An increase in absolute surplus-value or an extension of surplus labour and hence the working day, with variable capital remaining the same and thus the same number of workers being employed at the same nominal wage, causes a relative fall in the value of constant capital compared with the total capital and the variable capital, and thus raises the rate of profit, quite apart from the growth in the mass of surplus-value and a possibly rising rate of surplus-value. (It is immaterial here whether overtime is paid or not.) The volume of fixed capital (factory buildings, machinery, etc.) remains the same, whether work continues for 16 hours or for 12. The extension of the working day requires no new expenditure on this, the most expensive portion of the constant capital. The value of the fixed capital, moreover, is now reproduced in a shorter series of turnover periods, and the time for which it has to be advanced in order to make a certain profit is reduced. The lengthening of the working day thus raises profits even if overtime is paid, and up to a certain point this is true even if overtime is paid at a higher rate than normal working hours. The ever-growing need to increase fixed capital in the modern industrial system was therefore a major stimulus for profit-mad capitalists to prolong the working day.11
The situation is different when the working day remains constant. Here, one solution is to increase the number of workers and with them also, to a certain degree, the amount of fixed capital – buildings, machinery, etc. – so as to exploit a greater mass of labour (for we ignore here any deductions from wages, or depression of wages below their normal level). Alternatively, if the intensity of labour is to be increased, labour productivity raised, or more relative surplus-value produced in any way, then the mass of the circulating part of constant capital will have to grow in those branches of industry that use raw materials, since more raw materials, etc. are worked up in the given space of time. Secondly, the amount of machinery set in motion by the same number of workers will have to grow, and this too is a part of constant capital. A growth in surplus-value is therefore accompanied by a growth in constant capital, and the growing exploitation of labour by an increase in the price paid for the conditions of production by means of which labour is exploited, i.e. by greater outlays of capital. The rate of profit is thereby reduced on the one hand, even if increased on the other.
A whole series of current expenses remains almost if not completely the same whether the working day is shorter or longer. The costs of supervision are less for 500 workers over 18 hours than for 750 workers over 12. ‘The expense of working a factory 10 hours almost equals that of working it 12’ (Reports of the Inspectors of Factories… 31 October 1848, p. 37).
Local and state taxes, fire insurance, the wages of various permanent staff, the depreciation of machinery and various other factory expenses continue unchanged whether working hours are long or short. They rise relative to profit, in so far as production declines. (Reports of the Inspectors of Factories… 31 October 1862, p. 19.)
The time which the value of machinery and other components of fixed capital takes for its reproduction is determined in practice not by their own effective duration, but by the duration of the labour process in which they function and are used. If the workers have to drudge for 18 hours instead of 12, this adds three extra days to the week, one week becomes one and a half, two years become three. If overtime is not paid, then besides their normal surplus labour-time the workers give a third week or year gratis for every two. In this way the reproduction of the machinery’s value is speeded up by 50 per cent, and accomplished in two-thirds of the time previously needed.
In our present investigation, as in that of fluctuations in the price of raw materials (Chapter 6), we proceed from the assumption that the rate and mass of surplus-value are given – in order to avoid needless complications.
As already emphasized in the analysis of cooperation,* the division of labour and machinery, the economy in the conditions of production which characterizes production on a large scale arises in essentials from the way that these conditions function as conditions of social and socially combined labour, i.e. as social conditions of labour. They are consumed in common in the production process, consumed by the collective worker instead of being consumed in fragmented form by a mass of unconnected workers or workers directly cooperating only to a small degree. In a large factory with one or two central motors, the costs of these motors do not grow in the same proportion as the number of machines to which they impart motion; even the working machine itself does not increase in cost in proportion to the rising number of tools, as it were its organs, with which it functions. The concentration of the means of production also saves on all manner of buildings, not only workshops proper, but also stores, etc. The same is true of expenses for heating and lighting, and so on. Other conditions of production also remain the same, whether they are used by many or by few.
But all these economies, arising from the concentration of means of production and their employment on a massive scale, presuppose as an essential condition the concentration of the workers in one place, and their cooperation, i.e. the social combination of labour. They thus arise as much from the social character of labour as surplus-value does from the surplus labour of each individual worker taken in isolation. Even the constant improvements that are possible and necessary arise solely from the social experiences and observations that are made possible and promoted by the large-scale production of the combined collective worker.
The same applies also to the second major aspect of the economical use of the conditions of production. By this we mean the transformation of the refuse of production, its so-called waste products, back into new elements of production, either in the same branch of industry or in others; the processes by which this so-called refuse is sent back into the cycle of production, and thus consumption – productive or individual. This branch of savings, too, which we shall deal with somewhat more closely later on, † is the result of social labour on a large scale. It is the resulting massive scale of these waste products that makes them into new objects of trade and therefore new elements of production. It is only as the waste products of production in common, and hence of production on a large scale, that they acquire this importance for the production process and remain bearers of exchange-value. The waste products, quite apart from the service that they perform as new elements of production, reduce the cost of raw material, to the extent that they can be resold, for this cost always includes the normal wastage, i.e. the average quantity that is lost in the course of processing. To the extent that the costs of this portion of constant capital are reduced, the rate of profit is correspondingly increased, with a given magnitude of variable capital and a given rate of surplus-value.
If surplus-value is a given factor, the profit rate can be increased only by reducing the value of the constant capital required for the production of the commodities in question. In so far as the constant capital is involved in production, all that matters is its use-value, not its exchange-value. The amount of labour that the flax in a spinning mill can absorb depends not on its value but on its quantity, once the level of labour productivity, i.e. the level of technical development, is given. In the same way, the assistance that a machine gives to three workers, say, depends not on its value but rather on its use-value as a machine. At one stage of technical development a bad machine may be expensive, at another stage a good machine may be cheap.
The increased profit that a capitalist obtains through a fall in the cost of cotton and spinning machinery, for example, is the result of an increase in labour productivity, and indeed not in the spinning mill, but rather in the production of machines and cotton. A smaller amount of expenditure on the conditions of labour is needed in order to objectify a given quantity of labour and thus appropriate a given quantity of surplus labour. The costs of appropriating a certain quantity of surplus labour therefore fall.
We have already discussed the saving brought about because the collective worker – the socially combined worker – employs the means of production in common in the production process. A further saving, that arising from the reduction of the circulation time (the development of the means of communication being the decisive material aspect here), will be considered again below. Here, however, we must firstly dwell on the economies that arise from the continuous improvement of machinery, namely (1) in its material, e.g. iron instead of wood; (2) in the cheapening of machinery through the improvement of machine-building in general, so that even if the value of the fixed part of constant capital constantly grows with the development of labour on a large scale, it in no way grows to the same degree;12 (3) the special improvements that enable machinery that is already installed to operate more cheaply and efficiently, e.g. improvements to steam boilers, etc., which we shall also discuss later on in more detail; (4) the reduction of wastage by better machinery.
