Das Kapital — Kap. 11 · semantic zoom

K.11

ELFTES KAPITEL. Kooperation

Chapter 10 promised the particular methods of relative surplus-value; cooperation is the first. Bring many workers under one capital and one plan and a new collective power appears — real, and labour's own. But the same move shows why it is credited to capital: the workers are combined by capital's act, paid for their separate powers and not their joint one, and directed by a command that coordinates and exploits at once. It hands the next chapter the division of labour within that cooperation — manufacture.

Die kapitalistische Produktion beginnt, wie wir sahen, in der Tat erst, wo dasselbe individuelle Kapital eine größere Anzahl Arbeiter gleichzeitig beschäftigt, der Arbeitsprozeß also seinen Umfang erweitert und Produkt auf größrer quantitativer Stufenleiter liefert. Das Wirken einer größern Arbeiteranzahl zur selben Zeit, in demselben Raum (oder, wenn man will, auf demselben Arbeitsfeld), zur Produktion derselben Warensorte, unter dem Kommando desselben Kapitalisten, bildet historisch und begrifflich den Ausgangspunkt der kapitalistischen Produktion. Mit Bezug auf die Produktionsweise selbst unterscheidet sich z.B. die Manufaktur in ihren Anfängen kaum anders von der zünftigen Handwerksindustrie als durch die größere Zahl der gleichzeitig von demselben Kapital beschäftigten Arbeiter. Die Werkstatt des Zunftmeisters ist nur erweitert.

where capitalist production starts

Capitalist production really begins only when a single capital employs a large number of workers at the same time, so that the labour process is carried out on a larger scale and produces more. A large number of workers acting at the same time, in the same place, to produce the same kind of commodity under the command of the same capitalist — this is the historical and logical starting point of capitalist production.

At first, the way the work is actually done hardly differs from the old guild handicraft system. The only real difference is that far more workers are employed at once by the same capital. The guild master's workshop has simply been enlarged.

Der Unterschied ist also zunächst bloß quantitativ. Man sah, daß die Masse des Mehrwerts, welche ein gegebnes Kapital produziert, gleich dem Mehrwert, den der einzelne Arbeiter liefert, multipliziert mit der Anzahl der gleichzeitig beschäftigten Arbeiter. Diese Anzahl ändert an und für sich nichts an der Rate des Mehrwerts oder dem Exploitationsgrad der Arbeitskraft, und mit Bezug auf die Produktion von Warenwert überhaupt scheint jede qualitative Verändrung des Arbeitsprozesses gleichgültig. Es folgt dies aus der Natur des Werts. Vergegenständlicht sich ein zwölfstündiger Arbeitstag in 6 sh., so 1.200 solcher Arbeitstage in 6 sh. × 1.200. In dem einen Fall haben sich 12 × 1.200, in dem andren 12 Arbeitsstunden den Produkten einverleibt. In der Wertproduktion zählen viele immer nur als viele einzelne. Für die Wertproduktion macht es also keinen Unterschied, ob 1.200 Arbeiter vereinzelt produzieren oder vereint unter dem Kommando desselben Kapitals.

at first purely quantitative

At first, the difference is purely a matter of size. The mass of surplus-value a given capital produces equals the surplus-value from one worker multiplied by the number of workers. That number, by itself, changes neither the rate of surplus-value nor the degree of exploitation of labour-power. For the production of value generally, any change in how the work is done seems not to matter at all.

This follows directly from the nature of value. If a 12-hour working-day is embodied in 6 shillings, then 1,200 such working-days are embodied in 6 shillings times 1,200. In one case, 12 times 1,200 hours of labour are packed into the products; in the other, just 12 hours.

For value production, many workers always count only as many individual workers. Whether 1,200 workers produce separately or united under the command of the same capital makes no difference.

Indes findet doch innerhalb gewisser Grenzen eine Modifikation statt. In Wert vergegenständlichte Arbeit ist Arbeit von gesellschaftlicher Durchschnittsqualität, also die Äußerung einer durchschnittlichen Arbeitskraft. Eine Durchschnittsgröße existiert aber immer nur als Durchschnitt vieler verschiedner Größenindividuen derselben Art. In jedem Industriezweig weicht der individuelle Arbeiter, Peter oder Paul, mehr oder minder vom Durchschnittsarbeiter ab. Diese individuellen Abweichungen, welche mathematisch "Fehler" heißen, kompensieren sich und verschwinden, sobald man eine größere Anzahl Arbeiter zusammennimmt. Der berühmte Sophist und Sykophant Edmund Burke will aus seinen praktischen Erfahrungen als Pächter sogar wissen, daß schon "für ein so geringes Peloton" wie 5 Ackerknechte aller individuelle Unterschied der Arbeit verschwindet, also die ersten besten im Mannesalter befindlichen fünf englischen Ackerknechte zusammengenommen in derselben Zeit grad soviel Arbeit verrichten als beliebige andre fünf englische Ackerknechte.⁸ Wie dem auch sei, es ist klar, daß der Gesamtarbeitstag einer größren Anzahl gleichzeitig beschäftigter Arbeiter, dividiert durch die Anzahl der Arbeiter, an und für sich ein Tag gesellschaftlicher Durchschnittsarbeit ist. Der Arbeitstag des einzelnen sei z.B. zwölfstündig. So bildet der Arbeitstag von 12 gleichzeitig beschäftigten Arbeitern einen Gesamtarbeitstag von 144 Stunden, und obgleich die Arbeit eines jeden des Dutzend mehr oder minder von der gesellschaftlichen Durchschnittsarbeit abweichen, der einzelne daher etwas mehr oder weniger Zeit zu derselben Verrichtung brauchen mag, besitzt der Arbeitstag jedes einzelnen als ein Zwölftel des Gesamtarbeitstags von 144 Stunden die gesellschaftliche Durchschnittsqualität. Für den Kapitalisten aber, der ein Dutzend beschäftigt, existiert der Arbeitstag als Gesamtarbeitstag des Dutzend. Der Arbeitstag jedes einzelnen existiert als aliquoter Teil des Gesamtarbeitstags, ganz unabhängig davon, ob die zwölf einander in die Hand arbeiten oder ob der ganze Zusammenhang ihrer Arbeiten nur darin besteht, daß sie für denselben Kapitalisten arbeiten.

