Page:Karl Marx - Wage Labor and Capital - tr. J. L. Joynes (1900).pdf/44

 time with the same amount of labor and capital a larger quantity of exchange-values. If by the application of the spinning-jenny I can turn out twice as much thread in an hour as I could before its invention, for instance, a hundred pounds instead of fifty, then the consequence in the long run will be that I will receive in exchange for them no more commodities than before for fifty, because the cost of production has been halved, or because at the same cost I can turn out double the amount of products.

Finally in whatsoever proportion the capitalist class—the bourgeoisie—whether of one country or of the world’s market—share among themselves the net profits of production, the total amount of these net profits always consists merely of the amount by which, taking all in all, stored-up labor has been increased by means of living labor. This sum total increases, therefore in the proportion in which labor augments capital; that is, in the proportion in which profit rises as compared with wages.

Thus we see that even

A rapid increase of capital is equal to a rapid increase of profits. Profits can only makermake [sic] a rapid increase, if the exchange-value of labor—the relative wage—makes an equally rapid decline.

Relative wages may decline, although the real wages rise together with nominal wages, or the money price of labor; if only it does not rise in the same