Everything that reduces the depreciation of machinery, and of the fixed capital in general, for a given period of production, not only cheapens the individual commodity, since each individual commodity reproduces its aliquot share of the depreciation in its price, but also reduces the aliquot capital expenditure for this period. Repair work and the like, to the extent that it is needed, counts as part of the original costs of the machinery. Its reduction, as a consequence of the machinery’s greater durability, reduces the price of the machinery proportionately.
For all economies of this kind it is largely true once again that this is possible only for the combined worker and can often be realized only by work on a still larger scale. It demands a still greater direct combination of workers in the actual process of production.
On the other hand, however, the development of the productive power of labour in one branch of production, e.g. of iron, coal, machines, construction, etc., which may in turn be partly connected with advances in the area of intellectual production, i.e. the natural sciences and their application, appears as the condition for a reduction in the value and hence the costs of means of production in other branches of industry, e.g. textiles or agriculture. This is evident enough, for the commodity that emerges from one branch of industry as a product enters another branch as means of production. Its cheapness or otherwise depends on the productivity of labour in the branch of production from which it emerges as a product, and is at the same time a condition not only for the cheapening of the commodities into the production of which it enters as means of production, but also for the reduction in value of the constant capital whose element it now becomes, and therefore for an increase in the rate of profit
The characteristic feature of this kind of economy in the constant capital, which proceeds from the progressive development of industry, is that here the rise in the profit rate for one branch of industry depends on the development of labour productivity in another. The benefit that accrues here to the capitalist is once more an advantage produced by social labour, even though not by the workers whom he directly exploits. This development in productivity can always be reduced in the last analysis to the social character of the labour that is set to work, to the division of labour in society, and to the development of intellectual labour, in particular of the natural sciences. What the capitalist makes use of here are the benefits of the entire system of the social division of labour. Here it is the development of labour productivity in its external department, the department that provides him with means of production, which causes the value of the constant capital applied by the capitalist to fall relatively and the profit rate therefore to rise.
A different form of increase in the profit rate arises not from economy in the labour by which the constant capital is produced, but rather from economy in the employment of the constant capital itself. By the concentration of workers and their cooperation on a large scale, constant capital is spared. The same buildings, heating and lighting equipment, etc. cost relatively less for production on a large scale than on a small scale. The same holds for power and working machinery. Even if its value rises absolutely, it falls relatively, in relation to the increasing extension of production and to the size of the variable capital or the mass of labour-power that is set in motion. The economy that a capital makes in its own branch of production consists firstly and most directly in economizing on labour, i.e. in reducing the paid labour of its own workers; the economy previously mentioned, however, consists in the greatest possible appropriation of unpaid alien labour in the most economical fashion; i.e. in operating at the given scale of production with the lowest possible costs. In so far as this kind of economy is not dependent on the already mentioned exploitation of the productivity of the social labour applied in the production of constant capital, but is economy in the use of the constant capital itself, it arises either directly from cooperation and the social form of labour within the actual branch of production in question, or else from the production of machinery, etc. on a scale at which its value does not increase to the same extent as its use-value.
Two points must be borne in mind here. In the first place, if the value of c were 0, we would have p′ = s′, and the rate of profit would be at its maximum. Secondly, however, what is important for the direct exploitation of labour itself is by no means the value of the means of exploitation applied, whether that of the fixed capital or that of the raw and ancillary materials. In so far as they serve to absorb labour, as media in or through which the labour and therefore also the surplus labour is objectified, the exchange-value of these machines, buildings, raw materials, etc. is completely irrelevant. The only thing that matters here is on the one hand the quantity of these means of exploitation technically required for combination with a certain quantity of labour, and on the other hand their appropriateness to their purpose, i.e. not only good machines are required, but also good raw and ancillary material. The rate of profit depends in part on the quality of the raw material. Good material makes little waste, and thus a smaller amount of raw material is needed to absorb the same quantity of labour. The resistance the working machine meets with is also reduced to some extent. In part this even affects surplus-value and its rate. With bad raw material the worker needs more time to work up the same quantity; if wages remain the same, this results in a deduction from the surplus-value. There is also a very significant effect on the reproduction and accumulation of capital, which, as explained in Volume 1, pp. 752 ff., depends still more on the productivity of the labour applied than on its amount.
The fanaticism that the capitalist shows for economizing on means of production is now comprehensible. If nothing is to be lost or wasted, if the means of production are to be used only in the manner required by production itself, then this depends partly on the workers’ training and skill and partly on the discipline that the capitalist exerts over the combined workers, which would become superfluous in a state of society where the workers worked on their own account, just as it is already almost superfluous in the case of piece-work. The same fanaticism is also expressed inversely in the form of skimping on elements of production, which is a major way of lowering the value of the constant capital in relation to the variable and thus of increasing the rate of profit. In this connection we have the sale of these elements of production above their value, in so far as this value reappears in the product, which is an important aspect of fraud. This aspect plays a decisive role in German industry, in particular, whose very motto is: People cannot fail to appreciate it if we send them first good samples, and then bad goods. However, these phenomena pertain to competition and do not concern us here.
It must be noted how this rise in the rate of profit brought about by a reduction in the value of the constant capital, and thus in its expense, is completely independent of whether the branch of industry in which it takes place produces luxury products, means of subsistence that enter the consumption of the workers, or means of production. This would be important only in as much as it affected the rate of surplus-value, which depends essentially on the value of labour-power, i.e. on the value of the worker’s customary means of subsistence. Here, on the contrary, surplus-value and its rate are taken as given. How the surplus-value is related to the total capital – and this is what determines the profit rate – depends under these circumstances exclusively on the value of the constant capital and in no way on the use-value of the elements of which this consists.