within limits, average labour emerges

Yet within certain limits, a change does take place. Labour embodied in value is labour of an average social quality — the exertion of average labour-power. But an average exists only as the average of many separate individual amounts of the same kind. In every industry, the individual worker — Peter or Paul — deviates more or less from the average worker. These individual differences, called mathematical "errors," cancel each other out and vanish as soon as you gather a larger number of workers together. The famous sophist and sycophant Edmund Burke even claimed, based on his practical experience as a farmer, that in a group as small as five farmhands all individual differences in labour vanish — any five adult English farmhands will do just as much work in the same time as any other five.

However that may be, the total working-day of a large number of workers employed at once, divided by the number of workers, is in and of itself a day of average social labour. Say the individual working-day is 12 hours. Then the combined working-day of 12 workers is 144 hours. Even if any one worker's labour deviates from the social average — needing more or less time for the same task — the working-day of each worker, as a twelfth of that 144-hour total, possesses social average quality.

For the capitalist who employs a dozen workers, the working-day exists as the combined working-day of the dozen. Each individual's day exists as a fraction of the total, regardless of whether the twelve actually work hand in hand or whether the only connection between their labours is that they all work for the same capitalist.

Werden dagegen von den 12 Arbeitern je zwei von einem kleinen Meister beschäftigt, so wird es zufällig, ob jeder einzelne Meister dieselbe Wertmasse produziert und daher die allgemeine Rate des Mehrwerts realisiert. Es fänden individuelle Abweichungen statt. Verbrauchte ein Arbeiter bedeutend mehr Zeit in der Produktion einer Ware, als gesellschaftlich erheischt ist, wiche die für ihn individuell notwendige Arbeitszeit bedeutend ab von der gesellschaftlich notwendigen oder der Durchschnittsarbeitszeit, so gälte seine Arbeit nicht als Durchschnittsarbeit, seine Arbeitskraft nicht als durchschnittliche Arbeitskraft. Sie verkaufte sich gar nicht oder nur unter dem Durchschnittswert der Arbeitskraft. Ein bestimmtes Minimum der Arbeitsfertigkeit ist also vorausgesetzt, und wir werden später sehn, daß die kapitalistische Produktion Mittel findet, dies Minimum zu messen. Nichtsdestoweniger weicht das Minimum vom Durchschnitt ab, obgleich auf der andren Seite der Durchschnittswert der Arbeitskraft gezahlt werden muß. Von den sechs Kleinmeistern würde der eine daher mehr, der andre weniger als die allgemeine Rate des Mehrwerts herausschlagen. Die Ungleichheiten würden sich für die Gesellschaft kompensieren, aber nicht für den einzelnen Meister. Das Gesetz der Verwertung überhaupt realisiert sich also für den einzelnen Produzenten erst vollständig, sobald er als Kapitalist produziert, viele Arbeiter gleichzeitig anwendet, also von vornherein gesellschaftliche Durchschnittsarbeit in Bewegung setzt.⁹

the law of value fully realized

If those 12 workers are instead employed in pairs by six small masters, it becomes a matter of chance whether each master produces the same mass of value and realizes the general rate of surplus-value. Individual deviations would occur. If one worker took significantly more time than is socially necessary to produce a commodity, his individually necessary labour-time would deviate from the socially necessary, average labour-time. His labour would not count as average labour, his labour-power not as average labour-power. It would not sell at all, or only below the average value of labour-power.

A certain minimum of skill is therefore assumed, and capitalist production will later be shown to find ways to measure this minimum. Still, even that minimum deviates from the average, though the capitalist must pay the average value of labour-power. Of the six small masters, one would squeeze out more than the general rate of surplus-value, another less. The inequalities cancel out for society as a whole, but not for the individual master.

The general law of valorization — capital expanding its own value — is therefore fully realized for the individual producer only once he produces as a capitalist — employing many workers at once, and thereby setting in motion social average labour from the start.

Auch bei gleichbleibender Arbeitsweise bewirkt die gleichzeitige Anwendung einer größren Arbeiteranzahl eine Revolution in den gegenständlichen Bedingungen des Arbeitsprozesses. Baulichkeiten, worin viele arbeiten, Lager für Rohmaterial usw., Gefäße, Instrumente, Apparate usw., die vielen gleichzeitig oder abwechselnd dienen, kurz, ein Teil der Produktionsmittel wird jetzt gemeinsam im Arbeitsprozeß konsumiert. Einerseits wird der Tauschwert von Waren, also auch von Produktionsmitteln, durchaus nicht erhöht durch irgendwelche erhöhte Ausbeutung ihres Gebrauchswerts. Andrerseits wächst der Maßstab der gemeinsam gebrauchten Produktionsmittel. Ein Zimmer, worin 20 Weber mit ihren 20 Webstühlen arbeiten, muß weiter gestreckt sein als das Zimmer eines unabhängigen Webers mit zwei Gesellen. Aber die Produktion einer Werkstatt für 20 Personen kostet weniger Arbeit als die von 10 Werkstätten für je zwei Personen, und so wächst überhaupt der Wert massenweise konzentrierter und gemeinsamer Produktionsmittel nicht verhältnismäßig mit ihrem Umfang und ihrem Nutzeffekt. Gemeinsam vernutzte Produktionsmittel geben geringren Wertbestandteil an das einzelne Produkt ab, teils weil der Gesamtwert, den sie abgeben, sich gleichzeitig auf eine größre Produktenmasse verteilt, teils weil sie, im Vergleich zu vereinzelten Produktionsmitteln, zwar mit absolut größrem, aber, ihren Wirkungskreis betrachtet, mit relativ kleinrem Wert in den Produktionsprozeß eintreten. Damit sinkt ein Wertbestandteil des konstanten Kapitals, also proportionell zu seiner Größe auch der Gesamtwert der Ware. Die Wirkung ist dieselbe, als ob die Produktionsmittel der Ware wohlfeiler produziert würden. Diese Ökonomie in der Anwendung der Produktionsmittel entspringt nur aus ihrem gemeinsamen Konsum im Arbeitsprozeß vieler. Und sie erhalten diesen Charakter als Bedingungen gesellschaftlicher Arbeit oder gesellschaftliche Bedingungen der Arbeit im Unterschied von den zersplitterten und relativ kostspieligen Produktionsmitteln vereinzelter selbständiger Arbeiter oder Kleinmeister, selbst wenn die vielen nur räumlich zusammen, nicht miteinander arbeiten. Ein Teil der Arbeitsmittel erwirbt diesen gesellschaftlichen Charakter, bevor ihn der Arbeitsprozeß selbst erwirbt.

