021-Section-2-The-Production-of-Surplus-Value
Section 2: The Production of Surplus-Value
剩余价值的生产
The product appropriated by the capitalist is a use-value, as yarn, for example,
or boots. But, although boots are, in one sense, the basis of all social
progress, and our capitalist is a decided “progressist,” yet he does not
manufacture boots for their own sake. Use-value is, by no means, the thing
“qu’on aime pour lui-même” in the production of commodities. Use-values are only
produced by capitalists, because, and in so far as, they are the material
substratum, the depositories of exchange-value. Our capitalist has two objects
in view: in the first place, he wants to produce a use-value that has a value in
exchange, that is to say, an article destined to be sold, a commodity; and
secondly, he desires to produce a commodity whose value shall be greater than
the sum of the values of the commodities used in its production, that is, of the
means of production and the labour-power, that he purchased with his good money
in the open market. His aim is to produce not only a use-value, but a commodity
also; not only use-value, but value; not only value, but at the same time
surplus-value.
资本家占有的产品是使用价值,例如棉纱、靴子等。但资本家制造靴子,不是为了穿在自己的脚上。在商品生产中,使用价值绝不是受人喜欢的东西。资本家生产使用价值,因且只因使用价值是交换价值的物质基础,使用价值承载着交换价值。资本家在乎两点:首先,他要生产商品,即具有交换价值的使用价值,能够售卖的物品;其次,他要使生产出的商品Value,大于他购买的生产资料和劳动力的Value。他的目的,不仅仅是使用价值,而且是商品;不仅是使用价值,而且是Value;不仅是Value,而且是剩余价值。
It must be borne in mind, that we are now dealing with the production of
commodities, and that, up to this point, we have only considered one aspect of
the process. Just as commodities are, at the same time, use-values and values,
so the process of producing them must be a labour-process, and at the same time,
a process of creating value.11
必须注意,我们现在研究的是商品生产,目前我们只分析了它的一个方面。商品既是使用价值又是Value,生产商品的过程必然既是劳动【生产使用价值】的过程又是创造Value的过程。【work表示生产使用价值的过程,labour表示生产Value的过程】
Let us now examine production as a creation of value.
现在我们从创造Value的角度研究生产过程。
We know that the value of each commodity is determined by the quantity of labour
expended on and materialised in it, by the working-time necessary, under given
social conditions, for its production. This rule also holds good in the case of
the product that accrued to our capitalist, as the result of the labour-process
carried on for him. Assuming this product to be 10 lbs. of yarn, our first step
is to calculate the quantity of labour realised in it.
我们知道,商品的Value是由凝结在商品肉体上的社会必要劳动时间决定的。
For spinning the yarn, raw material is required; suppose in this case 10 lbs. of
cotton. We have no need at present to investigate the value of this cotton, for
our capitalist has, we will assume, bought it at its full value, say of ten
shillings. In this price the labour required for the production of the cotton is
already expressed in terms of the average labour of society. We will further
assume that the wear and tear of the spindle, which, for our present purpose,
may represent all other instruments of labour employed, amounts to the value of
2s. If, then, twenty-four hours’ labour, or two working days, are required to
produce the quantity of gold represented by twelve shillings, we have here, to
begin with, two days’ labour already incorporated in the yarn.
以棉纱这种商品为例。假设生产60斤棉纱,需要原材料(60斤棉花,600元)和劳动工具(60个纱锭,120元)。生产棉花和纱锭的社会必要劳动时间是生产棉纱的社会必要劳动时间的一部分,另一部分则是劳动者使用纱锭将棉花纺成棉纱的社会必要劳动时间。60斤棉纱中包含棉花600元的Value和纱锭120元的Value。
We must not let ourselves be misled by the circumstance that the cotton has
taken a new shape while the substance of the spindle has to a certain extent
been used up. By the general law of value, if the value of 40 lbs. of yarn = the
value of 40 lbs. of cotton + the value of a whole spindle, i. e., if the same
working-time is required to produce the commodities on either side of this
equation, then 10 lbs. of yarn are an equivalent for 10 lbs. of cotton, together
with one-fourth of a spindle. In the case we are considering the same
working-time is materialised in the 10 lbs. of yarn on the one hand, and in the
10 lbs. of cotton and the fraction of a spindle on the other. Therefore, whether
value appears in cotton, in a spindle, or in yarn, makes no difference in the
amount of that value. The spindle and cotton, instead of resting quietly side by
side, join together in the process, their forms are altered, and they are turned
into yarn; but their value is no more affected by this fact than it would be if
they had been simply exchanged for their equivalent in yarn.
