CHAPTER XIII.

Influence of the Accumulation of Capital on the Working class. - - The Industrial Reserve -Army. The Theory of the Growing Impoverishment of the Masses.
(Extracted from vol. II, ch. 25.)
When a part of the surplus-value is turned into capital and employed as additional capital, it is evident that such additional jcapitfthrgqH-kgs, in its turn, labour. All other circumstances remaining the same, and a definite mass of means of production (constant capital) constantly needing the 'same mass of labour power (variable capital) to set it in motion, then the__ demand for labour will increase, and this the quicker the more' rapidly the capital increases. Ca- pital produces yearly a •snrpfes-'raferert'^^ is yearly added to the original value; this surplus-value in- creases every year, because the capital (as a consequence of accumulation) increases; lastly, when a special stimulus to enrichment arises, such as the opening of new markets, or of new spheres for the outlay of capital in consequence of newly developed social wants, &c., a reduction of the private consumption of the capitalists suffices in order to accumu-
136 CHAPTER Mil.
hi 10 a great deal more surphis-valiu-. For all tlu- the requirements of accumulating capital may exceed the increase of the number of labourers, and, therefore, wages may rise. This must, indeed, ultimately be the case if the condi- tions supposed above continue. For since in each year more labourers are employed tharf in its predecessor, sooner or later a point must be reached, at which the requirements of accumulation begin to surpass the customary supply of la- bour, and, therefore, a rise of wages takes place, mentation on this score was heard in Hngland during the whole of the fifteenth, and the first half of the eighteenth centuries. The more or less favourable circumstances in which the wage-working class supports and multiplies itself, in no way alter the fundamental character of capitalist pro- duction. As simple reproduction constantly reproduces the capital-relation itself, /. e., the relation of capitalists on the one hand, and wage-workers on the other, so reproduction on a progressive scale, /. e. accumulation, reproduces the ca- pital-relation on a progressive scale, more capitalists or lar- ger capitalists at this pole, more wage-workers at that. Accumulation df capital is, therefore, increase of the pro- letariat
As early as 16% John Sellers says: «For if one had a hundred thousand acres of land and as many pounds in money, and as many cattle, without a labourer, what would the rich man be, but a labourer? And as the labourers make men rich, so the more labourers, there will be the more rich men .... the labour of the poor being the mines of the rich.» So also Berlrand de Mandeville at the beginning of the eighteenth century (1728): «It would be easier, where property is well secured, to live without .money than without poor; for who would do the work? .... As the1}' (the poor) ought to be kept from starving, so they should receive nothing worth saving. If here and there one of the lowest class by uncommon industry, and pinching his lifts himself above the condition he was brought up in, nobody ought to hinder him; nay, it is undeniably the wisest course for every person in the society, and for every private family to be frugal; but it is the interest of all rich
onomically speaking, llie -proletarian : 1C! ihan the
1 no lonyci
IN1LUENC1. Of HIE ACCUAiULM l<>\ ol CAPITAL &C. 137
nations, that the greatest part of the poor should almost never be idle, and yet continually spend what they get .... Those that get their living by their daily labour . . . have nothing to stir them up to be serviceable but their wants, which it is prudence to relieve, but folly to cure. The only thing then that can render the labouring man industrious, is a moderate quantity of money, for as too little will, ac- cording as his temper is, either dispirit or make him des- perate, so too much will make him insolent and lazy .... From what has been said, it is manifest, that, in a free na- tion, where slaves are not allowed of, the surest wealth con- sists in a multitude of laborious poor; for besides that they are the never-failing nursery of fleets and armies, with- out them there could be no enjoyment, and no product of any country could be valuable. To make the society » (which of course consists of non-workers)« happy and people easier under the meanest circumstances, it is requisite that great numbers of them should be ignorant as well as poor; know- ledge both enlarges and multiplies our desires, and the fewer things a man wishes for, the more easily his ne- cessities may be supplied.»
What Mandeville, an honest, clear-headed man, had not yet seen, is that the mechanism of the process of accu- mulation itself increases, along with the capital, the mass of labouring poor», /. e.f the wage-labourers.