shared means, less value

Even when the way the work is done stays exactly the same, employing a large number of workers at once brings about a revolution in the material conditions of the labour process. Buildings where many work, storage for raw materials, vessels, tools, and apparatus used by many at once or in turns — in short, a portion of the means of production is now consumed in common during the labour process.

The exchange-value of commodities — and therefore of means of production — is not increased at all by more intensive shared use. But the scale of the means of production used in common does grow. A room where 20 weavers work at 20 looms must be larger than a single independent weaver's room. But building one workshop for 20 people costs less labour than building ten workshops for two each, and so the value of concentrated, shared means of production does not grow in proportion to their physical scale and usefulness.

Means of production consumed in common transfer a smaller value-component to each individual product — partly because the total value they give up is spread over a larger mass of products, and partly because, compared to isolated means of production, they enter the process with a greater absolute value but a relatively smaller value given their wider scope of use. This lowers a value-component of the constant capital, and the total value of the commodity falls proportionally. The effect is the same as if the means of production had been produced more cheaply.

This economy in the use of means of production arises only from their common consumption in the labour process of many. And these means of production take on this social character as conditions of social labour even if the many work merely side by side in the same space without actually cooperating. A portion of the instruments of labour acquires this social character before the labour process itself does.

Die Ökonomie der Produktionsmittel ist überhaupt von doppeltem Gesichtspunkt zu betrachten. Das eine Mal, soweit sie Waren verwohlfeilert und dadurch den Wert der Arbeitskraft senkt. Das andre Mal, soweit sie das Verhältnis des Mehrwerts zum vorgeschoßnen Gesamtkapital, d.h. zur Wertsumme seiner konstanten und variablen Bestandteile, verändert. Der letztre Punkt wird erst im ersten Abschnitt des Dritten Buchs dieses Werks erörtert, wohin wir des Zusammenhangs wegen auch manches schon hierher Gehörige verweisen. Der Gang der Analyse gebietet diese Zerreißung des Gegenstands, die zugleich dem Geist der kapitalistischen Produktion entspricht. Da hier nämlich die Arbeitsbedingungen dem Arbeiter selbständig gegenübertreten, erscheint auch ihre Ökonomie als eine besondre Operation, die ihn nichts angeht und daher getrennt ist von den Methoden, welche seine persönliche Produktivität erhöhen.

means-economy, one side deferred

The economy of means of production must be considered from two angles. First, insofar as it cheapens commodities and thereby lowers the value of labour-power. Second, insofar as it changes the ratio of surplus-value to the total capital advanced — that is, to the sum of its constant and variable components. This second point is not dealt with until the first section of Book Three of this work, and for the sake of coherence other related matters are deferred there too.

The line of analysis forces this splitting of the subject, and it so happens that the split mirrors the spirit of capitalist production itself. For here, since the conditions of labour confront the worker as something independent and alien, economy in their use appears as a special operation that does not concern him — something separate from the methods that raise his own personal productive power.

Die Form der Arbeit vieler, die in demselben Produktionsprozeß oder in verschiednen, aber zusammenhängenden Produktionsprozessen planmäßig neben- und miteinander arbeiten, heißt Kooperation.¹⁰

cooperation defined

The form of labour of many who work side by side and with one another in a planned way, in the same production process or in connected ones, is called cooperation.

Wie die Angriffskraft einer Kavallerieschwadron oder die Widerstandskraft eines Infanterieregiments wesentlich verschieden ist von der Summe der von jedem Kavalleristen und Infanteristen vereinzelt entwickelten Angriffs- und Widerstandskräfte, so die mechanische Kraftsumme vereinzelter Arbeiter von der gesellschaftlichen Kraftpotenz, die sich entwickelt, wenn viele Hände gleichzeitig in derselben ungeteilten Operation zusammenwirken, z.B. wenn es gilt, eine Last zu heben, eine Kurbel zu drehn oder einen Widerstand aus dem Weg zu räumen.¹¹ Die Wirkung der kombinierten Arbeit könnte hier von der vereinzelten gar nicht oder nur in viel längren Zeiträumen oder nur auf einem Zwergmaßstab hervorgebracht werden. Es handelt sich hier nicht nur um Erhöhung der individuellen Produktivkraft durch die Kooperation, sondern um die Schöpfung einer Produktivkraft, die an und für sich Massenkraft sein muß.^11a

the collective power of mass

The striking power of a cavalry squadron or the resistance of an infantry regiment is essentially different from the sum of the individual striking powers or resistances of each cavalryman or infantryman taken alone. The same holds for the sum of the mechanical forces of isolated workers compared with the social force that develops when many hands act together at the same time in one single undivided operation — lifting a weight, turning a crank, or clearing an obstacle.

