Karl Marx 
                          WAGE-LABOR AND CAPITAL 
 
 
                                Chapter 8 
 
       THE INTERESTS OF CAPITAL AND WAGE-LABOR ARE DIAMETRICALLY 
       OPPOSED -- EFFECT OF GROWTH OF PRODUCTIVE CAPITAL ON WAGES 
 
We thus see that, even if we keep ourselves within the relation of 
capital and wage-labor, the interests of capitals and the interests of 
wage-labor are diameterically opposed to each other.  
 
A rapid growth of capital is synonymous with a rapid growth of profits.  
Profits can grow rapidly only when the price of labor -- the relative 
wages -- decrease just as rapidly.  Relative wages may fall, although 
real wages rise simultaneously with nominal wages, with the money value 
of labor, p[ provided only that the real wage does not rise in the same 
proportion as the profit.  If, for instance, in good business years 
wages rise 5 per cent, while profits rise 30 per cent, the proportional, 
the relative wage has not increased, but decreased.  
 
If, therefore, the income of the worker increased with the rapid growth 
of capital, there is at the same time a widening of the social chasm 
that divides the worker from the capitalist, and increase in the power 
of capital over labor, a greater dependence of labor upon capital.  
 
To say that "the worker has an interest in the rapid growth of capital", 
means only this: that the more speedily the worker augments the wealth 
of the capitalist, the larger will be the crumbs which fall to him, the 
greater will be the number of workers than can be called into existence, 
the more can the mass of slaves dependent upon capital be increased.  
 
We have thus seen that even the most favorable situation for the working 
class, namely, the most rapid growth of capital, however much it may 
improve the material life of the worker, does not abolish the antagonism 
between his interests and the interests of the capitalist.  Profit and 
wages remain as before, in inverse proportion.  
 
If capital grows rapidly, wages may rise, but the profit of capital 
rises disproportionately faster.  The material position of the worker 
has improved, but at the cost of his social position.  The social chasm 
that separates him from the capitalist has widened.  
 
Finally, to say that "the most favorable condition for wage-labor is the 
fastest possible growth of productive capital", is the same as to say: 
the quicker the working class multiplies and augments the power inimical 
to it -- the wealth of another which lords over that class -- the more 
favorable will be the conditions under which it will be permitted to 
toil anew at the multiplication of bourgeois wealth, at the enlargement 
of the power of capital, content thus to forge for itself the golden 
chains by which the bourgeoisie drags it in its train.  
 
Growth of productive capital and rise of wages, are they really so 
indissolubly united as the bourgeois economists maintain? We must not 
believe their mere words.  We dare not believe them even when they claim 
that the fatter capital is the more will its slave be pampered.  The 
bourgeoisie is too much enlightened, it keeps its accounts much too 
carefully, to share the prejudices of the feudal lord, who makes an 
ostentatious display of the magnificence of his retinue..  The 
conditions of existence of the bourgeoisie compel it to attend carefully 
to its bookkeeping.  We must therefore examine more closely into the 
following question: 
 
     In what manner does the growth of productive capital affect  
     wages? 
 
If as a whole, the productive capital of bourgeois society grows, there 
takes place a more many-sided accumulation of labor.  The individual 
capitals increase in number and in magnitude.  The multiplications of 
individual capitals increases the competition among capitalists.  The 
increasing magnitude of increasing capitals provides the means of 
leading more powerful armies of workers with more gigantic instruments 
of war upon the industrial battlefield.  
 
The one capitalist can drive the other from the field and carry off his 
capital only by selling more cheaply.  In order to sell more cheaply 
without ruining himself, he must produce more cheaply -- i.e., increase 
the productive forces of labor as much as possible.  
 
But the productive forces of labor is increased above all by a greater 
division of labor and by a more general introduction and constant 
improvement of machinery.  The larger the army of workers among whom the 
labor is subdivided, the more gigantic the scale upon which machinery is 
introduced, the more in proportion does the cost of production decrease, 
the more fruitful is the labor.  And so there arises among the 
capitalists a universal rivalry for the increase of the division of 
labor and of machinery and for their exploitation upon the greatest 
possible scale.  
 
If, now, by a greater division of labor, by the application and 
improvement of new machines, by a more advantageous exploitation of the 
forces of nature on a larger scale, a capitalist has found the means of 
producing with the same amount of labor (whether it be direct or 
accumulated labor) a larger amount of products of commodities than his 
competitors -- if, for instance, he can produce a whole yard of linen in 
the same labor-time in which his competitors weave half-a-yard -- how 
will this capitalist act? 
 
He could keep on selling half-a-yard of linen at old market price; but 
this would not have the effect of driving his opponents from the field 
and enlarging how own market.  But his need of a market has increased in 
the same measure in which his productive power has extended.  The more 
powerful and costly means of production that he has called into 
existence enable him, it is true, to sell his wares more cheaply, but 
they compel him at the same time to sell more wares, to get control of a 
very much greater market for his commodities; consequently, this 
capitalist will sell his half-yard of linen more cheaply than his 
competitors.  
 
But the capitalist will not sell the whole yard so cheaply as his 
competitors sell the half-yard, although the production of the whole 
yard costs him no more than does that of the half-yard to the others.  
Otherwise, he would make no extra profit, and would get back in exchange 
only the cost of production.  He might obtain a greater income from 
having set in motion a larger capital, but not from having made a 
greater profit on his capital than the others.  Moreover, he attains the 
object he is aiming at if he prices his goods only a small percentage 
lower than his competitors.  He drives them off the field, he wrests 
from them at least part of their market, by underselling them.  
 
And finally, let us remember that the current price always stands either 
above or below the cost of production, according as the sale of a 
commodity takes place in the favorable or unfavorable period of the 
industry.  According as the market price of the yard of linen stands 
above or below its former cost of production, will the percentage vary 
at which the capitalist who has made use of the new and more faithful 
means of production sell above his real cost of production.  
 
But the privilege of our capitalist is not of long duration.  Other 
competing capitalists introduce the same machines, the same division of 
labor, and introduce them upon the same or even upon a greater scale.  
And finally this introduction becomes so universal that the price of the 
linen is lowered not only below its old, but even below its new cost of 
production.  
 
The capitalists therefore find themselves, in their mutual relations, in 
the same situation in which they were before the introduction of the new 
means of production; and if they are by these means enabled to offer 
double the product at the old price, they are now forced to furnish 
double the product for less than the old price.  Having arrived at the 
new point, the new cost of production, the battle for supremacy in the 
market has to be fought out anew.  Given more division of labor and more 
machinery, and there results a greater scale upon which division of 
labor and machinery are exploited.  And competition again brings the 
same reaction against this result.  
 
 
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