16
Take the case of any workman, a weaver for instance. The employer supplies him with thread and loom. The weaver sets to work, and the thread is turned into cloth, The employer takes possession of the cloth and sells it, say for twenty shillings. Does the weaver receive as wages a share in the cloth—in the twenty shillings—in the product of his labor? By no means. The weaver receives his wages long before the product is sold. The employer does not, therefore, pay his wages with the money he will get for the cloth, but with the money previously provided. Loom and thread are not the weaver’s product, since they are supplied by the employer, and no more are the commodities which he receives in exchange for his own commodity, or in other words for his labor-power. It is possible that the employer finds no purchaser for his cloth. It may be that by its sale he does not recover even the wages he has paid. It may be that in comparison with the weaver’s wages he made a great bargain by its sale. But all this has nothing whatever to do with the weaver, The employer purchases the weavers labor with a part of his available property —of his capital— in exactly the same way as he has with another pars of his property bought the raw material —the thread — the instrument of labor—the loom, As soon as he has made these purchases—and he reckons among them the purchase of the labor-power necessary for the production of the cloth—he proceeds to produce it by means of the raw material and the instruments which belong to him. Among these last is, of course, reckoned our worthy weaver, who has as little share. in the