In such cases, the effect of the combined labour could either not be produced by isolated labour at all, or only over far longer periods, or only on a tiny scale. What is at issue here is not merely an increase in the individual productive power of labour through cooperation, but the creation of a productive power that must in and of itself be a mass-power.

Abgesehn von der neuen Kraftpotenz, die aus der Verschmelzung vieler Kräfte in eine Gesamtkraft entspringt, erzeugt bei den meisten produktiven Arbeiten der bloße gesellschaftliche Kontakt einen Wetteifer und eine eigne Erregung der Lebensgeister (animal spirits), welche die individuelle Leistungsfähigkeit der einzelnen erhöhen, so daß ein Dutzend Personen zusammen in einem gleichzeitigen Arbeitstag von 144 Stunden ein viel größres Gesamtprodukt liefern als zwölf vereinzelte Arbeiter, von denen jeder 12 Stunden, oder als ein Arbeiter, der 12 Tage nacheinander arbeitet.¹² Dies rührt daher, daß der Mensch von Natur, wenn nicht, wie Aristoteles meint, ein politisches¹³, jedenfalls ein gesellschaftliches Tier ist.

social contact and emulation

Apart from the new power that springs from merging many forces into one total force, in most productive work mere social contact produces an emulation and a stir of the spirits that raises the individual capacity of each worker. A dozen people working together in a simultaneous working-day of 144 hours produce a far greater total product than twelve isolated workers each working 12 hours, or one worker working 12 days in a row.

This is because man is by nature — if not, as Aristotle held, a political animal, then at any rate a social animal.

Obgleich viele dasselbe oder Gleichartiges gleichzeitig miteinander verrichten, kann die individuelle Arbeit eines jeden dennoch als Teil der Gesamtarbeit verschiedne Phasen des Arbeitsprozesses selbst darstellen, die der Arbeitsgegenstand, infolge der Kooperation, rascher durchläuft. Z.B. wenn Maurer eine Reihe von Händen bilden, um Bausteine vom Fuß eines Gestells bis zu seiner Spitze zu befördern, tut jeder von ihnen dasselbe, aber dennoch bilden die einzelnen Verrichtungen kontinuierliche Teile einer Gesamtverrichtung, besondre Phasen, die jeder Baustein im Arbeitsprozeß durchlaufen muß und wodurch ihn etwa die 24 Hände des Gesamtarbeiters rascher fördern als die zwei Hände jedes einzelnen Arbeiters, der das Gerüst auf- und abstiege.¹⁴ Der Arbeitsgegenstand durchläuft denselben Raum in kürzerer Zeit. Andrerseits findet Kombination der Arbeit statt, wenn ein Bau z.B. von verschiednen Seiten gleichzeitig angegriffen wird, obgleich die Kooperierenden dasselbe oder Gleichartiges tun. Der kombinierte Arbeitstag von 144 Stunden, der den Arbeitsgegenstand vielseitig im Raum angreift, weil der kombinierte Arbeiter oder Gesamtarbeiter vorn und hinten Augen und Hände hat und in gewissem Grad Allgegenwart besitzt, fördert das Gesamtprodukt rascher als 12 zwölfstündige Arbeitstage mehr oder minder vereinzelter Arbeiter, die ihr Werk einseitiger angreifen müssen. In derselben Zeit reifen verschiedne Raumteile des Produkts.

continuous and many-sided work

Even when many people do the same or similar work at the same time, the individual labour of each can still count as a distinct part of the collective labour, representing different phases of the labour process that the object of labour passes through more quickly because of cooperation. If masons form a line to pass building-stones from the foot of a scaffold to its top, each does the same thing — yet their separate actions form continuous parts of one total operation, particular phases that each stone must pass through. The 24 hands of the combined worker move the stone faster than the two hands of any individual worker climbing up and down the scaffold. The object passes over the same distance in less time.

A combination of labour also occurs when a building is attacked from different sides at once, though again each co-operator is doing the same or similar work. The combined working-day of 144 hours, because it assails the object from many sides in space — because the combined worker has eyes and hands both front and back and is, in a degree, omnipresent — advances the total product faster than 12 twelve-hour days of more or less isolated workers who must attack their work from one side only. Different spatial parts of the product ripen in the same period of time.

Wir betonten, daß die vielen, die einander ergänzen, dasselbe oder Gleichartiges tun, weil diese einfachste Form gemeinsamer Arbeit auch in der ausgebildetsten Gestalt der Kooperation eine große Rolle spielt. Ist der Arbeitsprozeß kompliziert, so erlaubt die bloße Masse der Zusammenarbeitenden, die verschiednen Operationen unter verschiedne Hände zu verteilen, daher gleichzeitig zu verrichten und dadurch die zur Herstellung des Gesamtprodukts nötige Arbeitszeit zu verkürzen.¹⁵

why the simplest form matters

We stressed that the many who complement one another are all doing the same or similar work, because this simplest form of common labour plays a great role even in the most fully developed form of cooperation. When the labour process is complex, the sheer number of those working together allows the different operations to be distributed among different hands, and therefore carried out at the same time — and so the labour-time needed to produce the total product is shortened.

