section 5.—the capitalistic character of manufacture.
An increased number of labourers under the control of one capitalist is the natural starting-point, as well of co-operation generally, as of manufacture in particular. But the division of labour in the manufacture makes this increase in the number of workmen a technical necessity. The minimum number that any given capitalist is bound to employ is here prescribed by the previously established division of labour. On the other hand, the advantages of further division are obtainable only by adding to the number of workmen, and this can be done only by adding multiples of the various detail groups. But an increase in the variable component of the capital employed necessitates an increase in its constant component, too, in the workshops, implements, &c., and, in particular, in the raw material, the call for which grows quicker than the number of workmen. The quantity of it consumed in a given time, by a given amount of labour, increases in the same ratio as does the productive power of that labour in consequence of its division. Hence, it is a law, based on the very nature of manufacture, that the minimum amount of capital, which is bound to be in the hands of each capitalist, must keep increasing; in other words, that the transformation into capital of the social means of production and subsistence must keep extending.[1]
In manufacture, as well as in simple co-operation, the collective working organism is a form of existence of capital. The mechanism that is made up of numerous individual detail labourers belongs to the capitalist. Hence, the productive power resulting from a combination of labourers appears to be the productive power of capital. Manufacture proper not only
- ↑ “It is not sufficient that the capital” (the writer should have said the necessary means of subsistence and of production) “required for the sub-division of handicrafts should be in readiness in the society: it must also be accumulated in the hands of the employers in sufficiently large quantities to enable them to conduct their operations on a large scale.… The more the division increases, the more does the constant employment of a given number of labourers require greater outlay of capital in tools, raw material, &c.,” (Storch: Cours d’Econ. Polit. Paris Ed., t. I. pp. 250, 251.) “La concentration des instruments de production et la division du travail sont aussi inséparables l’une de l’autre que le sont, dans le régime politique, la concentration des pouvoirs publics et la division des intéréts privés.” (Karl Marx. l. c., p. 184.)
