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Assignment # 4/ Karl Marx

In Chapter two of Karl Marx’s ”Wage Labour and Capital,” Marx distinguishes the commodities the weaver uses to that of the finished cloth. The weaver is hired by the capitalist to make cloth; in return the capitalist pays the weaver for the work that was done to make the cloth. The capitalist supplies the weaver with all the required materials to make the cloth including the yarn, the raw material, the loom, and the instrument of labor all to produce the final product so in return he can then sell the cloth and make his profit. Being that the capitalist has purchased these commodities in order to produce a higher valuable commodity with money he already has on hand, the weaver doesn’t benefit from the sale of the cloth. To the capitalist, the waver’s labor power is just another commodity like the raw material and instrument that are needed for the production of the cloth. According to Marx, the weaver should not be concerned about if the cloth he made was sold for a profit because he was already paid his wage for the job he was hired to do. Anything that was made off his job belongs solely to the capitalist who hired the weaver. Sometimes the cloth can be sold for a significant amount or sometimes not at all, as a result the labor power the weaver has already provided for the production of the cloth, should not affect his wages.

Marx’s “Wage Labour and Capital” also gives us the example of how labor power wasn’t always a product that could be bought or sold. In the cases of the slaves and the serfs, due to the fact they were seen as property, the labor power that they provided was free. This is because they were forced into doing the labor. And because the slaves were seen as property, the labor power was no longer the highly sought out commodity, the slave itself turned into the commodity. In a similar aspect, the serfs were also forced into working on the land of the kings and the lords. Neither the slave nor the serf received wages for their labor. The ones to profit from their labor power commodity were the slave owners and the lords of the land.