The labour required for the production of the cotton, the raw material of the
yarn, is part of the labour necessary to produce the yarn, and is therefore
contained in the yarn. The same applies to the labour embodied in the spindle,
without whose wear and tear the cotton could not be spun.
Hence, in determining the value of the yarn, or the labour-time required for its
production, all the special processes carried on at various times and in
different places, which were necessary, first to produce the cotton and the
wasted portion of the spindle, and then with the cotton and spindle to spin the
yarn, may together be looked on as different and successive phases of one and
the same process. The whole of the labour in the yarn is past labour; and it is
a matter of no importance that the operations necessary for the production of
its constituent elements were carried on at times which, referred to the
present, are more remote than the final operation of spinning. If a definite
quantity of labour, say thirty days, is requisite to build a house, the total
amount of labour incorporated in it is not altered by the fact that the work of
the last day is done twenty-nine days later than that of the first. Therefore
the labour contained in the raw material and the instruments of labour can be
treated just as if it were labour expended in an earlier stage of the spinning
process, before the labour of actual spinning commenced.
The values of the means of production, i. e., the cotton and the spindle, which
values are expressed in the price of twelve shillings, are therefore constituent
parts of the value of the yarn, or, in other words, of the value of the product.
Two conditions must nevertheless be fulfilled. First, the cotton and spindle
must concur in the production of a use-value; they must in the present case
become yarn. Value is independent of the particular use-value by which it is
borne, but it must be embodied in a use-value of some kind. Secondly, the time
occupied in the labour of production must not exceed the time really necessary
under the given social conditions of the case. Therefore, if no more than 1 lb.
of cotton be requisite to spin 1 lb. of yarn, care must be taken that no more
than this weight of cotton is consumed in the production of 1 lb. of yarn; and
similarly with regard to the spindle. Though the capitalist have a hobby, and
use a gold instead of a steel spindle, yet the only labour that counts for
anything in the value of the yarn is that which would be required to produce a
steel spindle, because no more is necessary under the given social conditions.
We now know what portion of the value of the yarn is owing to the cotton and the
spindle. It amounts to twelve shillings or the value of two days’ work. The next
point for our consideration is, what portion of the value of the yarn is added
to the cotton by the labour of the spinner.
We have now to consider this labour under a very different aspect from that
which it had during the labour-process; there, we viewed it solely as that
particular kind of human activity which changes cotton into yarn; there, the
more the labour was suited to the work, the better the yarn, other circumstances
remaining the same. The labour of the spinner was then viewed as specifically
different from other kinds of productive labour, different on the one hand in
its special aim, viz., spinning, different, on the other hand, in the special
character of its operations, in the special nature of its means of production
and in the special use-value of its product. For the operation of spinning,
cotton and spindles are a necessity, but for making rifled cannon they would be
of no use whatever. Here, on the contrary, where we consider the labour of the
spinner only so far as it is value-creating, i.e., a source of value, his labour
differs in no respect from the labour of the man who bores cannon, or (what here
more nearly concerns us), from the labour of the cotton-planter and
spindle-maker incorporated in the means of production. It is solely by reason of
this identity, that cotton planting, spindle making and spinning, are capable of
forming the component parts differing only quantitatively from each other, of
one whole, namely, the value of the yarn. Here, we have nothing more to do with
the quality, the nature and the specific character of the labour, but merely
with its quantity. And this simply requires to be calculated. We proceed upon
the assumption that spinning is simple, unskilled labour, the average labour of
a given state of society. Hereafter we shall see that the contrary assumption
would make no difference.
