Page:Karl Marx - Wage Labor and Capital - tr. J. L. Joynes (1900).pdf/35

 from the capitalist a share of the previously-provided means of subsistence. To what use does he put these means of subsistence? He uses them for immediate consumption. But as soon as I consume my means of subsistence, they disappear and are irrecoverably lost to me: it therefore becomes necessary that I should employ the time during which these means keep mo alive in order to produce new means of subsistence, so that during their consumption I may provide for my labor new value in the place of that which thus disappears. But it is just this noble reproductive power which the laborer has to bargain away to capital in exchange for the means of subsistence which he receives. To him therefore, it is entirely lost.

Let us take an example. A farmer gives his day-laborer two shillings a day. For this two shillings the latter works throughout the day on the farmer’s field, and so secures him a return of four shillings. The farmer does not merely receive back the value which he had advanced to the day laborer; he doubles it. He has spent or consumed the two shillings which he gave to the day-laborer in a fruitful and productive fashion. He has bought for two shillings just that labor and force of the day-laborer which produces fruits of the earth of twice the value, and turns two shillings into four. The day-laborer, on the other hand, receives in place of his productive force, whose effects he has just bargained away to the farmer, two shillings; and these he exchanges for means of subsistence; which means of subsistence