ist, therefore, may be multiplied by taking advantage of other capitalists, independently of the rise and fall of wages, of the exchange value of labor-power; or that the profit of the capitalist may also rise through improvements in the instruments of labor, new applications of the forces of nature, and so on.
But in the first place it must be admitted that the result remains the same, although brought about in an opposite manner. Profit, indeed, has not risen because wages have fallen, but wages have fallen because profit has risen. With the same amount of another man’s labor the capitalist has bought a larger amount of exchange values without having paid more for the labor on that account, i.e., the work is paid for less in proportion to the net gain which it yields to the capitalist.
In the second place, it must be borne in mind that, despite the fluctuations in the prices of commodities, the average price of every commodity, the proportion in which it exchanges for other commodities, is determined by its cost of production. The acts of overreaching and taking advantage of one another within the capitalist ranks necessarily equalize themselves. The improvements of machinery, the new applications of the forces of nature in the service of production, make it possible to produce in a given period of time, with the same amount of labor and capital, a larger amount of products, but in no wise a larger amount of exchange values. If by the use of the spinning-machine I can furnish twice as much yarn in an hour as before its invention—for instance, one hundred pounds instead of fifty pounds—in the long run I receive back, in exchange for this one hundred pounds, no more commodities than I did before for fifty; because the cost of production has fallen by one-half, or because I can furnish double the product at the same cost.
