Page:Karl Marx - The Poverty of Philosophy - (tr. Harry Quelch) - 1913.djvu/62

 seeking to observe the etiquette of "humanitarian" language; if they reproach Ricardo and his school with their cynical language, it is because they are annoyed at seeing economic conditions exposed in all their crudity, at seeing the mysteries of the bourgeoisie betrayed.

Let us sum up: Labor being itself a commodity, measures itself as such by the labor-time necessary to produce this labor-commodity. And what is necessary to produce the labor-commodity? Exactly that amount of labor time which is necessary to produce the objects indispensable to the constant subsistence of labor; that is to say, to enable the workers to live and to propagate his race. The natural price of labor is nothing but the minimum wage. If the current price of wages rises above the natural price it is precisely because the law of value, postulated in principle by M. Proudhon, finds itself counterbalanced by the consequences of the variations in the relation between supply and demand. But the minimum wage is, nevertheless, the centre towards which the current price of wages constantly gravitates.

Thus relative value, measured by labor-time, is fatally the formula of the modern slavery of the worker, instead of being, as M. Proudhon would have it, the "revolutionary theory" of the emancipation of the proletariat.

Let us now see in how many cases the application of labor time as the measure of value is incompatible with the existing antagonism of classes and the unequal distribution of the product between the immediate worker and the possessor of accumulated labor.

Let us suppose a certain product: for instance, linen. This product, as such, embodies a definite quantity of labor. This quantity of labor will be the same no