fice of his life. It is a commodity that he has auctioned off to another. The product of his activity, therefore, is not the aim of his activity. What he produces for himself is not the silk that he weaves, not the gold that he draws up the mining shaft, not the palace that he builds. What he produces for himself is the wages, and silk, gold, and palace are resolved for him into a certain quantity of necessaries of life, perhaps into a cotton jacket, into copper coins, and into a basement dwelling. And the laborer who for twelve hours long, weaves, spins, bores, turns, builds, shovels, breaks stone, carries hods, and so on—is this twelve hours’ weaving, spinning, boring, turning, building, shoveling, stone-breaking, regarded by him as a manifestation of his life, as life? Quite the contrary. Life for him begins where this activity ceases, at the table, at the tavern seat, in bed. The twelve hours’ work, on the other hand, has no meaning for him as weaving, spinning, boring, and so on, but only as earnings, which enable him to sit down at a table, to take his seat in the tavern, and to lie down in a bed.
If the silkworm’s object in spinning were to prolong its existence as caterpillar, it would be a perfect example of a wage-worker. Labor-power was not always a commodity (merchandise). Labor was not always wage-labor, i.e., free labor. The slave did not sell his labor-power to the slave-owner, any more than the ox sells his laboring force to the farmer. The slave, together with his labor-power, was sold to his owner once for all. He is a commodity that can pass from the hand of one owner to that of another. He himself is a commodity, but his labor-power is not his commodity. The serf sells[1] only a
- ↑ “Sells” is not a very exact expression, for serfdom in its purity did not involve any relations of buying and selling between the serf and the lord of the manor, the tributes of the former to the latter consisting in labor and in kind. It is evident that Marx uses here the word “sells” in the general sense of alienation.—Translator.
