From “Capitalist Production.”

THE CHANGE of value that occurs in the case of money intended to be converted into capital cannot take place in the money itself, since in its function of means of purchase and of payment it does no more than realize the price of the commodity it buys or pays for; and, as hard cash, it is value petrified, never varying. Just as little can it originate in the second act of circulation, the resale of the commodity, which does no more than transform the article from its bodily form back again into its money-form. The change must, therefore, take place in the commodity bought by the first act, M—C, but not in its value, for equivalents are exchanged, and the commodity is paid for at its full value. We are, therefore, forced to the conclusion that the change originates in the use-value, as such, of the commodity; i.e., in its consumption. In order to be able to extract value from the consumption of the commodity, our friend Moneybags must be so lucky as to find within the sphere of circulation in the market a commodity whose use-value possesses the peculiar property of being a source of value whose actual consumption, therefore, is itself an embodiment of labor, and consequently a creation of value. The possessor of money does find on the market such a special commodity in capacity for labor or labor-power.

  By labor-power or capacity for labor is to be understood the aggregate of those mental and physical capabilities existing in a human being, which he exercises whenever he produces a use-value of any description.

  But, in order that our owner of money may be able to find labor-power offered for sale as a commodity, various conditions must first be fulfilled. The exchange of commodities of itself implies no other relations of dependence than those which result from its own nature. On this assumption labor-power can appear upon the market as a commodity, only if, and so far as, its possessor, the individual whose labor-power it is, offers it for sale or sells it as a commodity. In order that he may be able to do this, he must have at his disposal, must be the untrammeled owner of his capacity for labor; i.e., of his person. He and the owner of money meet in the market and deal with each other as on the basis of equal rights, with this difference alone—that one is buyer, the other seller; both, therefore, equal in the eyes of the law. The continuance of this relation demands that the owner of the labor-power should sell it only for a definite period; for if he were to sell it rump and stump, once for all, he would be selling himself, converting himself from a free man into a slave, from an owner of a commodity into a commodity. He must constantly look upon his labor-power as his own property, his own commodity; and this he can only do by placing it at the disposal of the buyer temporarily, for a definite period of time. By this means alone can he avoid renouncing his rights of ownership over it.

  The second essential condition to the owner of money finding labor-power in the market as a commodity is this: that the laborer, instead of being in the position to sell commodities in which his labor is incorporated, must be obliged to offer for sale as a commodity that very labor-power which exists only in his living self.

  In order that a man may be able to sell commodities other than labor-power, he must, of course, have the means of production, as raw material, implements, etc. No boots can be made without leather. He requires also the means of subsistence. Nobody, not even “a musician of the future,” can live upon future products, or upon use-values in an unfinished state; and, ever since the first moment of his appearance on the world’s stage, man always has been, and must still be, a consumer both before and while he is producing. In a society where all products assume the form of commodities, these commodities must be sold after they have been produced; it is only after their sale that they can serve in satisfying the requirements of their producer. The time necessary for their sale is superadded to that necessary for their production.

  For the conversion of his money into capital, therefore, the owner of money must meet in the market with the free laborer—free in the double sense: that as a free man he can dispose of his labor-power as his own commodity, and that, on the other hand, he has no other commodity for sale, is short of everything necessary for the realization of his labor-power….

  The minimum limit of the value of labor-power is determined by the value of the commodities, without the daily supply of which the laborer cannot renew his vital energy, consequently by the value of those means of subsistence that are physically indispensable. If the price of labor-power fall to this minimum it falls below its value, since under such circumstances it can be maintained and developed only in a crippled state. But the value of every commodity is determined by the labor-time requisite to turn it out so as to be of normal quality.

  It is a very cheap sort of sentimentality which declares this method of determining the value of labor-power—a method prescribed by the very nature of the case—to be a brutal method, and which wails with Rossi that “to comprehend capacity for labor (puissance de travail) at the same time that we make abstraction from the means of subsistence of the laborers during the process of production, is to comprehend a phantom (être de raison). When we speak of labor, or capacity for labor, we speak at the same time of the laborer and his means of subsistence, of laborer and wages.” When we speak of capacity for labor, we do not speak of labor any more than when we speak of capacity for digestion we speak of digestion. The latter process requires something more than a good stomach. When we speak of capacity for labor, we do not abstract from the necessary means of subsistence. On the contrary, their value is expressed in its value. If his capacity for labor remains unsold, the laborer derives no benefit from it; but rather he will feel it to be a cruel, nature-imposed necessity that this capacity has cost for its production a definite amount of the means of subsistence, and that it will continue to do so for its reproduction. He will then agree with Sismondi, “that capacity for labor … is nothing unless it is sold.”