While the labourer is at work, his labour constantly undergoes a transformation:
from being motion, it becomes an object without motion; from being the labourer
working, it becomes the thing produced. At the end of one hour’s spinning, that
act is represented by a definite quantity of yarn; in other words, a definite
quantity of labour, namely that of one hour, has become embodied in the cotton.
We say labour, i.e., the expenditure of his vital force by the spinner, and not
spinning labour, because the special work of spinning counts here, only so far
as it is the expenditure of labour-power in general, and not in so far as it is
the specific work of the spinner.
In the process we are now considering it is of extreme importance, that no more
time be consumed in the work of transforming the cotton into yarn than is
necessary under the given social conditions. If under normal, i.e., average
social conditions of production, a pounds of cotton ought to be made into b
pounds of yarn by one hour’s labour, then a day’s labour does not count as 12
hours’ labour unless 12 a pounds of cotton have been made into 12 b pounds of
yarn; for in the creation of value, the time that is socially necessary alone
counts.
Not only the labour, but also the raw material and the product now appear in
quite a new light, very different from that in which we viewed them in the
labour-process pure and simple. The raw material serves now merely as an
absorbent of a definite quantity of labour. By this absorption it is in fact
changed into yarn, because it is spun, because labour-power in the form of
spinning is added to it; but the product, the yarn, is now nothing more than a
measure of the labour absorbed by the cotton. If in one hour 1 2/3 lbs. of
cotton can be spun into 1 2/3 lbs. of yarn, then 10 lbs. of yarn indicate the
absorption of 6 hours’ labour. Definite quantities of product, these quantities
being determined by experience, now represent nothing but definite quantities of
labour, definite masses of crystallised labour-time. They are nothing more than
the materialisation of so many hours or so many days of social labour.
We are here no more concerned about the facts, that the labour is the specific
work of spinning, that its subject is cotton and its product yarn, than we are
about the fact that the subject itself is already a product and therefore raw
material. If the spinner, instead of spinning, were working in a coal mine, the
subject of his labour, the coal, would be supplied by Nature; nevertheless, a
definite quantity of extracted coal, a hundredweight for example, would
represent a definite quantity of absorbed labour.
We assumed, on the occasion of its sale, that the value of a day’s labour-power
is three shillings, and that six hours’ labour is incorporated in that sum; and
consequently that this amount of labour is requisite to produce the necessaries
of life daily required on an average by the labourer. If now our spinner by
working for one hour, can convert 1 2/3 lbs. of cotton into 1 2/3 lbs. of yarn,
12it follows that in six hours he will convert 10 lbs. of cotton into 10 lbs. of
yarn. Hence, during the spinning process, the cotton absorbs six hours’ labour.
The same quantity of labour is also embodied in a piece of gold of the value of
three shillings. Consequently by the mere labour of spinning, a value of three
shillings is added to the cotton.
假设劳动力的每日Value是300元,生产这300元生活资料的社会必要劳动时间是6小时。假设这6小时内,劳动者恰好将60斤棉花和6个纱锭纺成60斤棉纱。那么60斤棉纱中就包含了300元的劳动力Value。【600元(棉花)+120元(纱锭)+300元(劳动力)=>1020元(60斤棉纱)】
Let us now consider the total value of the product, the 10 lbs. of yarn. Two and
a half days’ labour has been embodied in it, of which two days were contained in
the cotton and in the substance of the spindle worn away, and half a day was
absorbed during the process of spinning. This two and a half days’ labour is
also represented by a piece of gold of the value of fifteen shillings. Hence,
fifteen shillings is an adequate price for the 10 lbs. of yarn, or the price of
one pound is eighteenpence.