Of course the relative cheapening of the means of production does not exclude a growth in their absolute value; for the absolute scale on which they are applied increases extraordinarily with the development of labour productivity and the growing scale of production that accompanies it. Economy in the use of constant capital, from whatever aspect it is viewed, is firstly the result of nothing more than the fact that the means of production function in common and are used as the common means of production of the combined worker, so that this economy itself appears as a product of the social character of directly productive labour; secondly, however, it is also the result of the development of labour productivity in those spheres that provide capital with its means of production, so that even if labour as a whole is considered vis-à-vis capital as a whole, and not merely the workers employed by capitalist X vis-à-vis this capitalist X, this economy again presents itself as the product of the development of the productive forces of social labour, and the distinction is simply that capitalist X benefits not only from the productivity of labour in his own firm, but also from that of other firms as well. Yet the economical use of constant capital still appears to the capitalist as a requirement completely alien to the worker and absolutely independent of him, a requirement which does not concern the worker in the least. Nevertheless, it always remains very clear to the capitalist that the worker certainly does have something to do with whether the capitalist buys more or less labour for the same amount of money (for this is how the transaction between capitalist and worker appears in his consciousness). To a still higher level than is the case with other powers intrinsic to labour, this economy in the use of means of production, this method of attaining a certain result with the least possible expense, appears as a power inherent in capital and a method specific to and characteristic of the capitalist mode of production.
This way of conceiving things is all the less surprising in that it corresponds to the semblance of the matter and that the capital relation actually does conceal the inner connection in the state of complete indifference, externality and alienation in which it places the worker vis-à-vis the conditions of realization of his own labour.
Firstly, the means of production which comprise the constant capital simply represent the capitalist’s money (as the body of the Roman debtor represented the money of his creditor, according to Linguet),* and are connected to him alone, while the worker, in so far as he comes into contact with them in the actual process of production, deals with them only as use-values for production, means and materials of labour. The decrease or increase in this value is therefore a question that affects his relationship to the capitalist as little as whether he works with copper or with iron. But the capitalist likes to conceive things differently, as we shall see later, as soon as there is an increase in the value of the means of production and hence a decline in the rate of profit.
Secondly, in so far as these means of production are at the same time a means for exploiting labour in the capitalist production process, the relative cheapness or otherwise of these means of exploitation concerns the worker as little as a horse is concerned with the expense of its bit and bridle.
Finally, as we have already seen,† the worker actually treats the social character of his work, its combination with the work of others for a common goal, as a power that is alien to him; the conditions in which this combination is realized are for him the property of another, and he would be completely indifferent to the wastage of this property if he were not himself constrained to economize on it. It is quite different with factories that belong to the workers themselves, as at Rochdale.*
It need hardly be mentioned that, in as much as the productivity of labour in one branch of industry has the effect of cheapening and improving the means of production in another, and thus serves to increase the rate of profit, this general connection of social labour presents itself as something completely alien to the workers, something that simply concerns the capitalist, in as much as he alone buys these means of production and appropriates them. Though he buys the product of the workers in a different branch of industry with the product of the workers in his own branch, and thus disposes of the product of other workers only in so far as he has appropriated the product of his own workers without payment, this is a relationship that is concealed by the circulation process, etc.
A further aspect, moreover, is that, since production on a large scale developed first in the capitalist form, the profit-mania and competition which compel commodities to be produced as cheaply as possible give economy in the use of constant capital the appearance of something peculiar to the capitalist mode of production and therefore make it seem a function of the capitalist.
Just as the capitalist mode of production promotes on the one hand the development of the productive forces of social labour, so on the other hand does it promote economy in the use of constant capital.
Yet there is more to this than the alienation and indifference that the worker, as the bearer of living labour, has towards the economical, i.e. rational and frugal use of his conditions of labour. The contradictory and antithetical character of the capitalist mode of production leads it to count the squandering of the life and health of the worker, and the depression of his conditions of existence, as itself an economy in the use of constant capital, and hence a means for raising the rate of profit.
Since the worker spends the greater part of his life in the production process, the conditions of this process are to a great extent conditions of his active life process itself, his conditions of life, and economy in these conditions of life is a method of increasing the profit rate. In just the same way, we previously saw how overwork, the transformation of the worker into a beast of burden, is a method of accelerating the self-valorization of capital, the production of surplus-value.* This economy extends to crowding workers into confined and unhealthy premises, a practice which in capitalist parlance is called saving on buildings; squeezing dangerous machines into the same premises and dispensing with means of protection against these dangers; neglect of precautionary measures in those production processes whose very nature is harmful to health or involves risk, as in mining, etc. Not to speak of the absence of all provisions that would make the production process humane, comfortable or simply bearable for the worker. From the standpoint of the capitalist this would be a senseless and purposeless waste. Yet for all its stinginess, capitalist production is thoroughly wasteful with human material, just as its way of distributing its products through trade, and its manner of competition, make it very wasteful of material resources, so that it loses for society what it gains for the individual capitalist.
As capital has the tendency to reduce the direct employment of living labour to the necessary minimum and constantly shorten the labour needed for the creation of a product by exploiting the social productivity of labour, i.e. economizing as much as possible on directly applied living labour, so it also has the tendency to apply this labour, which has already been reduced to its necessary amount, under the most economical circumstances, i.e. to reduce the value of the constant capital applied to the absolute minimum. If the value of commodities is determined by the necessary labour-time contained in them and not simply by labour-time as such, it is capital that first makes a reality of this mode of determination and immediately goes on to reduce continually the labour socially necessary for the production of a commodity. The price of the commodity is therefore reduced to a minimum through reducing to a minimum each part of the labour required to produce it.
We have to make a certain distinction, in connection with this economy in the use of constant capital. If the mass of the capital applied grows, and with it also the sum of capital value, this first involves simply the concentration of more capital in a single hand.
However, it is precisely this greater mass employed by one capital (which generally corresponds also to an absolutely greater, if relatively smaller number of workers) that permits economies in constant capital. If we take the individual capitalist, we see a growth in the size of his necessary capital outlay, and particularly in the fixed capital; but in relation to the mass of material to be worked up and the labour to be exploited, its value relatively declines.
We shall now elaborate this with some brief illustrations. We begin with what is really the end, economies in the conditions of production, in so far as these present themselves at the same time as the conditions of existence and life of the worker himself.
Coal Mining. Neglect of the Most Necessary Outlays
‘Under the competition which exists among the coal-owners and coal-proprietors… no more outlay is incurred than is sufficient to overcome the most obvious physical difficulties; and under that which prevails among the labouring colliers, who are ordinarily more numerous than the work to be done requires, a large amount of danger and exposure to the most noxious influences will gladly be encountered for wages a little in advance of the agricultural population round them, in an occupation, in which they can moreover make a profitable use of their children. This double competition is quite sufficient… to cause a large proportion of the pits to be worked with the most imperfect drainage and ventilation; often with ill-constructed shafts, bad gearing, incompetent engineers; and ill-constructed and ill-prepared bays and roadways; causing a destruction of life, and limb, and health, the statistics of which would present an appalling picture’ (First Report on Children’s Employment in Mines and Collieries, etc., 21 April 1829, p. 102).
