sists in the augmentation of the exchange-value of their products.”[1]
The shortening of the working day is, therefore, by no means what is aimed at, in capitalist production, when labour is economised by increasing its productiveness.[2] It is only the shortening of the labour-time, necessary for the production of a definite quantity of commodities, that is aimed at. The fact that the workman, when the productiveness of his labour has been increased, produces, say 10 times as many commodities as before, and thus spends one-tenth as much labour-time on each, by no means prevents him from continuing to work 12 hours as before, nor from producing in those 12 hours 1200 articles instead of 120. Nay, more, his working day may be prolonged at the same time, so as to make him produce, say 1400 articles in 14 hours. In the treatises, therefore, of economists of the stamp of MacCulloch, Ure, Senior, and tutti quanti, we may read upon one page, that the labourer owes a debt of gratitude to capital for developing his productiveness, because the necessary labour-time is thereby shortened, and on the next page, that he must prove his gratitude by working in future for 15 hours instead of 10. The object of all development of the productiveness of labour, within the limits of capitalist production, is to shorten that part of the working day, during which the workman must labour for his own benefit, and by that very shortening, to lengthen the other part of the day, during which he is at liberty to work gratis for the capitalist. How far this result is also attainable, without cheapening commodities, will appear from an examination of
- ↑ “Ils conviennent que plus on peut, sans préjudice, épargner de frais ou de travaux dispendieux dans la fabrication des ouvrages des artisans, plus cette épargne est profitable par la diminution des prix de ces ouvrages. Cependant ils croient que la production de richesse qui résulte des travaux des artisans consiste daus l'augmentation de la valeur vénale de leurs ouvrages.” (Quesnay: "Dialogues sur le Commerce et sur les Travaux des artisans," pp. 188, 189.)
- ↑ "Ces spéculateurs si économes du travail des ouvriers qu'il faudrait qu'ils pay assent.” (J. N. Bidaut: “Du Monopole qui s’établit dans les arts industriels et le commerce.” Paris, 1828, p, 13.) “The employer will be always on the stretch to economise time and labour.” (Dugald Stewart: Works ed. by Sir W. Hamilton. Edinburgh, v. viii, 1855. Lecture on Polit. Ecou., p. 318.) “Their (the capitalists’) interest is that the productive powers of the labourers they employ should be the greatest possible. On promoting that power their attention is fixed and almost exclusively fixed.” (R. Jones: l. c. Lecture III.)
