  of  iniquity  whence  flows,
according  to  the  German  Socialist,  the  terrible  contrast  of
IX)verty  and  opulence,  pauperism  gaining  ground  as  capital  is
amassed.  To  produce  the  commodities  necessary  for  the
existence  of  the  labourer  and  his  family  during  a  day,  a  whole
day’s  work  is  not  needed.  Marx  supposes  that  five  or  six
hours  would  suffice.  If,  then,  the  labourer  worked  for  himself,
he  could  obtain  all  he  needed  in  a  half-day,  and  the  rest  of  his
time  he  might  devote  to  leisure  or  to  procuring  superfluities  ;
but  the  slave  of  antiquity,  the  .serf  of  the  Middle  Ages,  when
gaining  his  freedom  in  the  existing  social  order,  did  not  at  the
same  time  acquire  property.  He  is  therefore  obliged  to  place
himself  in  the  service  of  those  who  possess  the  land  and  the
instruments  of  production.  These  naturally  require  him  to
work  for  them  the  whole  day  of  twelve  hours  or  more.  In  six
hours  the  labourer  produces  the  equivalent  of  his  subsistence  ;
this  is  what  Marx  terms  “  the  necessary  labour  ;  ”  during  the
remaining  six  hours  he  produces  the  “surplus  value,”  the
mehrwerth,  to  the  profit  of  his  employers.  The  capitalist
pays  the  labourer  for  his  labour-power  at  its  value,  that  is  to
say,  by  giving  him  the  amount  of  money  which,  representing  six
hours’  labour,  permits  him  to  buy  the  necessaries  of  life  ;  but
as  he  thus  obtains  the  free  disposal  of  this  productive  force  for