Page:Karl Marx - Wage Labor and Capital - tr. J. L. Joynes (1900).pdf/43

 may have gained a profit by advantageous exchange of his products with other capitalists, or by a rise in the demand for his goods, whether in consequence of the opening of new markets, or of a greater demand in the old markets; that the profit of the capitalist may thus increase by means of over-reaching another capitalist, independently of the rise and fall of wages and the exchange-value of labor-power, or that the profit of the capitalist may also rise through an improvement in the implements of labor, a new application of natural forces, and so on.

But it must nevertheless be admitted that the result remains the same, although it is brought about in different way. To be sure profits have not risen for the reason that wages have fallen, but wages have fallen all the same for the reason that profits have risen, The capitalist has acquired a larger amount of exchange-value with the same amount of labor, without having had to pay a higher price for the labor on that account; that is to say a lower price has been paid for the labor in proportion to the net profit which it yields to the capitalist.

Besides we must remember that in spite of the fluctuations in the price of commodities, the average price of each commodity—the proportion in which it exchanges for other commodities—is determined by its cost of production. The over-reaching and tricks that go on within the capitalist class therefore necessarily cancel one another. Improvements in machinery and new applications of natural forces to the service of production enable them to turn out in a given