Workmen's advocate., 1886-12-12
WAGE-LABOR AND CAPITAL.
BY KARL MARX.
Translated Ny J. l.. J0YNEs,
 CoNTINuED.

What is it that takes place in the eX- change between capital and wage-wOrk
 The lab0rer receives in exchange for his labor the means of subsistence; but the capitalist receives in exchange for the means of subsistence labor, the pro- ductive energy of the laborer, the crea- tive force whereby the laborer not only replaces what he consumes, but also gives to the stored-up labor greater value than 1t had before. The laborer receives from the capitalist share of the previ- ously provided means of subsistence. To what use does he put these means of subsistence? He uses them for mmedi- ate consumption. But as soon as con- sume my means of subsistence. they dis appear and are irrecoverably lost to me; 1t therefore becomes necessary that should employ the time during which these means keep me alive in order to produce new means of subsistence; so that during their consumption l may provide by my labor new value in the place of that which thus disappears But it is just this grand productive power which the laborer has to bargain away to capital in exchange for the means of subsistence which he receives. To him therefore it is entirely lost.
 Let us take an example: A farmer y;ves his day -laborer two shillings a day. For this two shillings he works through out the day on the farmers field and so secures him return of four shillings. The farmer does not merely get the value which he had advanced to the day l,borer replaced; he doubles it. He has thus spent or consumed the two shillings which he gave to the day y-laborer in a fruitful and productive fashion. He has bougbt for two shillings just that labor and force of the day-laborer which pro- d,,ces fruits of the earth of twice the yalue, and turns two shillings into four. The day-laborer on the otherhand receives in place of his productive force, which he has inst bargained away to the farmer, two shilings; and these he exchanges for means of subsistence: which means of subsistence he proceeds with more or less snecd to consume. The two shillings have thus been consumed in double fash ion: productively for capital, since they have been exchanged for the labor-force which produced the four shillings; un- productively for the laborer, since they have been exchanged for means of sub sistence which have disappeared forever, and whose value he can only recover by repeating the same bargain with the farmer Thus capital presupposes wage labor. and wage-labor presupposes capi-- tal They condition one another; and each brings the other into play.
 Does a laborer in cotton factory pro- duce merely cotton: No, he produces capital. He produces value which serves afresh to command his own labor, and to create new value by its means
 Capital can only increase when 1t IS exchanged for labor, when 1t calls Wage labor into existence. Wage-labor can only be exchanged for capital by aug menting capital and strengthening the power whose slave it is. An increase of capital is therefore an increase of the proletariat, that is, of the laboring class.
 The interests of the capitalist and the laborer are therefore identical, assert the bourgeoise and their economists, And, in fact. so they are The laborer per ishes if capital does not employ him. Capital perishes if it does not exploit labor; and in order to exploit it, 1t must buy it. The faster the capital devoted to production--the productive capital increases, and the more successfully the industry is carried on, the richer do the bourgeosie become, the better does busi- ness go, the more laborers does the capl- talist require. and the dearer does the laborer sell himself.
 Thus the indispensable condition of the laborer's securing a tolerable position is the speediest possible growth of pro ductive capital.
 But what is the meaning of the in- crease of productive capital: The in- crease of the power of stored up labor over living labor. The increase of the dominion of the bourgeoisie over the laboring class. As fast as wage-labor creates its own antagonist and its own master in the dominating power of cap ital, the means of employment, that IS. of subsistence, flow back to it from its antagonist; but only on the condition that 1t is itself transformed afresh into a portion of capital, and becomes the