Our capitalist stares in astonishment. The value of the product is exactly equal
to the value of the capital advanced. The value so advanced has not expanded, no
surplus-value has been created, and consequently money has not been converted
into capital. The price of the yarn is fifteen shillings, and fifteen shillings
were spent in the open market upon the constituent elements of the product, or,
what amounts to the same thing, upon the factors of the labour-process; ten
shillings were paid for the cotton, two shillings for the substance of the
spindle worn away, and three shillings for the labour-power. The swollen value
of the yarn is of no avail, for it is merely the sum of the values formerly
existing in the cotton, the spindle, and the labour-power: out of such a simple
addition of existing values, no surplus-value can possibly arise.13 These
separate values are now all concentrated in one thing; but so they were also in
the sum of fifteen shillings, before it was split up into three parts, by the
purchase of the commodities.
There is in reality nothing very strange in this result. The value of one pound
of yarn being eighteenpence, if our capitalist buys 10 lbs. of yarn in the
market, he must pay fifteen shillings for them. It is clear that, whether a man
buys his house ready built, or gets it built for him, in neither case will the
mode of acquisition increase the amount of money laid out on the house.
Our capitalist, who is at home in his vulgar economy, exclaims: “Oh! but I
advanced my money for the express purpose of making more money.” The way to Hell
is paved with good intentions, and he might just as easily have intended to make
money, without producing at all.14 He threatens all sorts of things. He won’t be
caught napping again. In future he will buy the commodities in the market,
instead of manufacturing them himself. But if all his brother capitalists were
to do the same, where would he find his commodities in the market? And his money
he cannot eat. He tries persuasion. “Consider my abstinence; I might have played
ducks and drakes with the 15 shillings; but instead of that I consumed it
productively, and made yarn with it.” Very well, and by way of reward he is now
in possession of good yarn instead of a bad conscience; and as for playing the
part of a miser, it would never do for him to relapse into such bad ways as
that; we have seen before to what results such asceticism leads. Besides, where
nothing is, the king has lost his rights; whatever may be the merit of his
abstinence, there is nothing wherewith specially to remunerate it, because the
value of the product is merely the sum of the values of the commodities that
were thrown into the process of production. Let him therefore console himself
with the reflection that virtue is its own reward. But no, he becomes
importunate. He says: “The yarn is of no use to me: I produced it for sale.” In
that case let him sell it, or, still better, let him for the future produce only
things for satisfying his personal wants, a remedy that his physician MacCulloch
has already prescribed as infallible against an epidemic of over-production. He
now gets obstinate. “Can the labourer,” he asks, “merely with his arms and legs,
produce commodities out of nothing? Did I not supply him with the materials, by
means of which, and in which alone, his labour could be embodied? And as the
greater part of society consists of such ne’er-do-wells, have I not rendered
society incalculable service by my instruments of production, my cotton and my
spindle, and not only society, but the labourer also, whom in addition I have
provided with the necessaries of life? And am I to be allowed nothing in return
for all this service?” Well, but has not the labourer rendered him the
equivalent service of changing his cotton and spindle into yarn? Moreover, there
is here no question of service.15 A service is nothing more than the useful
effect of a use-value, be it of a commodity, or be it of labour.16 But here we
are dealing with exchange-value. The capitalist paid to the labourer a value of
3 shillings, and the labourer gave him back an exact equivalent in the value of
3 shillings, added by him to the cotton: he gave him value for value. Our
friend, up to this time so purse-proud, suddenly assumes the modest demeanour of
his own workman, and exclaims: “Have I myself not worked? Have I not performed
the labour of superintendence and of overlooking the spinner? And does not this
labour, too, create value?” His overlooker and his manager try to hide their
smiles. Meanwhile, after a hearty laugh, he re-assumes his usual mien. Though he
chanted to us the whole creed of the economists, in reality, he says, he would
not give a brass farthing for it. He leaves this and all such like subterfuges
and juggling tricks to the professors of Political Economy, who are paid for it.
He himself is a practical man; and though he does not always consider what he
says outside his business, yet in his business he knows what he is about.