Under the conditions of accumulation supposed thus far, which conditions are those most favourable to the labourers, their relation of dependence upon capital takes on an endu- rable form. A larger part of their own surplus-product, always increasing and continually transformed into addi- tional capital, comes back to them in the shape of means of payment, so that they can extend the circle of their en- joyments; can make some additions to their consumption- fund of clothes, furniture, &c., and can lay by small reserve- funds of money. But just as little as better clothing, food, and treatment, and a larger peculium, do away with the exploitation of the slave, so little do they set aside that of the wage-worker. A rise in the price of labour, as a con- sequence of accumulation of capital, only means, in fact, that the length and weight of the golden chain the wage- worker has already forged for himself allow of a relaxation of the tension of it. An increase of wages only means at
138 '!'ltl
best a quantitative diminution of the unpaid labour that the worker has to supply. This diminution can never reach the point at which it would threaten the system itself. Either the price of labour keeps on rising, because its rise does not interfere with the progress of accumulation. In this there is nothing wonderful, for, says Adam Smith, (1774), «after these (profits) are diminished, stock may not only continue to increase, but to increase much faster than be- fore .... A great stock, though .wijh small profits, rally increases faster than a small slock with great profits*. In this case it is evident that a diminution in the unpaid labour in no way interferes with the extension of the domain of capital. — Or, on the other hand, accumulation slackens in consequence of the rise in the price of labour, because the stimulus of. gain is blunted. The rate of accumulation les- sens: but, simultaneously, the extensive demand for labour power, due precisely to the large accumulation, ceases; and wages fall again. The mechanism of the process of capitalist production removes the very obstacles that it temporarily creates.
We see thus: in the first case, it is not the diminished rate either of the absolute or of the proportional increase in labouring population, which causes capital to be in excess, but conversely the excess of capital that makes exploitable labour power insufficient. In the second case, it is not the increase in labour power or labouring population, that makes capital insufficient; but, conversely, the relative diminution of capital that causes the exploitable labour power, or rather its price, to be in excess. It is these absolute movements of the accumulation of capital which are reflected as relative movements of the mass of exploitable labour power, and there- fore seem produced by the latter's own independent move- ment. It is a grave error, to interpret the above phenomena of accumulation by saying that there are now too few, now too many wage-labourers.
It is, therefore, neither the actual extent of social wealth, nor the magnitude of the capital already functioning, that lead to a rise of wages, but only the constant growth of accumulation and the degree of rapidity of that growth. So far we have, in our study of this process, proceeded from the assumption that the productive power of labour remains the same, /. e. that the same amount of menus of production
INFLUENCE Of- THE ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL &c. 139
requires the same amount of labour power to apply it; and that the division of capital into constant and variable por- tions, L e., the relation of c to v, remains unchanged. But this assumption is shown, by a closer analysis of the process, to be erroneous.
The productive power of labour is increased by accu- mulation. «The same cause», says Adam Smith, «which raises the wages of labour, the increase of stock, tends to increase its productive powers, and to make a smaller quantity of labour produce a greater quantity of work.» Increasing productiveness of labour implies, however, that the same quantity of labour (v) consumes a larger quantity of means of production (c). The inner, technical composition of the capital must change, in the course of the process of accumulation, in such a manner that a relatively larger por- tion of the capital is laid-out in means of production (c), and a relatively smaller portion in labour power (v).
There may be, e. g., originally 50 per cent, of a capital laid out in means of production, and 50 per cent, in labour power; later on, with the development of the productivity of labour, 80 per cent, in means of production, 20 per cent, in labour power, and so on. This law of the progressive increase in constant capital, in proportion to the variable, is confirmed at every step (as already shown) by the com- parative analysis of the prices of commodities, whether we compare different economic epochs or different nations in the same epoch.
This diminution in the variable part of capital as compared with the constant, or the altered value composition of the capital, however, only shows approximately the change in the composition of its material constituents.. If, e. g., the capital-value employed to-day in spinning is •/» con- stant and Y8 variable, whilst at the beginning of the 18th century it was % constant and y2 variable, on the other hand the mass of raw material, instruments of labour, &c., that a certain quantity of spinning labour consumes productively to-day, is many hundred times greater than at the beginning of the 18th century. The reason is simply that, with the increasing productivity of labour, not only does the mass of the means of production consumed by it increase, but their value compared with their mass dimi- nishes. Thus although the difference between constant and
10*
140 CIIAl'TER XI 11.
variable capital increases, the difference between the mass of the means of production into which the constant capital is turned, and the mass of the labour power into which the variable capital is turned, increases much more rapidly.
But, if the progress of accumulation lessens the rela- tive magnitude of the variable part of capital, it by no means, in doing this, excludes the possibility of a rise in its absolute magnitude. Suppose that a capital-value at first is divided into 50 per cent, of constant and 50 per cent, of variable capital; later into 80 per cent, of constant and 20 per cent, of variable. If in the meantime the original capital, say £ 6000, has increased to £ 18000, its variable constituent has also increased. It was £ 3000, it is now £ 3600. But whereas formerly an increase of capital by 20 per cent, would have sufficed to raise the demand for labour 20 per cent., now this latter rise requires a tripling of the original capital.