In vielen Produktionszweigen gibt es kritische Momente, d.h. durch die Natur des Arbeitsprozesses selbst bestimmte Zeitepochen, während deren bestimmte Arbeitsresultate erzielt werden müssen. Soll z.B. eine Herde Schafe geschoren oder eine Morgenanzahl Kornland gemäht und geherbstet werden, so hängt Quantität und Qualität des Produkts davon ab, daß die Operation zu einer gewissen Zeit begonnen und zu einer gewissen Zeit beendet wird. Der Zeitraum, den der Arbeitsprozeß einnehmen darf, ist hier vorgeschrieben, wie etwa beim Heringsfang. Der einzelne kann aus einem Tag nur einen Arbeitstag herausschneiden, sage von 12 Stunden, aber die Kooperation von 100 z.B. erweitert einen zwölfstündigen Tag zu einem Arbeitstag von 1.200 Stunden. Die Kürze der Arbeitsfrist wird kompensiert durch die Größe der Arbeitsmasse, die im entscheidenden Augenblick auf das Produktionsfeld geworfen wird. Die rechtzeitige Wirkung hängt hier ab von der gleichzeitigen Anwendung vieler kombinierten Arbeitstage, der Umfang des Nutzeffekts von der Arbeiteranzahl, die jedoch stets kleiner bleibt als die Anzahl der Arbeiter, die vereinzelt in demselben Zeitraum denselben Wirkungsraum ausfüllen würden.¹⁶ Es ist der Mangel dieser Kooperation, wodurch im Westen der Vereinigten Staaten eine Masse Korn und in den Teilen Ostindiens, wo englische Herrschaft das alte Gemeinwesen zerstört hat, eine Masse Baumwolle jährlich verwüstet wird.¹⁷

critical natural deadlines

In many branches of production there are critical moments — periods fixed by the nature of the labour process itself during which certain results must be achieved. If a flock of sheep must be shorn, or a number of acres of corn must be mowed and harvested, the quantity and quality of the product depend on the work beginning at a certain time and ending by a certain time. The span the labour process may take is prescribed, just as in herring fishing.

An individual can carve only one working-day — say, 12 hours — out of a single natural day, but the cooperation of 100 expands a 12-hour day into a working-day of 1,200 hours. The shortness of the labour period is compensated by the great mass of labour thrown onto the field of production at the decisive moment. Whether the effect is achieved in time depends on the simultaneous application of many combined working-days; the scale of the useful effect depends on the number of workers — though always fewer workers than the number of isolated workers who would be needed to fill the same field of action in the same time.

It is the lack of this cooperation that every year ruins a mass of corn in the western United States, and a mass of cotton in those parts of East India where English rule has destroyed the old communal system.

Auf der einen Seite erlaubt die Kooperation, die Raumsphäre der Arbeit auszurecken, und wird daher für gewisse Arbeitsprozesse schon durch den räumlichen Zusammenhang des Arbeitsgegenstandes erheischt, wie bei Trockenlegung von Land, Eindämmung, Bewäßrung, Kanal-, Straßen-, Eisenbahnbauten usw. Andrerseits ermöglicht sie, verhältnismäßig zur Stufenleiter der Produktion, räumliche Verengung des Produktionsgebiets. Diese Beschränkung der Raumsphäre der Arbeit bei gleichzeitiger Ausdehnung ihrer Wirkungssphäre, wodurch eine Masse falscher Kosten (faux frais) erspart werden, entspringt aus der Konglomeration der Arbeiter, dem Zusammenrücken verschiedner Arbeitsprozesse und der Konzentration der Produktionsmittel.¹⁸

expanding and contracting space

On one side, cooperation allows the spatial field of labour to be stretched, and so it is required for certain labour processes purely by the spatial spread of the object worked on — draining land, building dykes, irrigation, canals, roads, railways. On the other side, cooperation permits a relative contraction of the field of production, relative to the scale of production.

This narrowing of the spatial field of labour while simultaneously widening its sphere of action — which saves a mass of incidental overhead costs — arises from the piling together of workers, the crowding of different labour processes, and the concentration of the means of production.

Verglichen mit einer gleich großen Summe vereinzelter individueller Arbeitstage, produziert der kombinierte Arbeitstag größre Massen von Gebrauchswert und vermindert daher die zur Produktion eines bestimmten Nutzeffekts nötige Arbeitszeit. Ob er im gegebnen Fall diese gesteigerte Produktivkraft erhält, weil er die mechanische Kraftpotenz der Arbeit erhöht oder ihre räumliche Wirkungssphäre ausdehnt oder das räumliche Produktionsfeld im Verhältnis zur Stufenleiter der Produktion verengt oder im kritischen Moment viel Arbeit in wenig Zeit flüssig macht oder den Wetteifer der einzelnen erregt und ihre Lebensgeister spannt oder den gleichartigen Verrichtungen vieler den Stempel der Kontinuität und Vielseitigkeit aufdrückt, oder verschiedne Operationen gleichzeitig verrichtet oder die Produktionsmittel durch ihren gemeinschaftlichen Gebrauch ökonomisiert oder der individuellen Arbeit den Charakter gesellschaftlicher Durchschnittsarbeit verleiht, unter allen Umständen ist die spezifische Produktivkraft des kombinierten Arbeitstags gesellschaftliche Produktivkraft der Arbeit oder Produktivkraft gesellschaftlicher Arbeit. Sie entspringt aus der Kooperation selbst. Im planmäßigen Zusammenwirken mit andern streift der Arbeiter seine individuellen Schranken ab und entwickelt sein Gattungsvermögen.¹⁹

labour's own social power

Compared with an equal number of isolated individual working-days, the combined working-day produces greater masses of use-value and therefore reduces the labour-time needed to produce a given useful effect. Whether in a given case it gains this heightened productive power because it raises the mechanical force of labour, or extends its spatial sphere of action, or narrows the field of production relative to the scale of production, or concentrates much labour into little time at a critical moment, or stirs emulation and tensions the spirits of individuals, or stamps continuity and many-sidedness onto similar tasks done by many, or performs different operations at the same time, or economises means of production through common use, or gives individual labour the character of social average labour — under all circumstances, the specific productive power of the combined working-day is the social productive power of labour, the productive power of social labour.

It springs from cooperation itself. In planned, combined work with others, the worker sheds his individual limits and develops his species-capacity — the specifically human power to work socially.