【Marx在骂资本家及其经济学走狗了,嘿嘿嘿】
Let us examine the matter more closely. The value of a day’s labour-power
amounts to 3 shillings, because on our assumption half a day’s labour is
embodied in that quantity of labour-power, i.e., because the means of
subsistence that are daily required for the production of labour-power, cost
half a day’s labour. But the past labour that is embodied in the labour-power,
and the living labour that it can call into action; the daily cost of
maintaining it, and its daily expenditure in work, are two totally different
things. The former determines the exchange-value of the labour-power, the latter
is its use-value. The fact that half a day’s labour is necessary to keep the
labourer alive during 24 hours, does not in any way prevent him from working a
whole day. Therefore, the value of labour-power, and the value which that
labour-power creates in the labour-process, are two entirely different
magnitudes; and this difference of the two values was what the capitalist had in
view, when he was purchasing the labour-power. The useful qualities that
labour-power possesses, and by virtue of which it makes yarn or boots, were to
him nothing more than a conditio sine qua non; for in order to create value,
labour must be expended in a useful manner. What really influenced him was the
specific use-value which this commodity possesses of being a source not only of
value, but of more value than it has itself. This is the special service that
the capitalist expects from labour-power, and in this transaction he acts in
accordance with the “eternal laws” of the exchange of commodities. The seller of
labour-power, like the seller of any other commodity, realises its
exchange-value, and parts with its use-value. He cannot take the one without
giving the other. The use-value of labour-power, or in other words, labour,
belongs just as little to its seller, as the use-value of oil after it has been
sold belongs to the dealer who has sold it. The owner of the money has paid the
value of a day’s labour-power; his, therefore, is the use of it for a day; a
day’s labour belongs to him. The circumstance, that on the one hand the daily
sustenance of labour-power costs only half a day’s labour, while on the other
hand the very same labour-power can work during a whole day, that consequently
the value which its use during one day creates, is double what he pays for that
use, this circumstance is, without doubt, a piece of good luck for the buyer,
but by no means an injury to the seller.
我们再仔细研究一下整件事。劳动力的日Value是300元的生活资料,300元的生活资料需要6小时(即半个工作日)的社会必要劳动时间。【虽然现在法律上是8小时工作日了,但实际上恐怕比8小时要多很多吧。所以这里我沿用Marx当时的12小时工作日的说法。】但劳动力每日消耗的Value【300元即6小时】与劳动力每日能提供的Value【12小时】,是两个完全不同的量。前者决定劳动力的交换价值,后者是劳动力的使用价值。【劳动力的使用价值是创造Value。人的物化,是一切暴富方式的前提条件。】劳动力工作6小时就可以产出300元的生活资料,维持生存。但这并不妨碍他工作12小时。因此,劳动力的Value与劳动力创造的Value是两个不同的量。这个差额就是资本家在乎的东西。劳动力能够生产使用价值,是资本家购买劳动力的必要条件之一。因为只有这样,劳动才能创造Value。具有决定意义的是劳动力这个商品具有的特殊的使用价值,即劳动力能创造比自身Value更大的Value。【剩余产品的出现,就说明了劳动力能创造比自身Value更大的Value,说明了上文假设的合理性。】资本家按照商品交换的永恒规律办事。【商品交换并不意味着人与人的平等。】劳动者实现了劳动力的交换价值,让渡了劳动力的使用价值。【卖自己,给老板干活。】他不卖就没饭吃。资本家付出300元的生活资料【6小时劳动】就可以维持劳动力一整天,劳动力一整天却能工作12小时。因此,劳动力一天创造的Value是劳动力自身Value的2倍。
Our capitalist foresaw this state of things, and that was the cause of his
laughter. The labourer therefore finds, in the workshop, the means of production
necessary for working, not only during six, but during twelve hours. Just as
during the six hours’ process our 10 lbs. of cotton absorbed six hours’ labour,
and became 10 lbs. of yarn, so now, 20 lbs. of cotton will absorb 12 hours’
labour and be changed into 20 lbs. of yarn. Let us now examine the product of
this prolonged process. There is now materialised in this 20 lbs. of yarn the
labour of five days, of which four days are due to the cotton and the lost steel
of the spindle, the remaining day having been absorbed by the cotton during the
spinning process. Expressed in gold, the labour of five days is thirty
shillings. This is therefore the price of the 20 lbs. of yarn, giving, as
before, eighteenpence as the price of a pound. But the sum of the values of the
commodities that entered into the process amounts to 27 shillings. The value of
the yarn is 30 shillings. Therefore the value of the product is 1/9 greater than
the value advanced for its production; 27 shillings have been transformed into
30 shillings; a surplus-value of 3 shillings has been created. The trick has at
last succeeded; money has been converted into capital.