Around 1860, an average of some fifteen men were killed each week in the English coal mines. According to the report on Coal Mine Accidents (6 February 1862), a total of 8,466 had been killed in the ten years 1852–61. But this number is far too small, as the report itself admits, since in the first few years, when the inspectors had only just been appointed and their districts were far too large, a great number of accidents and deaths were not reported at all. The very fact that, despite the great butchery that still goes on and the insufficient number and restricted powers of the inspectors, the number of accidents has dropped sharply since the inspection system was established indicates the natural tendency of capitalist exploitation. These human sacrifices are due for the most part to the filthy avarice of the coal-owners, who for instance often have only one shaft sunk, so that not only is no effective ventilation possible, but also there is no escape if this shaft gets blocked.
If we consider capitalist production in the narrow sense and ignore the process of circulation and the excesses of competition, it is extremely sparing with the realized labour that is objectified in commodities. Yet it squanders human beings, living labour, more readily than does any other mode of production, squandering not only flesh and blood, but nerves and brain as well. In fact it is only through the most tremendous waste of individual development that the development of humanity in general is secured and pursued, in that epoch of history that directly precedes the conscious reconstruction of human society. Since the whole of the economizing we are discussing here arises from the social character of labour, it is in fact precisely this directly social character of labour that produces this waste of the workers’ life and health. The question raised by factory inspector R. Baker is very pertinent here:
‘The whole question is one for serious consideration, in what way this sacrifice of infant life occasioned by congregational labour* can be best averted?’ (Reports of the Inspectors of Factories…31 October 1863, p. 157 [Marx’s emphasis].)
Factories
Under this heading belong the suppression of all precautionary measures as to the safety, comfort and health of the workers, even in factories proper. A great part of the casualty lists that tot up the injured and the dead of the industrial army (see the annual Factory Reports) stem from this. Also insufficient space, ventilation, etc.
In October 1855 Leonard Horner* was already complaining about the resistance that a very large number of factory-owners were placing to the legal provisions for safety devices on horizontal shafts, even though the danger was continually being demonstrated by accidents, often fatal ones, and this safety appliance is neither expensive nor in any way disturbs the work. (Reports of the Inspectors of Factories… October 1855, p. 6.) The factory-owners were given open support in resisting these and other legal provisions by the unpaid Justices of the Peace who had to decide on the cases, and were generally factory-owners themselves, or friends of factory-owners. The kind of verdict that these gentlemen gave was revealed by Lord Campbell, who said with regard to one of them, in dealing with an appeal against it, ‘It is not an interpretation of the Act of Parliament, it is a repeal of the Act of Parliament’ (ibid., p. 11). In the same report, Horner relates how in many factories the machines are switched on without the workers being given advance warning. Since there is always something to be done on the machines when they are standing still, some hands and fingers are always busy with this, and accidents constantly arise simply from failing to give a signal (ibid., p. 44). The factory-owners of the time formed a ‘trade union’ to resist the factory legislation, the so-called ‘National Association for the Amendment of the Factory Laws’, based in Manchester, which collected a sum of more than £50,000 in March 1855 from contributions on the basis of 2 shillings per horse-power, to meet the legal costs of members prosecuted by the factory inspectors and conduct their cases on behalf of the Association. The object was to prove ‘killing no murder’† if done for the sake of profit. The factory inspector for Scotland, Sir John Kincaid, tells of a firm in Glasgow which surrounded all its machines with safety-guards for the price of £9 1s. 0d. If that firm had joined the Association, it would have had to pay a contribution of £11 for its 110 horse-power, i.e. more than the total cost of its safety-guards. But the National Association was expressly founded in 1854 to defy the Act that prescribed safety-guards of this kind. During the entire period from 1844 to 1854 the factory-owners had not taken the least bit of notice of this Act. The factory inspectors then informed the factory-owners that the Act was now to be taken seriously, at Palmerston’s instigation. The factory-owners promptly formed their Association, its most prominent members including many who were themselves J.P.s, and in this capacity had actually to apply the Act. When the new Home Secretary, Sir George Grey, proposed a compromise solution in April 1855, by which the government would be content with safety-guards that were scarcely more than nominal, the Association indignantly rejected even this. In the course of various legal cases, the celebrated engineer William Fairbairn used his reputation as an expert in defence of economy and the violated freedom of capital. The head of the Factory Inspectorate, Leonard Horner, was persecuted and slandered by the factory-owners in every conceivable way.
The factory-owners did not rest until they had obtained a judgement from the Queen’s Bench Division to the effect that the Act of 1844 did not prescribe any safety-guards for horizontal shafts if these were more than seven feet above ground level, and they finally managed in 1856, with the help of the hypocrite Wilson-Patten – one of those pious persons whose prominently displayed religion makes them always ready to do dirty work for the knights of the money-bag – to put through a new Act of Parliament which was sufficiently to their satisfaction. This Act actually withdrew from the workers all special protection and referred them to the ordinary courts if they wished to seek compensation for injuries caused by machine accidents – sheer mockery, given English legal costs. It also made it almost impossible for the factory-owners to lose a case, by a very neatly worded clause providing for expert testimony. The upshot was a rapid increase in the accident rate. In the six months from May to October 1858, inspector Baker alone reported an increase of 21 per cent against the previous half-year. In his opinion, 36.7 per cent of all the accidents could have been avoided. Yet in 1858 and 1859 the number of accidents was significantly lower than it had been around 1845 and 1846, some 29 per cent lower in fact, even though the number of workers in the branches of industry covered by the Inspectorate had increased by 20 per cent. What was the cause of this? In as much as the question has been settled at this date (1865), it was principally due to the introduction of new machines which were already provided with safety-guards, which the factory-owners could leave in existence as they did not cost them any extra. A few workers also managed to extract heavy legal compensation for lost arms, and have these judgements upheld even by the highest courts. (Reports of the Inspectors of Factories… 30 April 1861, p. 31, and April 1862, p. 17.)
So much for economy in the means for protecting the lives and limbs of the workers – including many children – from dangers that directly arise from their use of machinery.
Work in Enclosed Spaces in General
It is well enough known how much economy on space, and therefore on buildings, crowds workers together in cramped conditions. A further factor is economy on means of ventilation. These two things, together with long working hours, produce a great increase in respiratory diseases and consequently increased mortality. The following illustrations are taken from the Reports on Public Health, Sixth Report, 1863. This report was compiled by Dr John Simon, already well-known to us from Volume 1.