Wenn Arbeiter überhaupt nicht unmittelbar zusammenwirken können, ohne zusammen zu sein, ihre Konglomeration auf bestimmtem Raum daher Bedingung ihrer Kooperation ist, können Lohnarbeiter nicht kooperieren, ohne daß dasselbe Kapital, derselbe Kapitalist sie gleichzeitig anwendet, also ihre Arbeitskräfte gleichzeitig kauft. Der Gesamtwert dieser Arbeitskräfte oder die Lohnsumme der Arbeiter für den Tag, die Woche usw., muß daher in der Tasche des Kapitalisten vereint sein, bevor die Arbeitskräfte selbst im Produktionsprozeß vereint werden. Zahlung von 300 Arbeitern auf einmal, auch nur für einen Tag, bedingt mehr Kapitalauslage als Zahlung weniger Arbeiter Woche für Woche, während des ganzen Jahrs. Die Anzahl der kooperierenden Arbeiter, oder die Stufenleiter der Kooperation, hängt also zunächst ab von der Größe des Kapitals, das der einzelne Kapitalist im Ankauf von Arbeitskraft auslegen kann, d.h. von dem Umfang, worin je ein Kapitalist über die Lebensmittel vieler Arbeiter verfügt.

cooperation requires capital's advance

Just as workers generally cannot cooperate without being brought together — so their assembly in one place is a condition of their cooperation — wage-workers cannot cooperate unless the same capital, the same capitalist, employs them simultaneously, and therefore buys their labour-powers at the same time. The total value of these labour-powers — the sum of wages for the day or the week — must already be in the capitalist's pocket before the labour-powers themselves are united in the production process. Paying 300 workers at once, even for just one day, takes more capital outlay than paying a few workers week by week through a whole year.

The number of cooperating workers, or the scale of cooperation, therefore depends in the first instance on the size of the capital that an individual capitalist can lay out in purchasing labour-power — that is, on the extent to which a single capitalist commands the means of subsistence of many workers.

Und wie mit dem variablen, verhält es sich mit dem konstanten Kapital. Die Auslage für Rohmaterial z.B. ist 30mal größer für den einen Kapitalisten, der 300, als für jeden der 30 Kapitalisten, der je 10 Arbeiter beschäftigt. Wertumfang und Stoffmasse der gemeinsam benutzten Arbeitsmittel wachsen zwar nicht in demselben Grad wie die beschäftigte Arbeiteranzahl, aber sie wachsen beträchtlich. Konzentration größrer Massen von Produktionsmitteln in der Hand einzelner Kapitalisten ist also materielle Bedingung für die Kooperation von Lohnarbeitern, und der Umfang der Kooperation, oder die Stufenleiter der Produktion, hängt ab vom Umfang dieser Konzentration.

concentration of constant capital too

What holds for variable capital holds for constant capital too. The outlay for raw material, for instance, is 30 times greater for the single capitalist who employs 300 workers than for each of 30 capitalists who employs 10. The value and the physical mass of the means of production used in common do not grow at the same rate as the number of workers employed, but they do grow considerably.

Concentration of large masses of the means of production in the hands of individual capitalists is therefore a material condition for the cooperation of wage-workers, and the extent of cooperation, or the scale of production, depends on the extent of this concentration.

Ursprünglich erschien eine gewisse Minimalgröße des individuellen Kapitals notwendig, damit die Anzahl der gleichzeitig ausgebeuteten Arbeiter, daher die Masse des produzierten Mehrwerts hinreiche, den Arbeitsanwender selbst von der Handarbeit zu entbinden, aus einem Kleinmeister einen Kapitalisten zu machen und so das Kapitalverhältnis formell herzustellen. Sie erscheint jetzt als materielle Bedingung für die Verwandlung vieler zersplitterter und voneinander unabhängiger individueller Arbeitsprozesse in einen kombinierten gesellschaftlichen Arbeitsprozeß.

from formal threshold to material condition

At first, a certain minimum size of individual capital appeared necessary only so that the number of simultaneously exploited workers — and therefore the mass of surplus-value produced — would be enough to free the employer himself from manual labour, turning a small master into a capitalist and so establishing the capital-relation formally. Now that same minimum size appears as a material condition for transforming many scattered and mutually independent individual labour processes into one combined, social labour process.

Ebenso erschien ursprünglich das Kommando des Kapitals über die Arbeit nur als formelle Folge davon, daß der Arbeiter statt für sich, für den Kapitalisten und daher unter dem Kapitalisten arbeitet. Mit der Kooperation vieler Lohnarbeiter entwickelt sich das Kommando des Kapitals zum Erheischnis für die Ausführung des Arbeitsprozesses selbst, zu einer wirklichen Produktionsbedingung. Der Befehl des Kapitalisten auf dem Produktionsfeld wird jetzt so unentbehrlich wie der Befehl des Generals auf dem Schlachtfeld.

command becomes a production requisite

Likewise, at first capital's command over labour appeared only as a formal consequence of the fact that the worker labours for the capitalist and therefore under the capitalist, instead of for himself. With the cooperation of many wage-workers, capital's command develops into a requirement for the execution of the labour process itself — a real condition of production. The capitalist's command on the field of production has now become as indispensable as a general's command on the field of battle.

Alle unmittelbar gesellschaftliche oder gemeinschaftliche Arbeit auf größrem Maßstab bedarf mehr oder minder einer Direktion, welche die Harmonie der individuellen Tätigkeiten vermittelt und die allgemeinen Funktionen vollzieht, die aus der Bewegung des produktiven Gesamtkörpers im Unterschied von der Bewegung seiner selbständigen Organe entspringen. Ein einzelner Violinspieler dirigiert sich selbst, ein Orchester bedarf des Musikdirektors. Diese Funktion der Leitung, Überwachung und Vermittlung, wird zur Funktion des Kapitals, sobald die ihm untergeordnete Arbeit kooperativ wird. Als spezifische Funktion des Kapitals erhält die Funktion der Leitung spezifische Charaktermale.

the orchestra needs a conductor

All directly social or common labour on a large scale requires, more or less, a directing authority that mediates the harmony of individual activities and carries out the general functions arising from the movement of the whole productive body — functions distinct from the movement of its separate organs. A single violin player directs himself; an orchestra needs a conductor.