资本家在头脑中盘算出了这件事,因而内心狂喜。劳动者在工场遇到的,不是6小时劳动所消耗的生产资料,而是12小时的。【上文中600元(棉花)+120元(纱锭)+300元(劳动力)=>1020元(60斤棉纱)】经过12小时的劳动,他把1200元(棉花)+240元(纱锭)+300元(劳动力)转化为120斤棉纱(即2040元)。这2040元比资本家投入的(1200元+240元+300元=1740元)多了300元!魔术成功了!货币转化为资本了!【多出的300元剩余产品,归资本家占有。这就是货币转化为资本的关键。】
Every condition of the problem is satisfied, while the laws that regulate the
exchange of commodities, have been in no way violated. Equivalent has been
exchanged for equivalent. For the capitalist as buyer paid for each commodity,
for the cotton, the spindle and the labour-power, its full value. He then did
what is done by every purchaser of commodities; he consumed their use-value. The
consumption of the labour-power, which was also the process of producing
commodities, resulted in 20 lbs. of yarn, having a value of 30 shillings. The
capitalist, formerly a buyer, now returns to market as a seller, of commodities.
He sells his yarn at eighteenpence a pound, which is its exact value. Yet for
all that he withdraws 3 shillings more from circulation than he originally threw
into it. This metamorphosis, this conversion of money into capital, takes place
both within the sphere of circulation and also outside it; within the
circulation, because conditioned by the purchase of the labour-power in the
market; outside the circulation, because what is done within it is only a
stepping-stone to the production of surplus-value, a process which is entirely
confined to the sphere of production. Thus “tout est pour le mieux dans le
meilleur des mondes possibles.” [“Everything is for the best in the best of all
possible worlds.” – Voltaire, Candide]
货币所有者在流通领域中购买生产资料和劳动力,在生产领域中消费这些生产资料和劳动力,得到了Value增加了的商品,在流通领域中出售这些商品,从而得到了更多的货币。“完美的世界,完美的一切。——伏尔泰的《老实人》”
By turning his money into commodities that serve as the material elements of a
new product, and as factors in the labour-process, by incorporating living
labour with their dead substance, the capitalist at the same time converts
value, i.e., past, materialised, and dead labour into capital, into value big
with value, a live monster that is fruitful and multiplies.
将货币转化为商品,在劳动过程中,将商品的死的肉体与人的活的劳动糅合起来,此时,资本家就将过去的Value、凝结到物质中的Value、已死的劳动创造的Value转化为资本,转化为更大的Value,转化为自行繁殖的怪兽。
If we now compare the two processes of producing value and of creating
surplus-value, we see that the latter is nothing but the continuation of the
former beyond a definite point. If on the one hand the process be not carried
beyond the point, where the value paid by the capitalist for the labour-power is
replaced by an exact equivalent, it is simply a process of producing value; if,
on the other hand, it be continued beyond that point, it becomes a process of
creating surplus-value.
比较一下生产Value的过程和生产剩余价值的过程,就会发现,后者是超过一定点后继续延长了的生产Value的过程。如果生产过程只持续到这一点,那就是单纯的生产Value的过程;如果超过这一点,那就成为生产剩余价值的过程。
If we proceed further, and compare the process of producing value with the
labour-process, pure and simple, we find that the latter consists of the useful
labour, the work, that produces use-values. Here we contemplate the labour as
producing a particular article; we view it under its qualitative aspect alone,
with regard to its end and aim. But viewed as a value-creating process, the same
labour-process presents itself under its quantitative aspect alone. Here it is a
question merely of the time occupied by the labourer in doing the work; of the
period during which the labour-power is usefully expended. Here, the commodities
that take part in the process, do not count any longer as necessary adjuncts of
labour-power in the production of a definite, useful object. They count merely
as depositories of so much absorbed or materialised labour; that labour, whether
previously embodied in the means of production, or incorporated in them for the
first time during the process by the action of labour-power, counts in either
case only according to its duration; it amounts to so many hours or days as the
case may be.
