Karl Marx 
                          WAGE-LABOR AND CAPITAL 
 
 
                                Chapter 4 
 
                      BY WHAT ARE WAGES DETERMINED? 
 
Now, the same general laws which regulate the price of commodities in 
general, naturally regulate wages , or the price of labor-power.  Wages 
will now rise, now fall, according to the relation of supply and demand, 
according as competition shapes itself between the buyers of 
labor-power, the capitalists, and the sellers of labor-power, the 
workers.  The fluctuations of wages correspond to the fluctuation in the 
price of commodities in general.  But within the limits of these 
fluctuations the price of labor-power will be determined by the cost of 
production, by the labor-time necessary for production of this 
commodity: labor-power.  
 
What, then, is the cost of production of labor-power? 
 
It is the cost required for the maintenance of the laborer as a laborer, 
and for his education and training as a laborer.  
 
Therefore, the shorter the time required for training up to a particular 
sort of work, the smaller is the cost of production of the worker, the 
lower is the price of his labor-power, his wages.  In those branches of 
industry in which hardly any period of apprenticeship is necessary and 
the mere bodily existence of the worker is sufficient, the cost of his 
production is limited almost exclusively to the commodities necessary 
for keeping him in working condition.  The price of his work will 
therefore be determined by the price of the necessary means of 
subsistence.  
 
Here, however, there enters another consideration.  The manufacturer who 
calculates his cost of production and, in accordance with it, the price 
of the product, takes into account the wear and tear of the instruments 
of labor.  If a machine costs him, for example, 1,000 shillings, and 
this machine is used up in 10 years, he adds 100 shillings annually to 
the price of the commodities, in order to be able after 10 years to 
replace the worn-out machine with a new one.  In the same manner, the 
cost of production of simple labor-power must include the cost of 
propagation, by means of which the race of workers is enabled to 
multiply itself, and to replace worn-out workers with new ones.  The 
wear and tear of the worker, therefore, is calculated in the same manner 
as the wear and tear of the machine.  
 
Thus, the cost of production of simple labor-power amounts to the cost 
of the existence and propagation of the worker.  The price of this cost 
of existence and propagation constitutes wages.  The wages thus 
determined are called the minimum of wages.  This minimum wage, like the 
determination of the price of commodities in general by cost of 
production, does not hold good for the single individual , but only for 
the race.  Individual workers, indeed, millions of workers, do not 
receive enough to be able to exist and to propagate themselves; but the 
wages of the whole working class adjust themselves, within the limits of 
their fluctuations, to this minimum.  
 
Now that we have come to an understanding in regard to the most general 
laws which govern wages, as well as the price of every other commodity, 
we can examine our subject more particularly.  
 
 
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