Workmen's advocate., 1886-12-05
WAGE-LABOR AND CAPITAL,
BY KARL MARX.
Translated by ]. l.. JoYNEs.
 CONTINUED.

Capital consists of raw material, im- plements of labor. and all kinds of means of subsistence, which are used for the production of new implements and new means of subsistence. All these factors of capital are created by labor, are pro ducts of labor are stored-up labor. Stored-up labor which serves as the means of new production is capital.
 So say the economists.
 What is a negro slave? A human creature of the black race. The one deli hilton is just as valuable as the other.
 A negro is negro. In certain condl- tions he is transformed into slave. A spinning jenny is a machine for spinning cotton. Only in certain conditions is 1t transformed into capital When torn away from these conditions, it IS just as little capital as gold is money in the ab-
 stract, or sugar the price of sugar In
 the work of production men do not stand
 in relation to nature alone. They only
 produce when they work together Ill
 certain way, and mutually exchange
 their different kinds of energy. In order
 to produce. they mutually enter upon
 certain relations and conditions, and It
 is only by means of these relations and
 conditions that their relation to nature
 is defined, and production becomes pos
 sible.
 These social relations upon which the
 producers mutually enter, the terms
 upon which they exchange their energies
 and take their share in the collective act
 of production, will of course differ ac-
 corlng to the character of the means of
 production With the invention of fire
 arms as implements of warfare the whole
 organization of the army was of necessi-
 ty altered and with the alteration in the
 relations throuh which individuals form
 an army, and are enabled to work togeth-
 er as an army. there was a simultaneous
 alteration in the relations of armies to
 one another.
 Thus with the change in the social re-
 lations by means of which Individuals
 produce, that is, in the soclal relations oi
 production, and with the alteration and development of the material means Of production, the powers of production are also transformed. The relations of pro-
 duction collectively form those social re-
 lations which we call a society, and so- ciety with definite degrees of historical
 development, society with an appro- priate and distinctive character. Ancient society ,feudal society, bourgeois society, are instances of this collective result of
 the relations of production, each of which , marks out an important step in the his- torcal development of mankind. , Now capital also is a social condition of production. It is a bourgeois condi- tion of production, condition of the 1 production of bourgeois society. Are | not the means of subsistence, the imple- U ments of labor, and the raw material, of 8 which capital consists, the results of deti- t nite social relations; were they not pro- duced and stored up under certain social ' conditions? Will they not be used for 7 further production under certain social
 conditions? And is it not just this deti-
 nite social character which transforms
 into capital that product which serves -, for further production!
 II Capital does not consist of the means 1T of subsistence implements of labor, and
 raw material alone, nor only of material It products; it consists just as much of ex- % change-value. All the products of which
 it consists are commodities. Thus capi- IS tai is not merely the sum of material B. products; it is a sum of commodities, of
 exchange values, of social quantities. ,e Capital remains unchanged if we sub. II stitute cotton for wool rice for corn, and q steamers for railways; provided only le that the cotton, the rice, the steamers " the bodily form of capital-have the tIo same exchange-value, the same price as " the wool, the corn, the railways, in which IL it formerly embodied itself. The bodily Id form of capital may change continually " while the capital itself undergoes not the m slightest alteration.
 ar But though all capital is sum of com | modities, that is, of exchange values that is capital.
 el Every sum of exchange values is al ne exchange value. For instance, a hous, )d worth thousand pounds is an exchange to value of a thousand pounds. A penny bo worth of paper is the sum of the ex DN nge-values of hundred-hundredth Jo of penny. Products which may b Ne mutually exchanged are commodities hO The definite proportion in which the, n are exchangeable forms their exchange ,, value, or, expressed in money, thei ''' price. The amount of these product zee can do nothing to alter their definition ut as being commodities, or as representa- nv an eXchange-value, or as having certai +1 price. Whether tree is large or small ''' it remains a tree. Whether we ea ell change iron for other wares in ounces 0 )n- in hundredweights, that makes no differ ke ence in its character as commodit or possessing eXchange-value. Accordin
 to its amount 1t is a commodity of nor
 or less worth, with higher or lowe
 price.
 ,ho How. then, can sum of commoditie '''0 of exchange-values, become capital? "o' By maintaining and multiplying itse has as an independent social power, that i