Читать книгу Concise Reader in Sociological Theory - Группа авторов - Страница 12

Original publication details: Karl Marx, from Wage Labour and Capital (1891/1978). Lawrence & Wishart, 2010, pp. 17–18, 19–21, 27–29, 29–30, 41. Reproduced with permission of Lawrence & Wishart via PLS Clear.

What are wages? How are they determined?

If workers were asked: “What are your wages?” one would reply: “I get a franc¹ a day from my bourgeois”; another, “I get two francs,” and so on. According to the different trades to which they belong, they would mention different sums of money which they receive from their respective bourgeios for a particular labour time² or for the performance of a particular piece of work, for example, weaving a yard of linen or type‐setting a printed sheet. In spite of the variety of their statements, they would all agree on one point: wages are the sum of money paid by the bourgeois³ for a particular labour time or for a particular output of labour.

The bourgeois,⁴ therefore, buys their labour with money. They sell him their labour for money.⁵ For the same sum with which the bourgeois has bought their labour,⁶ for example, two francs, he could have bought two pounds of sugar or a definite amount of any other commodity. The two francs, with which he bought two pounds of sugar, are the price of the two pounds of sugar. The two francs, with which he bought twelve hours’ labour,⁷ are the price of twelve hours’ labour. Labour,⁸ therefore, is a commodity, neither more nor less than sugar. The former is measured by the clock, the latter by the scales.

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Wages are, therefore, not the worker’s share in the commodity produced by him. Wages are the part of already existing commodities with which the capitalist buys a definite amount of productive labour as such.⁹

Labour¹⁰ is, therefore, a commodity which its possessor, the wage‐worker, sells to capital. Why does he sell it? In order to live.

But,¹¹ labour is the worker’s own life‐activity, the manifestation of his own life. And this life‐activity he sells to another person in order to secure the necessary means of subsistence. Thus his life‐activity is for him only a means to enable him to exist. He works in order to live. He does not even reckon labour as part of his life, it is rather a sacrifice of his life. It is a commodity which he has made over to another. Hence, also, the product of his activity is not the object of his activity. What he produces for himself is not the silk that he weaves, not the gold that he draws from the mine, not the palace that he builds. What he produces for himself is wages, and silk, gold, palace resolve themselves for him into a definite quantity of the means of subsistence, perhaps into a cotton jacket, some copper coins and a lodging in a cellar. And the worker, who for twelve hours weaves, spins, drills, turns, builds, shovels, breaks stones, carries loads, etc. – does he consider this twelve hours’ weaving, spinning, drilling, turning, building, shovelling, stone‐breaking as a manifestation of his life, as life? On the contrary, life begins for him where this activity ceases, at table, in the public house, in bed. The twelve hours’ labour, on the other hand, has no meaning for him as weaving, spinning, drilling, etc., but as earnings, which bring him to the table, to the public house, into bed. If the silkworm were to spin in order to continue its existence as a caterpillar, it would be a complete wage‐worker.

Labour¹² was not always a commodity. Labour was not always wage labour, that is, free labour. The slave did not sell his labour¹³ to the slave owner, any more than the ox sells its services to the peasant. The slave, together with his labour,¹⁴ is sold once and for all to his owner. He is a commodity which can pass from the hand of one owner to that of another. He is himself a commodity, but the labour¹⁵ is not his commodity. The serf sells only a part of his labour.¹⁶ He does not receive a wage from the owner of the land; rather the owner of the land receives a tribute from him. The serf belongs to the land and turns over to the owner of the land the fruits thereof. The free labourer, on the other hand, sells himself and, indeed, sells himself piecemeal. He auctions off eight, ten, twelve, fifteen hours of his life, day after day, to the highest bidder, to the owner of the raw materials, instruments of labour and means of subsistence, that is, to the capitalist. The worker belongs neither to an owner nor to the land, but eight, ten, twelve, fifteen hours of his daily life belong to him who buys them. The worker leaves the capitalist to whom he hires himself whenever he likes, and the capitalist discharges him whenever he thinks fit, as soon as he no longer gets any profit out of him, or not the anticipated profit. But the worker, whose sole source of livelihood is the sale of his labour,¹⁷ cannot leave the whole class of purchasers, that is, the capitalist class, without renouncing his existence. He belongs not to this or that capitalist but to the capitalist class,¹⁸ and, moreover, it is his business to dispose of himself, that is, to find a purchaser within this bourgeois class.¹⁹

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