Transition from the previous chapter

Chapter 19 discusses the transformation of the price of labour-power into the price of labour: into wages. That is, the form of the value of labour-power is that of the price of labour. This transformation imprints of the purpose of necessary labour-time, i.e. surplus labour, into the form of payment: payment takes the form which ensures surplus-value extraction. Since magnitude and intensity are the two main features of labour which make it a means for surplus-value production, time and piece wages are the dominant forms. This chapter deals with time-wages.

Time-wages

The sale of labour-power, as will be remembered, always takes place for definite periods of time. The converted form in which the daily value, weekly value, etc. of labour-power is directly presented is hence that of time-wages, therefore day-wages, etc. (p.683)

In time-wage workers receiving the value of their labour-power is bound to them producing a surplus for the capitalist, by spreading the amount of money they receive across the whole working day. That was is conceptionally present in all capitalist production gets an independent expression in the wage: workers are not paid the value of labour-power after the first part of the day (i.e., necessary labour time) and then the surplus is kept by the capitalist for the remaining part of the working day. Instead, their ability to earn their means of living is made dependent in form on the capitalist making a surplus. Only if they work long enough to make a surplus they get what they need to live.

Yet, if labour is paid by the week or by the day (day wage etc.), the question is still how long the workers have to work. Depending on the length of the working day different sums represent different amounts of commanded labour or are exchanged for different amounts of labour.

We must, therefore, in considering time-wages, again distinguish between the sum total of the daily or weekly wages, etc., and the price of labour. (683/684):

$\frac{\mbox{price per day}}{\mbox{number of working hours}} = \mbox{price for labour per hour}$

Hence, the length of the working day (or the length of the working week in modern times) influences the price of labour. If the unions manage to push through a 40 hour week without making concessions about the wage (Germany in the 60s), then the price of labour rises. If the government/capital push through longer working hours without increases in wages (currently) the price of labour falls (cf. also p. 684).

There are therefore methods of lowering the price of labour which are independent of any reduction in the nominal daily or weekly wage. (684/685)

However, as a general law it follows that, given the amount of daily, weekly labour, etc., the daily or weekly wage depends on the price of labour, which itself varies either with the value of labour-power, or with the divergencies between its price and its value. Given the price of labour, on the other hand, the daily or weekly wage depends on the quantity of labour expended daily or weekly. (685)

The change of form of price of labour-power to price of labour and in particular time-wages also is a means to pay workers below the value of labour-power: “The capitalist can now wring from the worker a certain quantity of surplus labour without allowing him the labour-time necessary for his own subsistence.” (p.686) This is no accident, the purpose of this form of payment is to make necessary labour time dependent on surplus labour.

Short-time work

The unit of measurement for time-wages, the price of the working hour, is the value of a day’s labour-power divided by the number of hours in the average working day. Let the latter be 12 hours, and the daily value of labour-power 3 shillings, the value-product of 6 hours of labour. Under these circumstances, the price of a working hour is 3d., and the value produced in it is 6d. If the worker is now employed for less than 12 hours a day (or for less than 6 days in the week), for instance only for 6 or 8 hours, he receives, at the price of labour just mentioned, only 2s. or 1s. 6d. a day As, on our hypothesis, he must work on average 6 hours a day in order to produce a day’s wage which corresponds to nothing more than the value of his labour-power, and as, on the same hypothesis, he works only half of every hour for himself, and half for the capitalist, it is clear that he cannot obtain for himself the value-product of 6 hours if he is employed for less than 12 hours. In previous chapters we saw the destructive consequences of overwork; but here we come upon the origin of the sufferings which arise for the worker out of his being insufficiently employed. (685/686)

Overtime

Furthermore, if the working day is extended this usually corresponds to an increase in the value of labour-power (since the worker is made to work harder, putting more stress on body and mind).¹ However, the hourly wage may prevent this increase to be reflected in the actual wage. If the hours go up from 8 to 10 and a worker earns £5 each hour, a worker now takes home £50 instead of £40. However, since he’s consumed more these £50 might not reflect the actual value of his labour-power.

In many branches of industry, where time-wages are the general rule and there are no legal limits to the length of the working day, the habit has therefore spontaneously grown up of regarding the working day as normal only up to a point in time, for instance up to the expiration of the tenth hour (‘normal working day’, ‘the day’s work’, ‘the regular hours of work’). Beyond this limit the working time is overtime, and is paid at a better hourly rate (‘extra pay)’, although often in a proportion which is ridiculously small.” (687)

It seems that – on average – the longer the working day in a certain factory the lower the wage (688). To explain this:

From the law stated above, namely that the price of labour being given, the daily or weekly wage depends on the quantity of labour expended, it follows, first of all, that lower the price of labour, the greater must be the quantity of labour, or the longer must be the working day, for the worker to secure even a miserable average wage. The low level of the price of labour acts here as a stimulus to the extension of the labour-time. (688)

However, longer working hours also bring down the price of labour.

1. From “daily value of labour-power / working day of a given number of hours” (689) we know that an extension of the working day brings down the price for one hour of labour while leaving the nominal wage untouched.

2. However, even the nominal wage can fall. If one worker performs the labour of previously 1½ workers competition of workers stiffens, since less workers suffice for work previously performed by more. This new price of labour-power over time and thanks to competition between capitalists and workers establishes itself as the new normal price.

Notions of Justice

Finally, an example for the “notions of justice held by … the capitalist” (680):

The ‘full-priced’ denounced their rivals before the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry: ‘They only exist now by first defrauding the public, and next getting 18 hours’ work out of their men for 12 hours’ wages… The unpaid labour of the men was made… the source whereby the competition was carried on, and continues so to this day… The competition among the master-bakers is the cause of the difficulty in getting rid of night-work. An underseller, who sells his bread below the cost-price according to the price of flour, must make it up by getting more out of the labour of the men… If I got only 12 hours’ work out of my men, and my neighbour got 18 or 20, he must beat me in the selling price. If the men could insist on payment for overwork, this would be set right… A large number of those, employed by the undersellers are foreigners and youths, who are obliged to accept almost any wages they can obtain.’

This jeremiad is also interesting because it shows how it is only the semblance of the relations of production which is reflected by the brain of the capitalist. He does not know that the normal price of labour also includes a definite quantity of unpaid labour, and that this very unpaid labour is the normal source of his profits. The category of surplus labour-time does not exist at all for him, since it is included in the normal working day, which he thinks he has paid for in the day’s wages. (p.690/691)