Page:Karl Marx - Wage Labor and Capital - tr. J. L. Joynes (1900).pdf/18

 has bought their labor-power, as for instance, with a couple of shillings, he might have bought four pounds of sugar or a proportionate amount of any other wares. The two shillings with which he buys the four pounds of sugar, are the price of four pounds of sugar. The two shillings with which he buys the use of labor-power for twelve hours, are the price of twelve hours labor. Labor-power is therefore as much a commodity as sugar, neither more nor less, only they measure the former by the clock, the latter by the scale.

The laborers exchange their own commodity for their employers’ commodity, labor-power for money; and this exchange takes place according to a fixed proportion. So much money for so long a use of labor-power. For twelve hours’ weaving, two shillings. And do not these two shillings represent all other commmoditiescommodities [sic] which I may buy for two shillings? Thus the laborer has, in fact, exchanged his own comoditycommodity [sic], labor-power, for all kinds of other commodities, and that in a fixed proportion. His employer in giving him two shillings has given him so much meat, so much clothing, so much fuel, light, and so on, in exchange for his days work. The two shillings therefore, express the proportion in which his labor-power is exchanged for other commodities—the exchange-value of his labor-power; and the exchange value of any commodity expressed in money is called its price. Wage is therefore only another name for the price of labor-power, for the price of this peculiar commodity which can have no local habitation at all except in human flesh and blood.