Just as the combination of workers and their cooperation is what permits the use of machines on a large scale, concentration of means of production and economy in their use, so this working together en masse in enclosed spaces and under conditions where the decisive factor is not the health of the worker, but the ease with which the product may be constructed – this massive concentration in the same workshop – which is on the one hand a source of growing profit for the capitalist, is on the other hand the cause of a squandering of the worker’s life and health, if it is not compensated for both by shorter working hours and by special precautionary measures.
Dr Simon puts forward the following rule, which he backs up with a mass of statistics: ‘In proportion as the people of a district are attracted to any collective indoor occupation, in such proportion, other things being equal, the district death-rate by lung diseases will be increased’ (p. 23). The cause is bad ventilation. ‘And probably in all England there is no exception to the rule, that, in every district which has a large indoor industry, the increased mortality of the workpeople is such as to colour the death-return of the whole district with a marked excess of lung disease’ (p. 23).
The mortality figures for industries carried on in confined spaces, which were investigated by the Board of Health in 1860 and 1861, show that, out of a given number of men aged between 15 and 55, where we find 100 cases of death from consumption and other lung diseases in the agricultural districts of England, the rate for the same male population is 166 in Coventry, 167 in Blackburn and Skipton, 168 in Congleton and Bradford, 171 in Leicester, 182 in Leek, 184 in Macclesfield, 190 in Bolton, 192 in Nottingham, 193 in Rochdale, 198 in Derby, 203 in Salford and Ashton-under-Lyne, 218 in Leeds, 220 in Preston and 263 in Manchester (p. 24). The following table gives a still more striking illustration, taking the deaths from pulmonary diseases for each sex separately for the age group between 15 and 25, calculated on
District |
Chief industry |
Deaths from pulmonary diseases betweeen the ages of 15 and 25, per 100,000 populartion |
|
|
|
|
Men |
Women |
|
Berkhampstead |
Straw plaiting (women) |
219 |
578 |
|
Leighton |
|
|
|
|
Buzzard |
Straw plaiting (women) |
309 |
554 |
|
Newport pagnell |
Lace manufacture (women) |
301 |
617 |
|
Towcester |
Lace manufacture (women) |
239 |
577 |
|
Yeovil |
Manufacture of gloves (mainly women) |
280 |
409 |
|
Leek |
Silk industry (predominantly women) |
437 |
856 |
|
Congleton |
Silk industry (predominantly women) |
566 |
790 |
|
Macclesfield |
Silk industry (predominantiy women) |
593 |
890 |
|
Healthy country districk |
Agriculture |
331 |
333 |
|
a base of 100,000. The districts selected are those in which women alone are engaged in those industries carried on in confined spaces, while men work in all different branches of industry.
In the silk industry districts, where male participation in factory work is greater, their mortality is also more significant. The death rate from consumption, etc. for both sexes here reveals, as it says in this report, ‘the atrocious circumstances under which much of our silk industry is conducted’. And this is the same silk industry in which the factory-owners, appealing to the exceptionally favourable health conditions in their business, demanded exceptionally long working hours from children under 13 years of age, and in part obtained these too (Volume 1, Chapter 10, 6, pp. 405–7).
‘Probably no industry which has yet been investigated has afforded a worse picture than that which Dr Smith gives of tailoring: – “Shops vary much in their sanitary conditions, but almost universally are overcrowded and ill-ventilated, and in a high degree unfavourable to health… Such rooms are necessarily warm; but when the gas is lit, as during the day-time on foggy days, and at night during the winter, the heat increases to 80° and even to upwards of 90°, causing profuse perspiration, and condensation of vapour upon the panes of glass, so that it runs down in streams or drops from the roof, and the operatives are compelled to keep some windows open, at whatever risk to themselves of taking cold.” And he gives the following account of what he found in 16 of the most important West End shops – “The largest cubic space in these ill-ventilated rooms allowed to each operative is 270 feet, and the least 105 feet, and in the whole average only 156 feet per man. In one room, with a gallery running round it, and lighted only from the roof, from 92 to upwards of 100 men are employed, where a large number of gas-lights burn, and where the urinals are in the closest proximity, the cubic space does not exceed 150 feet per man. In another room, which can only be called a kennel in a yard, lighted from the roof, and ventilated by a small skylight opening, five to six men work in a space of 112 cubic feet per man”… Tailors, in those atrocious workshops which Dr Smith describes, work generally for about 12 or 13 hours a day, and at some times the work will be continued for 15 or 16 hours’ (pp. 25, 26, 28).
It should be noted, and indeed it was noted by Dr John Simon, Chief Medical Officer of the Privy Council and author of this report, that in the age-group 25–35 the mortality of both tailors and typesetters and printers in London was under-reported, as in these two lines of business the London employers take on a large number of young people (probably up to 30 years of age) as apprentices and ‘improvers’, i.e. for further training. These increase the number of employees on which the industrial death rates for London are calculated, but they do not share to the same
proportion in the number of deaths in London, as their stay there is only temporary. If they become ill during this time, they go back home to the country, and it is there that their death is registered if they die. This state of affairs affects the younger age-groups even more and renders the London mortality rates for these groups completely valueless as measurements of industrial disease (p. 30).
What is true of tailoring is true also of the typesetters, among whom lack of ventilation, foul air, etc. is supplemented by night work. Their customary working day lasts for 12 or 13 hours, and sometimes 15 or 16. ‘Great heat and foulness which begin when the gas-jets are lit… It not infrequently happens that fumes from a foundry, or foul odours from machinery or sinks, rise from the lower room, and aggravate the evils of the upper one. The heated air of the lower rooms always tends to heat the upper by warming the floor, and when the rooms are low, and the consumption of gas great, this is a serious evil, and one only surpassed in the case where the steam-boilers are placed in the lower room, and supply unwished-for heat to the whole house… As a general expression, it may be stated that universally the ventilation is defective, and quite insufficient to remove the heat and the products of the combustion of gas in the evening and during the night, and that in many offices, and particularly in those made from dwelling-houses, the condition is most deplorable… And in some offices (especially those of weekly newspapers) there will be work – work too, in which boys between 12 and 16 years of age take equal part – for almost uninterrupted periods of two days and a night at a time; while, in other printing-offices which lay themselves out for the doing of “urgent” business, Sunday gives no relaxation to the workman, and his working-days become seven instead of six in every week’ (pp. 26, 28).