This function of directing, supervising, and mediating becomes a function of capital as soon as the labour under capital's control becomes cooperative. As a specific function of capital, it takes on specific characteristics.

Zunächst ist das treibende Motiv und der bestimmende Zweck des kapitalistischen Produktionsprozesses möglichst große Selbstverwertung des Kapitals²⁰, d.h. möglichst große Produktion von Mehrwert, also möglichst große Ausbeutung der Arbeitskraft durch den Kapitalisten. Mit der Masse der gleichzeitig beschäftigten Arbeiter wächst ihr Widerstand und damit notwendig der Druck des Kapitals zur Bewältigung dieses Widerstands. Die Leitung des Kapitalisten ist nicht nur eine aus der Natur des gesellschaftlichen Arbeitsprozesses entspringende und ihm angehörige besondre Funktion, sie ist zugleich Funktion der Ausbeutung eines gesellschaftlichen Arbeitsprozesses und daher bedingt durch den unvermeidlichen Antagonismus zwischen dem Ausbeuter und dem Rohmaterial seiner Ausbeutung. Ebenso wächst mit dem Umfang der Produktionsmittel, die dem Lohnarbeiter als fremdes Eigentum gegenüberstehn, die Notwendigkeit der Kontrolle über deren sachgemäße Verwendung.²¹ Die Kooperation der Lohnarbeiter ist ferner bloße Wirkung des Kapitals, das sie gleichzeitig anwendet. Der Zusammenhang ihrer Funktionen und ihre Einheit als produktiver Gesamtkörper liegen außer ihnen, im Kapital, das sie zusammenbringt und zusammenhält. Der Zusammenhang ihrer Arbeiten tritt ihnen daher ideell als Plan, praktisch als Autorität des Kapitalisten gegenüber, als Macht eines fremden Willens, der ihr Tun seinem Zweck unterwirft.

the driving motive: exploitation

First of all, the driving motive and determining purpose of the capitalist production process is the greatest possible self-expansion of capital — the greatest possible production of surplus-value, and therefore the greatest possible exploitation of labour-power by the capitalist. As the mass of workers employed at the same time grows, their resistance grows, and with it necessarily the pressure of capital to overcome that resistance.

The capitalist's direction is therefore not only a special function arising from the nature of the social labour process and belonging to it; it is at the same time a function of the exploitation of a social labour process, conditioned by the unavoidable antagonism between the exploiter and the raw material of his exploitation. Similarly, as the mass of means of production that confront the wage-worker as someone else's property grows, so does the need to control their proper use.

The cooperation of wage-workers is, moreover, a mere effect of the capital that simultaneously employs them. The connection of their functions and their unity as one productive body lie outside them — in capital, which brings them together and holds them together. The connection of their labours therefore confronts them ideally as a plan, and practically as the authority of the capitalist — as the power of an alien will, which subordinates their activity to its purpose.

Wenn daher die kapitalistische Leitung dem Inhalt nach zwieschlächtig ist, wegen der Zwieschlächtigkeit des zu leitenden Produktionsprozesses selbst, welcher einerseits gesellschaftlicher Arbeitsprozeß zur Herstellung eines Produkts, andrerseits Verwertungsprozeß des Kapitals, so ist sie der Form nach despotisch. Mit der Entwicklung der Kooperation auf größrem Maßstab entwickelt dieser Despotismus seine eigentümlichen Formen. Wie der Kapitalist zunächst entbunden wird von der Handarbeit, sobald sein Kapital jene Minimalgröße erreicht hat, womit die eigentlich kapitalistische Produktion erst beginnt, so tritt er jetzt die Funktion unmittelbarer und fortwährender Beaufsichtigung der einzelnen Arbeiter und Arbeitergruppen selbst wieder ab an eine besondre Sorte von Lohnarbeitern. Wie eine Armee militärischer, bedarf eine unter dem Kommando desselben Kapitals zusammenwirkende Arbeitermasse industrieller Oberoffiziere (Dirigenten, managers) und Unteroffiziere (Arbeitsaufseher, foremen, overlookers, contre-maîtres), die während des Arbeitsprozesses im Namen des Kapitals kommandieren. Die Arbeit der Oberaufsicht befestigt sich zu ihrer ausschließlichen Funktion. Bei Vergleichung der Produktionsweise unabhängiger Bauern oder selbständiger Handwerker mit der auf Sklaverei beruhenden Plantagenwirtschaft zählt der politische Ökonom diese Arbeit der Oberaufsicht zu den faux frais de production.^21a Bei Betrachtung der kapitalistischen Produktionsweise identifiziert er dagegen die Funktion der Leitung, soweit sie aus der Natur des gemeinschaftlichen Arbeitsprozesses entspringt, mit derselben Funktion, soweit sie durch den kapitalistischen und daher antagonistischen Charakter dieses Prozesses bedingt wird.²² Der Kapitalist ist nicht Kapitalist, weil er industrieller Leiter ist, sondern er wird industrieller Befehlshaber, weil er Kapitalist ist. Der Oberbefehl in der Industrie wird Attribut des Kapitals, wie zur Feudalzeit der Oberbefehl in Krieg und Gericht Attribut des Grundeigentums war.^22a

twofold in content, despotic in form

If, then, capitalist direction is in content twofold — because the production process to be directed is itself twofold, being on one hand a social labour process for making a product, and on the other a process for the self-expansion of capital — then in form it is despotic.

