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THE  SOCIALISM  OF  TO-DAY.

which  he  has  paid,  he  acquires  everything  it  produces  during
the  entire  day.  He  therefore  exchanges  the  produce  of  six
hours  against  the  labour  of  twelve  hours,  and  puts  in  his
pocket,  as  net  profit,  the  produce  of  the  six  hours  beyond  the
“necessary  labour.”  From  this  surplus,  pocketed  by  the
employer,  capital  comes  into  being.
The  capitalist  has  different  methods  of  increasing  his
profits.  The  first  consists  in  multiplying  the  number  of  his
workmen.  In  fact,  as  many  workmen  as  he  employs,  so  many
times  does  he  pocket  the  product  of  the  six  supplementary
hours  of  labour.  If  he  employs  only  one  workman,  by  deducting ­
  for  himself  the  product  of  half  a  day’s  labour,  he  would
obtain  only  the  bare  means  of  living,  like  the  workman  himself.
If  he  employs  two,  he  would  have  for  his  own  consumption  the
equivalent  of  what  two  workmen  consume.  The  second  method
is  to  lengthen  the  working  day.  The  longer  the  labourer
works  beyond  the  necessary  time  which  represents  his  wages,
the  greater  the  profit  he  brings  to  his  master.  Marx  here
shows  by  detailed  examples  borrowed  from  the  history  of
manufacture  and  industrial  legislation  in  England,  that  capital
and  machinery  necessarily  tend  to  prolong  the  working  day,  and
that  in  order  to  arrest  them  in  this  course,  the  State  has  been
obliged  to  interfere  with  successive  enactments  limiting  the
hours  of  labour.  The  third  method  consists  in  diminishing
the  duration  of  the  “  necessary  labour.”  If  the  workman  could
produce  in  three  hours  what  he  needs  for  his  subsistence,  the
cost  of  his  labour-power  would  be  diminished  by  one  half.
The  capitalist  would  then  obtain  the  full  value  of  the  labour  of
twelve  hours,  in  return  for  a  sum  of  money  equivalent  to  the
labour  of  three  hours,  that  is  to  say,  for  half  the  wages.  This
also  seems  to  accord  with  Ricardo’s  law  :  if  the  workman’s  cost
of  maintenance  be  lowered,  wages  would  fall  proportionately.
But  how  is  the  reduction  in  the  cost  of  maintenance  to  be
attained  ?  By  rendering  the  labour  which  creates  the  articles
of  the  labourers’  consumption  more  productive.  As  hours  of
labour  obtain  the  same  price,  no  matter  what  they  produce,  if
twice  as  many  articles  can  be  made  in  the  hour,  each  article
will  cost  one  half  less,  and  the  labourer  will  have  one  half  less