In another chapter it was shown how the development of the productiveness of social labour presupposes coopera- tion on a large scale; how it is only upon this supposition that division and combination of labour can be organised, and the means of production economised by concentration on a vast scale; how instruments of labour which, from their very nature, are only fit for use in common, such as a system of machinery, can be called into being; how colossal natural forces can be placed at the service of production. On the basis of the production of commodities, where the means of production are the property of private persons, and where the artisan therefore either produces commodities, isolated from and independent of others, or sells his labour power as a commodity, because he lacks the means for independent industry, cooperation can realise itself only in the increase of individual capitals, only in proportion as the means of social production and the means of subsistence are trans- formed into the private property of capitalists. The basis of the production of commodities can admit of production on a large scale in the capitalistic form alone. A certain accumulation of capital, in the hands of individual producers of commodities, forms therefore the necessary preliminary of the specifically capitalistic mode of production. But all methods for raising the social productive power of labour that are developed on this basis, are at the same time
INFLUENCE OF THE ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL &c. HI
methods for the increased production of surplus-value or surplus-product, which in its turn is the formative element of accumulation. They are, therefore, at the same time methods of the accelerated accumulation of capital. The con- tinual retransformation of surplus-value into capital now appears in the shape of the increasing magnitude of the capital that enters into the process of production. This in turn is the basis of an extended scale of production!, of the methods for raising the productive power of labour that accompany it, and of accelerated production of surplus- value. If, therefore, a certain degree of accumulation of capital appears as a condition of the specifically capitalist mode of production, the latter causes conversely an acce- lerated accumulation of capital. With accumulation of capital, therefore, the specifically capitalistic mode of production developes, and with the capitalist mode of production the accumulation of capital. Both these economic factors bring about, in the compound ratio of the impulses they reciprocally give one another, that change in the technical composition of capital by which the variable constituent becomes always smaller and smaller as compared with the constant.
Every individual capital is a larger or smaller concen- tration, -of means of production, with a corresponding com- mand over a larger or smaller labour army. Every accu- mulation becomes the ....means-* of ffew accumulati9iTT~~With the increasing mass of wealth which functions as capital, accumulation increases the concentration of that wealth in 'the hands of individual capitalists, and thereby widens the basis of production on a large scale and of the specific methods of capitalist production. The growth of social capital is effected by the growth of many individual capi- tals. At the same time portions of the original capitals dis- engage themselves and function as new independent capitals. Besides other causes, the division of property, within capi- talist families, plays a great part in this. With the accu- mulation of capital, therefore, the number of capitalists grows to a greater or less extent. Acumulation and the concentration accompanying it are, therefore, not only scat- tered over many points, but the increase of each functioning capital is thwarted by the formation of new and the sub-divi- sion of old capitals. Accumulation, therefore, presents itself
J42 CHAPTER Mil.
on the one hand as increasing concentration of the means of production, and of the command over labour; on the other, as repulsion of many individual capitals one from another.
This splitting-up of the total social capital into many individual capitals or the repulsion of its fractions one from another, is counteracted by their attraction. This means concentration of capitals already formed, destruction of their individual independence, expropriation of capitalist by capitalist, transformation of many small into few large capitals. .This process differs from the process of accumu- lation in this, that it only presupposes a change in the distribution of capital already to hand,* and functioning; its field of action is therefore not limited by the growth of social wealth. Capital grows in one place to a huge mass in a single hand, because it has in another place been lost by many. This is centralisation proper, as distinct from accumulation and concentration.
The battle of competition is fought by cheapening of commodities. The cheapness of commodities depends, other conditions remaining the same, on the productiveness of labour, and this again on the scale of production. There- fore, the larger capitals beat the smaller. It will further be remembered that, with the development of the capitalist mode of production, there is an increase in the minimum amount of individual capital necessary to carry on a busi- ness under its normal conditions. The smaller capitals, there- fore,- crowd into spheres of production which modern indus- try has only sporadically or incompletely got hold of. Here competition always ends in the ruin of many small capitalists, whose capitals partly pass into the hand of their conquerors, partly vanish. Apart from t^is, with capitalist production an altogether new force comes into play - the credit system. Not only is this itself a new and mighty weapon in the battle of competition. By unseen threads it, moreover, draws the disposable money, scattered in larger or smaller masses over the surface of society, into the hands of individual or associated capitalists. It is the specific machine for the centralisation of capitals.
The centralisation of capital becomes more intense, in proportion as the specifically capitalist mode of production developes along with accumulation, In its turn, centra!