Moreover, only so much of the time spent in the production of any article is
counted, as, under the given social conditions, is necessary. The consequences
of this are various. In the first place, it becomes necessary that the labour
should be carried on under normal conditions. If a self-acting mule is the
implement in general use for spinning, it would be absurd to supply the spinner
with a distaff and spinning wheel. The cotton too must not be such rubbish as to
cause extra waste in being worked, but must be of suitable quality. Otherwise
the spinner would be found to spend more time in producing a pound of yarn than
is socially necessary, in which case the excess of time would create neither
value nor money. But whether the material factors of the process are of normal
quality or not, depends not upon the labourer, but entirely upon the capitalist.
Then again, the labour-power itself must be of average efficacy. In the trade in
which it is being employed, it must possess the average skill, handiness and
quickness prevalent in that trade, and our capitalist took good care to buy
labour-power of such normal goodness. This power must be applied with the
average amount of exertion and with the usual degree of intensity; and the
capitalist is as careful to see that this is done, as that his workmen are not
idle for a single moment. He has bought the use of the labour-power for a
definite period, and he insists upon his rights. He has no intention of being
robbed. Lastly, and for this purpose our friend has a penal code of his own, all
wasteful consumption of raw material or instruments of labour is strictly
forbidden, because what is so wasted, represents labour superfluously expended,
labour that does not count in the product or enter into its value.17
We now see, that the difference between labour, considered on the one hand as
producing utilities, and on the other hand, as creating value, a difference
which we discovered by our analysis of a commodity, resolves itself into a
distinction between two aspects of the process of production.
在我们分析商品时发现的商品的使用价值和Value两个属性,现在也成了生产过程的生产使用价值和生产Value两个属性。
The process of production, considered on the one hand as the unity of the
labour-process and the process of creating value, is production of commodities;
considered on the other hand as the unity of the labour-process and the process
of producing surplus-value, it is the capitalist process of production, or
capitalist production of commodities.
生产过程,既是劳动过程,又是创造Value的过程,因此它是商品生产的过程。生产过程,既是劳动过程,又是创造剩余价值的过程,因此它是资本主义的生产过程(即商品生产的资本主义形式)。
We stated, on a previous page, that in the creation of surplus-value it does not
in the least matter, whether the labour appropriated by the capitalist be simple
unskilled labour of average quality or more complicated skilled labour. All
labour of a higher or more complicated character than average labour is
expenditure of labour-power of a more costly kind, labour-power whose production
has cost more time and labour, and which therefore has a higher value, than
unskilled or simple labour-power. This power being higher-value, its consumption
is labour of a higher class, labour that creates in equal times proportionally
higher values than unskilled labour does. Whatever difference in skill there may
be between the labour of a spinner and that of a jeweller, the portion of his
labour by which the jeweller merely replaces the value of his own labour-power,
does not in any way differ in quality from the additional portion by which he
creates surplus-value. In the making of jewellery, just as in spinning, the
surplus-value results only from a quantitative excess of labour, from a
lengthening-out of one and the same labour-process, in the one case, of the
process of making jewels, in the other of the process of making yarn.18
But on the other hand, in every process of creating value, the reduction of
skilled labour to average social labour, e.g., one day of skilled to six days of
unskilled labour, is unavoidable. 19We therefore save ourselves a superfluous
operation, and simplify our analysis, by the assumption, that the labour of the
workman employed by the capitalist is unskilled average labour.
在创造Value的过程中,高级复杂劳动总要化为社会的平均劳动。因此,假定资本使用的工人从事的是简单的社会的平均劳动,我们就能省却多余的换算,使分析简化。
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