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Chap. III. the broker advance me any capital? Manifestly not. What he had before in gold he now has in silver, plus his profit. And as he got the silver before he paid out the gold, there is on his part not even momentarily an advance of capital.

Now, this operation of the broker is precisely analogous to what the capitalist does, when, in such cases as we are now considering, he pays out capital in wages. As the rendering of labor precedes the payment of wages, and as the rendering of labor in production implies the creation of value, the employer receives value before he pays out value — he but exchanges capital of one form for capital of another form. For the creation of value does not depend upon the finishing of the product; it takes place at every stage of the process of production, as the immediate result of the application of labor, and hence, no matter how long the process in which it is engaged, labor always adds to capital by its exertion before it takes from capital in its wages.

Here is a blacksmith at his forge making picks. Clearly he is making capital — adding picks to his employer's capital before he draws money from it in wages. Here is a machinist or boilermaker working on the keel-plates of a Great Eastern. Is not he also just as clearly creating value—making capital? The giant steamship, as the pick, is an article of wealth, an instrument of production, and though the one may not be completed for years, while the other is completed in a few minutes, each day's work, in the one case as in the other, is as clearly a production of wealth — an addition to capital. In the case of the steamship, as in the case of the pick, it is not the last blow, any more than the first blow, that creates the value of the finished product — the creation of value is continuous, it immediately results from the exertion of labor.

We see this very clearly wherever the division of labor has made it customary for different parts of the full process of production to be carried on by different sets of producers — that is to say, wherever we are in the habit of estimating the amount of value which the labor expended in any