INFLUENCE OF THE ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL &c. ) 43
becomes one of the greatest levers of this development. It completes the process of accumulation by enabling the capi- talists to extend their business. And the extension of indu- strial undertakings forms the starting-point for a com- prehensive organisation of the cooperation of large numbers, for a broader development of their material impulses.
But it is clear that the accumulation of capital, its gradual growth by the means of capitalised surplus-value, is a slow process in comparison with the process of cen- tralisation, which only draws already existing capitals together and alters their grouping. The world would still to-day (1874) be without railways if it had had to wait till the accumulation of some individual capitals reached a point permitting the latter to undertake the construction of a rail- way line. Centralisation, through the medium of joint-stock companies, made that construction possible without delay. And, whereas centralisation thus accentuates and accelerates the e$fects~~of accumulation, it also extends the scope of, and hastens, the revolutions brought about in the technical com- position of capital, which increase the latter's constant pari at the expense of its variable one, thus reducing proportion- ately the demand for labour.
The masses of capital joined together overnight by the process of centralisation reproduce themselves and increase in the same way as other capitals, but more rapidly; and thus they become new and powerful levers of accumulation.
The increasing bulk of individual masses of capital be* comes the material basis of an uninterrupted revolution in the mode of production itself. Continually the capitalist mode of production conquers branches of industry not yet wholly, or only sporadically, or only formally, subjugated by it. At the same time there grow up on its soil new branches of industry, such as could not exist without it. Finally, in the branches of industry already carried on upon the capi- talist basis, the productiveness of labour is made to ripen, as if in a hothouse. In all these cases, the number of labourers falls in proportion to the mass of the means of production worked up by them. An ever increasing part of the capital is turned into means of production, an ever decrersing one into labour power. With the extent, the concentration and the technical efficiency of the means of production, the degree lessens progressively in which the
144 i/'/V-.'A' Mil.
latter are means of employment for labourers. A steam plough is an incomparably more efficient means of pro- duction than the ordinary plough, but the capital expended on it is an incomparably smaller means for employing men than if it were laid out in ordinary ploughs.
At first, it is the mere adding of new capital to old, which allows of the expansion and technical revolution of the material conditions of the process of production. But soon the change of composition and the technical transfor- mation get more or less completely hold of all old capital that has reached the term of its reproduction, and there- fore has to be replaced.
On the one hand, therefore, the additional capital formed in the course of accumulation attracts fewer and fewer la-bourers in proportion to its magnitude. On the other hand, the old capital periodically reproduced with change of composition, repels more and more of the labourers for- merly employed by it.
The development of the productive power of labour, and the change thence resulting in the organic composition of capital, do not merely keep pace with the advance of accu- mulation, or with the growth of social wealth. They develop at a much quicker rate, because mere accumulation, the absolute increase of the total social capital, is accompanied by the centralisation of the individual capitals of which thai total is made up; and because the change in the technological composition of the additional capital causes a similar change in the technological composition of the original capital. With the advance of accumulation, therefore, the proportion of con- stant to variable capital changes. If it was originally say 1 : 1, it now becomes successively 2 : 1, 3 : 1, 4 : 1, 5 : 1, 7:1, &c., so that, as the capital increases, instead of y2 of its total value, onl . is transformed
into labour power, and, on the other hand, into means of production. Since the demand tor labour is determined not by the amount of capital as a whole, but by its variable constituent alone, that demand falls pro- gressively with the increase of the total capital, instead of, as previously assumed, rising in proportion to it. It falls relatively to the magnitude of the total capital, and at an accelerated rate, as this magnitude increases. With the growth of the l')t;il capital, ils variable constituent or the labour
INFLUENCE OF THE ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL &c. 145
power incorporated in it, also increases, but in a con- stantly diminishing proportion. The intermediate pauses are shortened, in which accumulation works as simple exten- sion of production, on a given technical basis. It is not merely that an accelerated accumulation of total capital, accelerated in a constantly growing progression, is needed to absorb an additional number of labourers, or even, on account of the constant metamorphosis of old capital, to keep employed those already functioning. In its turn, this in- creasing accumulation and centralisation becomes a source of new changes in the composition of capital, of a more accelerated diminution of its variable, as compared with its constant constituent. This accelerated relative diminu- tion of the variable constituent, that goes along with the acce- lerated increase of the total capital, and moves more rapidly than this increase, makes it appear, on the other hand, as if the labouring population were increasing faster than the variable capital or the means of employment. But in fact, it is capitalistic accumulation itself that constantly produces a population of greater extent than suffices for the needs of the self-expansion of capital. The labouring population therefore produces, along with the accumulation of capital produced by it, in an ever increasing degree the means by which itself is made relatively superfluous. This is a* law of population peculiar to the capita r;st mode of pro- duction; and in fact every special historic mode of pro- duction has its own special laws of population, historically valid within its limits alone. An abstract law of popula- tion exists for plants and animals only, and only in so far as man has not interfered with them.