We met with the milliners and dressmakers already in Volume 1, Chapter 10, 3, pp. 364–5, in relation to overwork. In the report we are citing at present, their places of work are described by Dr Ord. Even where they are better during the day, they are over-heated, foul and unhealthy during the hours that gas is burned. In thirty-four workshops of the better sort Dr Ord found that the average amount of room for each female worker was as follows (in cubic feet): ‘… In four cases more than 500, in four other cases from 400 to 500,… in seven others from 200 to 250, in four others from 150 to 200, and in nine others only from 100 to 150. The largest of these allowances would but be scanty for continuous work, unless the space were thoroughly well ventilated; and, except with extraordinary ventilation, its atmosphere could not be tolerably wholesome during gas-light’
Here is Dr Ord’s observation on a workshop of the inferior class that he visited, one conducted on behalf of a middleman: ‘One room area in cubical feet, 1,280; persons present, 14; area to each, in cubical feet, 91.5. The women here were weary-looking and squalid; their earnings were stated to be 7s. to 15s. a week, and their tea… Hours 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. The small room into which these 14 persons were crowded was ill-ventilated. There were two movable windows and a fire-place, but the latter was blocked up and there was no special ventilation of any kind’ (p. 27).
The same report remarks with regard to overwork among milliners and dressmakers: ‘… The overwork of the young women in fashionable dressmaking establishments does not, for more than about four months of the year, prevail in that monstrous degree which has on many occasions excited momentary public surprise and indignation; but for the indoor hands during these months it will, as a rule, be of full 14 hours a day, and will, when there is pressure, be, for days together, of 17 or even 18 hours. At other times of the year the work of the indoor hands ranges probably from 10 to 14 hours; and uniformly the hours for outdoor hands are 12 or 13. For mantle-makers, collar-makers, shirt-makers, and various other classes of needleworkers (including persons who work at the sewing-machine) the hours spent in the common workroom are fewer – generally not more than 10 to 12 hours; but, says Dr Ord, the regular hours of work are subject to considerable extension in certain houses at certain times, by the practice of working extra hours for extra pay, and in other houses by the practice of taking work away from houses of business, to be done after hours at home, both practices being, it may be added, often compulsory’ (p. 28).
In a note to this page, Dr John Simon writes: ‘Mr Radcliffe… the Honorary Secretary of the Epidemiological Society… happening to have unusual opportunities for questioning the young women employed in first-class houses of business… has found that in only one out of twenty girls examined who called themselves “quite well” could the state of health be pronounced good; the rest exhibiting in various degrees evidences of depressed physical power, nervous exhaustion, and numerous functional disorders thereupon dependent. He attributes these conditions in the first place to the length of the hours of work – the minimum of which he estimates at 12 hours a day out of the season; and secondarily to… crowding and bad ventilation of workrooms, gas-vapours, insufficiency or bad quality of food, and inattention to domestic comfort.’
The conclusion that the Chief Medical Officer comes to is that ‘it is practically impossible for workpeople to insist upon that which in theory is their first sanitary right – the right that whatever work their employer assembles them to do, shall, so far as depends upon him, be, at his cost, divested of all needlessly unwholesome circumstances;… while workpeople are practically unable to exact that sanitary justice for themselves, they also (notwithstanding the presumed intentions of the law) cannot expect any effectual assistance from the appointed administrators of the Nuisances Removal Acts’ (p. 29). ‘Doubtless there may be some small technical difficulty in defining the exact line at which employers shall become subject to regulation. But… in principle, the sanitary claim is universal. And in the interest of myriads of labouring men and women, whose lives are now needlessly afflicted and shortened by the infinite physical suffering which their mere employment engenders, I would venture to express my hope, that universally the sanitary circumstances of labour may, at least so far, be brought within appropriate provisions of law, that the effective ventilation of all indoor workplaces may be ensured, and that in every naturally insalubrious occupation the specific health-endangering influence may as far as practicable be reduced’ (p. 31).
In his report for October 1852, Leonard Horner quotes a letter from the famous engineer James Nasmyth of Patricroft, the inventor of the steam-hammer, which says among other things:
‘… The public are little aware of the vast increase in driving power which has been obtained by such changes of system and improvements’ (of steam-engines) ‘as I allude to. The engine power of this district’ (Lancashire) ‘lay under the incubus of timid and prejudiced traditions for nearly forty years, but now we are happily emancipated. During the last fifteen years, but more especially in the course of the last four years’ (since 1848) ‘some very important changes have taken place in the system of working condensing steam-engines… The result… has been to realize a much greater amount of duty or work performed by the identical engines, and that again at a very considerable reduction of the expenditure of fuel… For a great many years after the introduction of steam-power into the mills and manufactories of the above-named districts, the velocity of which it was considered proper to work condensing steam-engines was about 220 feet per minute of the piston; that is to say, an engine with a 5-feet stroke was restricted by “rule” to make 22 revolutions of the crankshaft per minute. Beyond this speed it was not considered prudent or desirable to work the engine; and as all the mill gearing… were made suitable to this 220 feet per minute speed of piston, this slow and absurdly restricted velocity ruled the working of such engines for many years. However, at length, either through fortunate ignorance of the “rule”, or by better reasons on the part of some bold innovator, a greater speed was tried, and as the result was highly favourable, others followed the example, by, as it is termed, “ letting the engine away”, namely, by so modifying the proportions of the first motion wheels of the mill gearing as to permit the engine to run at 300 feet and upwards per minute, while the mill gearing generally was kept at its former speed… This “letting the engine away”… has led to the almost universal “speeding” of engines, because it was proved that not only was there available power gained from the identical engines, but also as the higher velocity of the engine yielded a greater momentum in the fly-wheel the motion was found to be much more regular… We… obtain more power from a steam-engine by simply permitting its piston to move at a higher velocity (pressure of steam and vacuum in the condenser remaining the same)… Thus, for example, suppose any given engine yields 40 horse-power when its piston is travelling at 200 feet per minute, if by suitable arrangement or modification we can permit this same engine to run at such a speed as that its piston will travel through space at 400 feet per minute (pressure of steam and vacuum, as before said, remaining the same), we shall then have just double the power… and as the pressure by steam and vacuum is the same in both cases, the strain upon the parts of this engine will be no greater at 400 than at 200 feet speed of piston, so that the risk of “break-down” does not materially increase with the increase of speed. All the difference is, that we shall in such case consume steam at a rate proportional to the speed of piston, or nearly so; and there will be some small increase in the wear and tear of “the brasses” or rubbing-parts, but so slight as to be scarcely worth notice… But in order to obtain increase of power from the same engine by permitting its piston to travel at a higher velocity it is requisite… to burn more coal per hour under the same boiler, or employ boilers of greater evaporating capabilities, i.e., greater steam-generating powers. This accordingly was done, and boilers of greater steam-generating or water-evaporating powers were supplied