buildings.[1] Not only is there, therefore, an increase of surplus-value, but the outlay necessary to obtain it diminishes. It is true that this takes place, more or less, with every lengthening of the working day; but in the case under consideration, the change is more marked, because the capital converted into the instruments of labour preponderates to a greater degree.[2] The development of the factory system fixes a constantly increasing portion of the capital in a form, in which, on the one hand, its value is capable of continual self-expansion, and in which, on the other hand, it loses both use-value and exchange-value whenever it loses contact with living labour. “When a labourer,” said Mr. Ashworth, a cotton magnate, to Professor Nassau W. Senior, “lays down his spade, he renders useless, for that period, a capital worth eighteenpence. When one of our people leaves the mill, he renders useless a capital that has cost £100,000.”[3] Only fancy! making “useless” for a single moment, a capital that has cost £100,000! It is, in truth, monstrous, that a single one of our people should ever leave the factory! The increased use of our machinery, as Senior after the instruction he received from Ashworth clearly perceives, makes a constantly increasing lengthening of the working day “desirable.”[4]
Machinery produces relative surplus-value; not only by directly depreciating the value of labour-power, and by in-
- ↑ “It is self-evident, that, amid the ebbings and flowings of the markets and the alternate expansions and contractions of demand, occasions will constantly recur, in which the manufacturer may employ additional floating capital without employing additional fixed capital … if additional quantities of raw material can be worked up without incurring an additional expense for buildings and machinery.” (R. Torrens: “On Wages and Combinations. London, 1834,” p. 63.)
- ↑ This circumstance is mentioned only for the sake of completeness, for I shall not consider the rate of profit, i.e., the ratio of the surplus-value to the total capital advanced, until I come to the third book.
- ↑ Senior, “Letters on the Factory Act. London, 1887,” p. 13, 14.
- ↑ “The great proportion of fixed to circulating capital … makes long hours of work desirable.” With the increased use of machinery, &c., “the motives to long hours of work will become greater, as the only means by which a large proportion of fixed capital can be made profitable.” (l. c., pp. 11-18.) “There are certain expenses upon a mill which go on in the same proportion whether the mill be running short or full time, as, for instance, rent, rates, and taxes, insurance against fire, wages of several permanent servants, deterioration of machinery, with various other charges upon a manufacturing establishment, the proportion of which to profits increases as the production decreases. (“Rep. of Insp. of Fact. for 31st Oct., 1862,” p. 19.)