But if a surplus..- labouring- -population is a necessary product of accumulation or of the development of wealth on TPcapitalist basis, this surplus population becomes^£»«- versely, the lever of capitalistic accumulation, nay, a con- dition of existence of the capitalist mode of production. It forms a disposable industrial reserve army, that belongs to cajrttaT7[u1te-*fr~*feaehrfeTy^ as" "TTTlie latter* h ad bred it at its own cost. Independently of the limits of the actual increase of population, it creates, for the changing need of the self-expansion of capital, a mass of human material always ready for exploitation. With accumulation, and the develop- ment of the productiveness of labour that accompanies it,
146 \rii.R xiu.
the power of sudden expansion of capital grows also. The mass of social wealth, overflowing with the advance of accumulation, and transformable into additional capital, thrusts itself frantically into old branches of production, whose market suddenly expands, or into newly formed branches, such as railways, &c., the need for which grows out of the development of the old ones. In all such cases, there must be the possibility of throwing great masses of men suddenly on the decisive points without withdrawing them from the other branches of production. Over-popu- lation supplies these masses. The course characteristic o; modern industry, viz., a decennial cycle (interrupted by smaller oscillations) of periods of average activity, pro- duction at high pressure, crisis and stagnation, depends on the constant formation, the greater or lesser absorption, and the re-formation of the industrial reserve army or surplus population.
This peculiar course of modern industry, which occurs in no earlier period of human history, was also impossible in the childhood of capitalist production. The composition of capital (c and v) changed but very slowly. With its accu- mulation, therefore, there kept pace, on the whole, a corre- sponding growth in the demand for labour. Slow as was the advance of accumulation compared with that of more modern times, it found a check in the natural limits of the exploitable labouring population, limits, which could only he got rid of by forcible means to be mentioned later. The expansion by fits and starts of the scale of production is the preliminary to its equally sudden contraction; the latter again evokes the former, but the former is impossible without disposable human material, without an increase in ihe number of labourers independently of the absolute growth of the population. This increase is effected by the simple process that constantly "sets free» a part of the labourers; by methods which lessen the number of labourers employed in proportion to the increased production. The whole form of the movement of modern industry depends, therefore, upon the constant transformation of a part of the labouring population into unemployed or half-employed hands. Capi- talist production can by no means content itself with the quantity of disposable labour power which the natural in- crease of population yields. It requires for its free play
INFLUENCE OF THE ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL &c. 147
an industrial reserve army independent of these natural limits.
Up to this point it has been assumed that the increase or diminution of the variable capital corresponds rigidly with the increase or diminution of the number of labourers employed. The number of labourers commanded by capital may remain the same, or even fall, while the variable capi- tal increases. This is the case if the individual labourer yields more labour, and therefore his wages increase, and this although the price of labour remains the same or even falls, only more slowly than the mass of labour rises. It is the absolute interest of every capitalist to press a given quantity of labour out of a smaller, rather than a greater number of labourers, if the cost is about the same. In the latter case, the outlay of constant capital increases in proportion to the mass of labour set in action; in the former that increase is much slower. The more extended the scale of production, the stronger this motive. Its force increases with the accumulation of capital.
We have seen that the development of the capitalist mode of production and of the productive power of labour - at once the cause and effect of accumulation — enables the capitalist, with the same outlay of variable capital, to set in action more labour by greater exploitation of each indi- vidual labour power. We have further seen that the capi- talist buys with the same capital a greater mass of labour power, as he progressively replaces skilled labourers by less skilled, mature labour power by immature, male by female, that of adults by that of young persons or children. On the one hand, therefore, with the progress of accumulation, a larger variable capital sets more labour in action without enlisting more labourers; on the other, a variable capital of the same magnitude sets in action more labour with the same mass of labour power; and, finally, a greater num- ber of inferior labour powers by displacement of higher.
The production of a relative surplus population, or the setting free of labourers, goes on therefore yet more rapidly than the technical revolution of the process of production that is accelerated by the advance of accumulation; and more rapidly than the corresponding diminution of the variable part of capital as compared with the constant. In proper-
148 (IIM'll- R Mil.
tion as the productiveness of labour increases, capital in- creases its supply of labour more quickly than its demand for labourers. The over-work of the employed part of the working class swells the ranks of the reserve, whilst con- versely the greater pressure that the latter by its competi- tion exerts on the former, forces these to submit to over- work and to subjugation under the dictates of capital. The condemnation of one part of the working-class to enforced idleness by the over-work of the other part, and the con- verse, becomes a means of enriching the individual capita- lists, and accelerates at the same time the production of the industrial reserve army on a scale corresponding with the^ advance of social accumulation. How important is this element in the formation of the relative surplus population, is shown by the example of England. Her technical means for «saving» labour are colossal. Nevertheless, if to-morrow (1867) labour generally were reduced to a rational amount, and proportioned to the different sections of the working- class according to age and sex, the working population to hand v/ould be absolutely insufficient for the carrying on of national production on its present scale. The great majo- rity of the labourers now «unproductive» would have to be turned into «productive» ones.