to the old “speeded” engines, and in many cases near 100 per cent more work was got out of the identical engines by means of such changes as above named. About ten years ago the extraordinary economical production of power as realized by the engines employed in the mining operations of Cornwall began to attract attention; and as competition in the spinning trade forced manufacturers to look to “savings” as the chief source of profits, the remarkable difference in the consumption of coal per horse-power per hour, as indicated by the performance of the Cornish engines, as also the extraordinary economical performance of Woolf’s double-cylinder engines, began to attract increased attention to the subject of economy of fuel in this district, and as the Cornish and double-cylinder engines gave a horse-power for every 3 1/2 to 4 pounds of coal per hour, while the generality of cotton-mill engines were consuming 8 or 12 pounds per horse per hour, so remarkable a difference induced mill-owners and engine-makers in this district to endeavour to realize, by the adoption of similar means, such extraordinary economical results as were proved to be common in Cornwall and France, where the high price of coal had compelled manufacturers to look more sharply to such costly departments of their establishments. The result of this increased attention to economy of fuel has been most important in many respects. In the first place, many boilers, the half of whose surface had been in the good old times of high profits left exposed quite naked to the cold air, began to get covered with thick blankets of felt, and brick and plaster, and other modes and means whereby to prevent the escape of that heat from their exposed surface which had cost so much fuel to maintain. Steam-pipes began to be “protected” in the same manner, and the outside of the cylinder of the engine felted and cased in with wood in like manner. Next came the use of “high steam,” namely, instead of having the safety-valve loaded so as to blow off at 4, 6, or 8 Ibs. to the square inch, it was found that by raising the pressure to 14 or 20 Ibs…. a very decided economy of fuel resulted; in other words, the work of the mill was performed by a very notably reduced consumption of coals,… and those who had the means and the boldness carried the increased pressure and “expansion system” of working to the full extent, by employing properly constructed boilers to supply steam of 30, 40, 50, 60, and 70 Ibs. to the square inch; pressures which would have frightened an engineer of the old school out of his wits. But as the economic results of so increasing the pressure of steam… soon appeared in most unmistakable £ s. d. forms, the use of high-pressure steam-boilers for working condensing engines became almost general. And those who desired to go to the full extent… soon adopted the employment of the Woolf engine in its full integrity, and most of our mills lately built are worked by the Woolf engines, namely, those on which there are two’ cylinders to each engine, in one of which the high-pressure steam from the boiler exerts or yields power by its excess of pressure over that of the atmosphere, which, instead of the said high-pressure steam being let pass off at the end of each stroke free into the atmosphere, is caused to pass into a low-pressure cylinder of about four times the area of the former, and after due expansion passes to the condenser; the economic result obtained from engines of this class is such that the consumption of fuel is at the rate of from 3 1/2 to 4 Ibs. of coal per horse per hour; while in the engines of the old system the consumption used to be on the average from 12 to 14 lbs. per horse per hour. By an ingenious arrangement, the Woolf system of double cylinder or combined low and high pressure engine has been introduced extensively to already existing engines, whereby their performance has been increased both as to power and economy of fuel. The same result… has been in use these eight or ten years, by having a high-pressure engine so connected with a condensing engine as to enable the waste steam of the former to pass on to and work the latter. This system is in many cases very convenient
‘It would not be very easy to get an exact return as to the increase of performance or work done by the identical engines to which some or all of these improvements have been applied; I am confident, however,… that from the same weight of steam-engine machinery we are now obtaining at least 50 per cent more duty or work performed on the average, and that in many cases, the identical steam-engines which in the days of the restricted speed of 220 feet per minute yielded 50 horse-power, are now yielding upwards of 100. The very economical results derived from the employment of high-pressure steam in working condensing steam-engines, together with the much higher power required by mill extensions from the same engines, has within the last three years led to the adoption of tubular boilers, yielding a much more economical result than those formerly employed in generating steam for mill engines’ (Reports of the Inspectors of Factories… October 1852, pp. 23–7).
What is true for power generation holds also for the mechanisms that transmit power, as well as for the actual working machines themselves:
‘The rapid strides with which improvement in machinery has advanced within these few years have enabled manufacturers to increase production without additional moving power. The more economical application of labour has been rendered necessary by the diminished length of the working-day, and in most well-regulated mills an intelligent mind is always considering in what manner production can be increased with decreased expenditure. I have before me a statement, kindly prepared by a very intelligent gentleman in my district, showing the number of hands employed, their ages, the machines at work, and the wages paid from 1840 to the present time. In October 1840, his firm employed 600 hands, of whom 200 were under 13 years of age. In October last, 350 hands were employed, of whom 60 only were under 13; the same number of machines, within very few, were at work, and the same sum in wages was paid at both periods’ (Redgrave’s Report in Reports of the Inspectors of Factories… October 1852, pp. 58–9).
These improvements in machinery show their full effect only when they are installed in new and purpose-built factory buildings.
‘As regards the improvement made in machinery, I may say in the first place that a great advance has been made in the construction of mills adapted to receive improved machinery… In the bottom room I double all my yarn, and upon that single floor I shall put 29,000 doubling spindles. I effect a saying of labour in the room and shed of at least 10 per cent, not so much from any improvement in the principle of doubling yarn, but from a concentration of machinery under a single management; and I am enabled to drive the said number of spindles by one single shaft, a saving in shafting, compared with what other firms have to use to work the same number of spindles, of 60 per cent, in some cases 80 per cent. There is a large saving in oil, and shafting, and in grease… With superior mill arrangements and improved machinery, at the lowest estimate I have effected a saving in labour of 10 per cent, a great saving in power, coal, oil, tallow, shafting and strapping’ (Evidence of a cotton spinner, Reports of the Inspectors of Factories… October 1863, pp. 109, 110).
As the capitalist mode of production extends, so also does the utilization of the refuse left behind by production and consumption. Under the heading of production we have the waste products of industry and agriculture, under that of consumption we have both the excrement produced by man’s natural metabolism and the form in which useful articles survive after use has been made of them. Refuse of production is, therefore, in the chemical industry, the by-product which gets lost if production is only on a small scale; in the production of machinery, the heap of iron filings that appears to be waste but is then used again as raw material for iron production, etc. The natural human waste products, remains of clothing in the form of rags, etc. are the refuse of consumption. The latter are of the greatest importance for agriculture. But there is a colossal wastage in the capitalist economy in proportion to their actual use. In London, for example, they can do nothing better with the excrement produced by 4½ million people than pollute the Thames with it, at monstrous expense.
The increase in the cost of raw materials, of course, provides the incentive to make use of waste products.