Taking them as a whole, the general movements of wages are exclusively regulated by 'the expansion and con- traction of the industrial reserve army, and these again correspond to the periodic changes of the industrial cycle. They are, therefore, not determined by the variations of the absolute number of the working population, but by the varying proportions in which the working class is divided into active and reserve army, by the increase or diminution in the relative amount of the surplus-population, by the extent to which it is now absorbed, now set free. For modern in- dustry with its decennial cycles and periodic phases (average activity, high pressure, crisis, and stagnation) which more- over, as accumulation advances, are complicated by irregular oscillations following each other more and more quickly, that would indeed be a beautiful law, which pretends to make the action of capital dependent on the absolute variation of the population, instead of regulating the demand and supply of labour by the altern; n and contraction of capital,
(lie labour-market now appearing relatively under-full, be-
INFLUENCE Of THE ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL &c. 149
cause capital is expanding, now again over-full, because it is contracting. Yet this is the dogma of the economists. According to them, wages rise in consequence of accumula- tion of capital. The higher wages stimulate the working po- pulation to more rapid multiplication, and this goes on until the labour-market becomes too full. Wages fall, and now we have 'the reverse of the medal. The working population is little by little decimated as the result of the fall in wages, so that capital is again in excess relatively to them, or, as others explain it, falling wages which allow of an increase of profit again accelerate accumulation, whilst, at the same time, the lower wages hold the increase of the working- class in check. Then comes again the time, when the supply of labour is less than the demand, wages rise, and so on, A beautiful mode of motion this for developed capitalist pro- duction! Before, in consequence of the rise of wages, any positive increase of the population really fit for work could occur, the time would have been passed again and again, during which the industrial campaign must have been carried through-, the battle fought and won. k
Between 1849 and 1859, a rise of wages practically only nominal, though accompanied by falling prices of corn, took place in the English agricultural districts. In Wiltshire, e. g., the weekly wages rose from 7s. to 8s.; in Dorsetshire from 7s. or 8s. to 9s., &c. This was the result of an unusual exodus of the agricultural population caused by the demands of war, the vast extension of railroads, factories, mines, &c. The lower the wages, the higher is the proportion in which ever so insignificant a rise of them expresses itself. If the weekly wage, e. g., is 20s. and it rises to 22s., that is a rise of 10 per cent.; but if it is only 7s. and it rises to 9s., that is a rise of 284/V per cent, which sounds very fine. Everywhere the farmers were howling, and the «Lon- don Economist*, with reference to these starvation-wages, prattled quite seriously of «a general and substantial ad- vance^ What did the farmers do now? Did they wait until, in consequence of this brilliant remuneration, the agricul- tural labourers had so increased and multiplied that their wages must fall again? They introduced more machinery, and in a moment the labourers were redundant again in a proportion satisfactory even to the farmers. There was now «more capital^ laid out in agriculture than before, and
150 CHAPTER
in a more productive form. With this the demand for labour fell, not only relatively, but absolutely.
The above economic dogma confuses the laws that regu- late the general movement of wages with the laws that distribute the working population over the different spheres of production. If, e. g., in consequence of favourable circum- stances, accumulation in a particular sphere of production becomes especially active, and profits in it, being greater than the average profits, attract additional capital, of course the demand for labour rises and wages also rise. The higher wages draw a larger part of the working population into the more favoured sphere, until it is glutted with labour power, and wages at length fall again to their average level or below it, if the pressure is too great. Then, not only does the immigration of labourers into the branch of industry in question cease; it gives place to their emigration. Here the political economist thinks he sees the why and wherefore of an absolute increase of workers accompanying an increase of wages, and of a diminution of wages accompanying an absolute increase of labourers. But he sees really only the local oscillation of the labour market in a particular sphere of production -- he sees only the phenomena accompanying the distribution of the working population into the different spheres of outlay of capital, according to its varying needs.
The industrial reserve army, during the periods of stagnation and average prosperity, weighs down the active labour-army; during the periods of over-production and par- oxism, it holds its claims in check. Relative surplus-popu- lation is therefore the pivot upon which the law of demand ipply of labour works. It confines the field of action of this law within the limits absolutely convenient to the activity of exploitation and to the domination of capital. The mecha- nism of capitalistic production so manages matters that the increase of capital is accompanied by no corresponding rise- in the general demand for labour.
As soon, therefore, as the labourers learn the secret, how it comes to pass that in the same measure as they work more, as they produce more wealth for others, and as the productive power of their labour increases, so in the same measure even their function as a means of the self-expansion of capital becomes more and more precarious for them; as soon as they discover that the degree of intensity of the com-
INFLUENCE Ol THE ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL &c.
petition among themselves depends wholly on the pressure of the relative surplus-population; as soon as, by Trades' Unions, &c., they try to organise a regular cooperation between employed and unemployed in order to destroy or to weaken the ruinous effects of this natural law of capitalistic production on their class: so soon capital and its sycophant, political economy, cry oat at the infringement of the «eternal» and so to say «sacred» law of supply and demand. Every combination of employed and unemployed disturbs the «hafmonious» action of this law. But, on the other hand, as soon as, e. g., in the colonies adverse circumstances pre- vent the creation of an industrial reserve army and, with it, the absolute dependence of the working class upon the capitalist class, capital, along with its scientific apolo- gist, rebels against the «sacred» law of supply and de- mand, and tries to check its inconvenient action by for- cible means and State interference.
The relative surplus population exists in every pos- sible form. Every labourer belongs to it during the time when he is only partially employed or wholly unemployed. In the factories properly so-called, as in all the great workshops, where machinery enters as a -factor, or where only the modern division of labour is carried out, large numbers of boys are employed up to the age of maturity. When this term is once reached, only a small number continue to find employment in the same branches of in- dustry, whilst the majority are regularly discharged. Part of them emigrates, following in fact capital that has emi- grated. One consequence is that female population grows more rapidly than the male, teste England. That the natural increase of the number of labourers does not satisfy the requirements of the accumulation of capital, and yet all the time is in excess of them, is a contradiction inherent to the movement of capital itself. It wants larger num- bers of youthful labourers, a smaller number of adults. The contradiction is not more glaring than that other one that there is a complaint of the want of hands, while at the same time many thousands are out of work, because the division of labour chains them to a particular branch of industry. The consumption of labour power by capital is, besides, so rapid that the labourer, half-way through his life, has already more or less completely lived himself
152 \rii.R xui.
out. He falls into the ranks of the supernumeraries, or is thrust down from a higher to a lower step in the scale. It is precisely among the work-people of modern industry, that we meet with the shortest duration of life. Dr. Lee, Medical Officer of Health for Manchester, stated «that the average age at death of the Manchester . . . upper middle class was 38 years, while the average age at death of the labouring- class was 17; while at Liverpool those figures were represented as 35 against 15. It thus apear- ed that the well-to-do classes had a lease of life which was more than double the value of that which fell to the lot of the less favoured citizens.*1
As soon as capitalist production takes possession agriculture and in proportion to the extent to which it does so, the demand for an agricultural labouring popu- lation falls absolutely, while the accumulation of the capi- tal employed in agriculture advances. Part of the agricul- tural population is therefore constantly on the point of passing over into an urban or manufacturing proletariat, and on the look-out for circumstances favourable to this transformation. This source of relative surplus-population is thus constantly flowing. But the constant flow towards the towns presupposes, in the country itself, a constant latent surplus-population, the extent of which becomes evi- dent only when its channels of outlet open to exceptional width. The agricultural labourer is therefore reduced to the minimum of wages, and always stands with one foot already in the swamp of pauperism.
Another category of the relative surplus-population forms a part of the active labour army, but with extremely irregular employment. Hence it furnishes to capital an inexhaustible reservoir of disposable labour power. Its conditions of life sink below the average normal level of the working class; this makes it at once the broad basis of special branches of capitalist exploitation. It is charac- terised by maximum of working lime, and minimum of wages. Its chief form is «doiiK.-stic industry.*. It recruits itself constantly from the supernumerary forces of modern
Opening address to the Sanitary Conference, Birmingham, January 1875, by J. Cham: of the Board of Trade.
15th, 1875, by J. Chamberlain, Mayor of the town, now, (1^- " of
INFLUENCE OI THE ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL &c. 153
industry and agriculture, and specially from those decaying branches of industry where handicraft is yielding to manu- facture, manufacture to machinery. But it forms at the same time a self-reproducing element of the working class, taking a proportionally greater part in the general in- crease of that class than the other elements. In fact, not only the number of births and deaths, but the absolute size of the families stand in inverse proportion to the height of wages, and therefore to the amount of means of sub- sistence oi which the different categories of labourers dis- pose. This law of capitalistic society would sound absurd to savages, or even civilised capitalists. It calls to mind the boundless reproduction of animals individually weak and constantly hunted down.