The general conditions for this re-utilization are: the massive presence of this refuse, a thing which results only when labour is carried on on a large scale; the improvement of machines, so that materials that were previously unusable in their given form are converted into a form suitable for new production; and finally, scientific progress – especially in chemistry, which discovers the useful properties of such waste products. Of course, great economies of this kind can also be found in the small-scale, almost horticultural agriculture carried on in Lombardy, southern China and Japan. In general, however, agricultural productivity is obtained in this system only at the cost of a great prodigality in human labour-power withdrawn from other spheres of production.
So-called waste products play an important role in almost every industry. In the Factory Report of October 1863, for example, one reason why farmers in England, as well as in many parts of Ireland, are unwilling to grow flax, and only rarely do so, was given as follows: ‘The great waste… which has taken place at the little water scutch mills… the waste in cotton is comparatively small, but in flax very large. The efficiency of water steeping and of good machine scutching will reduce this disadvantage very considerably… Flax [is] scutched in Ireland in a most shameful way, and a large percentage [is] actually lost by it, equal to 28 or 30 per cent’ (Reports of the Inspectors of Factories… 31 October 1863, pp. 139, 142). All of this could be avoided by the use of better machines. There was such a wastage of oakum that the factory inspector says: ‘I have been informed with regard to some of the scutch mills in Ireland, that the waste made at them has often been used by the scutchers to burn on their fires at home, and yet it is very valuable’ (p. 140 of the above report). As for cotton waste, we shall come back to this below in dealing with fluctuations in the prices of raw materials.
The wool industry was rather cleverer than the linen: ‘It was once the common practice to decry the preparation of waste and woollen rags for re-manufacture, but the prejudice has entirely subsided as regards the shoddy trade, which has become an important branch of the woollen trade of Yorkshire, and doubtless the cotton waste trade will be recognized in the same manner as supplying an admitted want. Thirty years since, woollen rags, i.e., pieces of cloth, old clothes, etc., of nothing but wool, would average about £4 4s. per ton in price: within the last few years they have become worth £44 per ton, and the demand for them has so increased that means have been found for utilizing the rags of fabrics of cotton and wool mixed by destroying the cotton and leaving the wool intact, and now thousands of operatives are engaged in the manufacture of shoddy, from which the consumer has greatly benefited in being able to purchase cloth of a fair and average quality at a very moderate price’ (Reports of the Inspectors of Factories…31 October 1863, p. 107).
By the end of 1862, rejuvenated shoddy already accounted for a third of all wool used by English industry (Reports of the Inspectors of Factories… 31 October 1862, p. 81). The ‘great benefit’ for the ‘consumer’ was that his woollen clothes took only a third of the previous time to wear out and a sixth of the time to become threadbare.
The English silk industry followed the same downward path. Between 1839 and 1862 the use of genuine raw silk declined somewhat, while that of silk waste doubled. Improved machinery made it possible to manufacture silk that could be used for many purposes out of what had previously been a quite valueless material.
The most striking example of the use of waste products is provided by the chemical industry. Not only does this make use of its own waste products by finding new applications for them, but it also employs those of a great range of other industries and converts coal-tar, for example, which was previously almost useless, into aniline dyes, alizarin and most recently also into medicines.
This economy in the refuse of production, achieved by re-use, should be distinguished from economy in the creation of waste, i.e. reduction of the refuse of production to its minimum and the maximum direct use of all raw and ancillary materials engaged in production.
Reduction in waste is partly brought about by the quality of the machinery used. Oil, soap, etc: are saved in proportion to the more precise working and better polishing of the machine components. This concerns the ancillary materials. The most important thing, however, is that it depends on the quality of the machines and tools that are used whether a greater or lesser part of the raw material is transformed into waste by the production process. Finally, this depends on the quality of the raw material itself. This in turn depends partly on the development of the extractive industries and of agriculture, by which these raw materials are produced (thus it depends on the advance of civilization in general), partly on the development of the processing which the raw material undergoes before its entry into manufacture.
‘Parmentier has shown that in a relatively short space of time, i.e. since the age of Louis XIV, the art of milling corn has been very much improved in France, so that the new mills can supply up to half as much again in the way of bread. The annual consumption of corn in Paris was calculated originally at 4 setiers per capita, later at 3, then 2, while today it is only 1 1/3 setiers or approximately 342 Ibs…. In the Perche, where I have lived for a long while, the crudely constructed mills with their millstones of granite and trap rock have generally been rebuilt according to the laws of mechanics, which has advanced so much in the last thirty years. Good millstones from La Ferté have been installed, corn has been milled twice over, the milling sack has been made to move in a circle, and the amount of flour produced is a sixth greater from the same quantity of corn. I find it easy to explain, therefore, the enormous disproportion in the daily consumption of corn between the Romans and ourselves. The entire reason is simply the inadequate procedures in milling and bread preparation. I can also explain in this way the remarkable state of affairs that Pliny reports (XVIII, c. 20)… Flour was sold in Rome at 40, 48 or 96 as per modius, depending on quality. These prices, so high in proportion to the corn prices of today, are to be explained by the mills of the time, which were still imperfect and in a state of infancy, and the substantial milling costs to which this gave rise’ (Dureau de la Malle, Économie politique des Romains, Paris, 1840, I, pp. 280–81).
These savings in the use of fixed capital, as we said earlier, are the result of the way the conditions of labour have been applied on a large scale. In short, the way in which they serve as conditions of directly social, socialized labour, of direct cooperation within the production process. This is firstly the only condition on which mechanical and chemical discoveries can be applied without increasing the price of commodities, and this is always the sine qua non. Next, it is only with production on a large scale that we can have the economy that arises from productive consumption in common. Finally, however, it is only the experience of the combined worker that discovers and demonstrates how inventions already made can most simply be developed, how to overcome the practical frictions that arise in putting the theory into practice – its application to the production process, and so on.
We must distinguish here, incidentally, between universal labour and communal labour. They both play their part in the production process, and merge into one another, but they are each different as well. Universal labour is all scientific work, all discovery and invention. It is brought about partly by the cooperation of men now living, but partly also by building on earlier work. Communal labour, however, simply involves the direct cooperation of individuals.
All this receives fresh confirmation from certain facts that have frequently been observed:
(1) The great difference in costs between the first construction of a new machine and its reproduction. See Ure and Babbage.*
(2) The much greater costs that are always involved in an enterprise based on new inventions, compared with later establishments that rise up on its ruins, ex suis ossibus.† The extent of this is so great that the pioneering entrepreneurs generally go bank rupt, and it is only their successors who flourish, thanks to their possession of cheaper buildings, machinery etc. Thus it is generally the most worthless and wretched kind of money-capitahsts that draw the greatest profit from all new developments of the universal labour of the human spirit and their social application by combined labour.