The lowest sediment of the relative surplus-population finally dwells in the sphere of pauperism. Exclusive of vagabonds, criminals, prostitutes, in a word, the «dange- rous» classes, this layer of society consists of three cate- gories. First, those able to work. One need only glance superficially at the statistics of English pauperism to find that the quantity of paupers increases with every crisis, and diminishes with every revival of trade. Second, orphans and pauper children. These are candidates for the indu- strial reserve-army, and are, in times of great prosperity, as 1860, e. g., speedily and in large numbers enrolled in the active army of labourers. Third, the demoralised and ragged, and those unable to work, chiefly people who suc- cumb to their incapacity for adaptation, due to the divi- sion of labour, and whose life is longer than the normal life of working-men; finally, the. victims of industry, whose number increases with the increase of dangerous machinery, of mines, chemical works, &c., the mutilated, the sickly, the widows, &c. Pauperism is the hospital of the active labour-army and the dead weight of the industrial reserve- army. Its production is included in that of the relative surplus-population, its necessity in theirs; along with the surplus-population, pauperism forms a condition of capi- talist production, and of the capitalist development of wealth. It enters into the faux frais of capitalist production; but capital knows how to throw these, for the most part, from its own shoulders on to those of the working-class and the lower middle class.
154 CHAPTER XI 1L
The greater the social wealth, the functioning capital, the extent and energy of its growth, and, therefore, also the absolute mass of the proletariat and the productiveness of its labour, the greater is the industrial reserve army. The same causes which develop the expansive power of capital, develop also the labour power at its disposal. The relative mass of the industrial reserve army increases there- fore with the sources of wealth. But the greater this re- serve army in proportion to the active labour army, the greater is the mass of a consolidated surplus-population, whose misery is in inverse ratio to its torment of labour. The more extensive, finally, the lazarus-layers of the work- ing-class, and the industrial reserve army, the greater is pauperism. This is the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation. Like all other laws it is modified in its working by many circumstances, the analysis of which does not concern us here.
The folly is now patent of the economic wisdom, that preaches to the labourers the accomodation of their number to the requirements of capital. The mechanism of capital- ist production and accumulation constantly effects this ad- justment. The first word of this adaptation is the crea- tion of a relative surplus-population, or industrial reserve army. Its last word is the misery of constantly extending strata of the active army of labour, and the dead weight of pauperism.
The law by which a constantly increasing quantity of means of production, thanks to the advance in the pro- ductiveness ol social labour, may he set in movement by a progressively diminishing expenditure of human power, this law, in a capitalist society, is expressed thus: the higher the productiveness of labour, the greater is the pressure of the labourers on the means of employment, the more precarious, therefore, becomes their condition of existence, viz., the sale of their own labour power for the increasing of another's wealth, or for the self-expansi capital. The fact that the means of production, and the productiveness of labour, increase more rapidly than the productive population, expresses itself, therefore, capitali- sjicjlly in the inverse form thai the labouring population al- ways increases more rapidly than the conditions under which
INFLUENCE OF THE ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL &C. 155
capital can employ this increase for its own self-expansion. We saw in the 8th and 9th chapters, within the capi- talist system all methods for raising the social product- iveness of labour are brought about at the cost of the indi- vidual labourer; all means for the development of pro- duction transform themselves into means of domination over, and exploitation of, the producers; they mutilate the labourer into a fragment of a man, degrade him to the level of an appendage of a machine, destroy every remnant of charm in his work and turn it into a hated toil; they estrange from him the intellectual potentialities of the labour process in the same proportion as science is incorporated in it as an independent power; they distort the conditions under which he works, subject him during the labour pro- cess to a despotism the more hateful for its meanness; they transform his life-time into working-time, and drag his wife and child beneath the wheels of the Juggernaut of capital. But all methods for the production of surplus- value are at the same time methods of accumulation; and every extension of accumulation becomes again a means for the development of those methods. It follows, tjjere- fore, that in proportion as capital accumulates, the lot .o£-4ke ••-• labourer, be his payment nigh or iow, must grow worse. The la\\ that alvvavs equilibrates the relative
surplus-population, or industrial reserve army, to the extent and energy of accumulation, this_law_ jpiijeis- 4he - la- bourer JteLC^itaJj^oj-e_fi£n^ wedges of Hephaistos did Prometheus to the rock. It establishes an accumulation of misery, corresponding with accumulation-- of capital. Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, moral degradation, at the. opposite pole.
156