As cooperation develops on a larger scale, this despotism develops its own peculiar forms. Just as the capitalist is first freed from manual labour once his capital reaches that minimum size where genuinely capitalist production begins, so now he hands over the function of directly and constantly supervising individual workers and groups of workers to a special sort of wage-labourer. Like an army, a mass of workers working under the command of the same capital needs industrial officers (managers) and non-commissioned officers (foremen, overlookers) who command during the labour process in the name of capital. The work of supervision becomes their exclusive function.

When comparing the mode of production of independent peasants or artisans with that of slave plantations, the political economist counts this work of oversight among the incidental overheads of production. But when considering the capitalist mode of production, he identifies the directing function that springs from the nature of the common labour process with the very different function necessitated by the capitalist, and therefore antagonistic, character of that process.

The capitalist is not a capitalist because he is an industrial leader; he becomes an industrial commander because he is a capitalist. Supreme command in industry becomes an attribute of capital, just as in feudal times supreme command in war and in court was an attribute of landed property.

Eigentümer seiner Arbeitskraft ist der Arbeiter, solange er als Verkäufer derselben mit dem Kapitalist marktet, und er kann nur verkaufen, was er besitzt, seine individuelle, vereinzelte Arbeitskraft. Dies Verhältnis wird in keiner Weise dadurch verändert, daß der Kapitalist 100 Arbeitskräfte statt einer kauft oder mit 100 voneinander unabhängigen Arbeitern Kontrakte schließt statt mit einem einzelnen. Er kann die 100 Arbeiter anwenden, ohne sie kooperieren zu lassen. Der Kapitalist zahlt daher den Wert der 100 selbständigen Arbeitskräfte, aber er zahlt nicht die kombinierte Arbeitskraft der Hundert. Als unabhängige Personen sind die Arbeiter Vereinzelte, die in ein Verhältnis zu demselben Kapital, aber nicht zueinander treten. Ihre Kooperation beginnt erst im Arbeitsprozeß, aber im Arbeitsprozeß haben sie bereits aufgehört, sich selbst zu gehören. Mit dem Eintritt in denselben sind sie dem Kapital einverleibt. Als Kooperierende, als Glieder eines werktätigen Organismus, sind sie selbst nur eine besondre Existenzweise des Kapitals. Die Produktivkraft, die der Arbeiter als gesellschaftlicher Arbeiter entwickelt, ist daher Produktivkraft des Kapitals. Die gesellschaftliche Produktivkraft der Arbeit entwickelt sich unentgeltlich, sobald die Arbeiter unter bestimmte Bedingungen gestellt sind, und das Kapital stellt sie unter diese Bedingungen. Weil die gesellschaftliche Produktivkraft der Arbeit dem Kapital nichts kostet, weil sie andrerseits nicht von dem Arbeiter entwickelt wird, bevor seine Arbeit selbst dem Kapital gehört, erscheint sie als Produktivkraft, die das Kapital von Natur besitzt, als seine immanente Produktivkraft.

the unpaid combination

The worker is the owner of his labour-power as long as he is bargaining with the capitalist to sell it, and he can sell only what he possesses — his individual, isolated labour-power. This relation is not changed at all by the fact that the capitalist buys 100 labour-powers instead of one, or signs contracts with 100 mutually independent workers instead of with one individual. He can put the 100 workers to work without letting them cooperate.

The capitalist therefore pays the value of 100 independent labour-powers, but he does not pay for the combined labour-power of the hundred. As independent persons, the workers are isolated individuals who enter into a relation with the same capital, but not into a relation with each other. Their cooperation begins only in the labour process — but by the time they are in the labour process they have already ceased to belong to themselves. On entering it, they are incorporated into capital. As co-operators, as members of a working organism, they are themselves merely a special mode of existence of capital.

The productive power that the worker develops as a social worker is therefore the productive power of capital. The social productive power of labour is developed free of charge as soon as workers are placed under certain conditions, and it is capital that places them under those conditions. Because this social productive power of labour costs capital nothing, and because it is not developed by the worker before his own labour already belongs to capital, it appears as a productive power that capital possesses by nature — as capital's own built-in productive power.

Kolossal zeigt sich die Wirkung der einfachen Kooperation in den Riesenwerken der alten Asiaten, Ägypter, Etrusker usw.

the colossal effects

The colossal effect of simple cooperation shows itself in the gigantic works of the ancient Asiatics, Egyptians, Etruscans, and others.

"Es geschah in vergangnen Zeiten, daß diese asiatischen Staaten nach Bestreitung ihrer Zivil- und Militärausgaben sich im Besitz eines Überschusses von Lebensmitteln befanden, die sie für Werke der Pracht und des Nutzens verausgaben konnten. Ihr Kommando über die Hände und Arme fast der ganzen nicht ackerbauenden Bevölkrung und die ausschließliche Verfügung des Monarchen und der Priesterschaft über jenen Überschuß boten ihnen die Mittel zur Errichtung jener mächtigen Monumente, womit sie das Land erfüllten ... In der Bewegung der kolossalen Statuen und der enormen Massen, deren Transport Staunen erregt, wurde fast nur menschliche Arbeit verschwenderisch angewandt. Die Zahl der Arbeiter und die Konzentration ihrer Mühen genügte. So sehn wir mächtige Korallenriffe aus den Tiefen des Ozeans zu Inseln anschwellen und festes Land bilden, obgleich jeder individuelle Ablagerer (depositary) winzig, schwach und verächtlich ist. Die nicht ackerbauenden Arbeiter einer asiatischen Monarchie haben außer ihren individuellen körperlichen Bemühungen wenig zum Werk zu bringen, aber ihre Zahl ist ihre Kraft, und die Macht der Direktion über diese Massen gab jenen Riesenwerken den Ursprung. Es war die Konzentration der Revenuen, wovon die Arbeiter leben, in einer Hand oder wenigen Händen, welche solche Unternehmungen möglich machte."²³

Richard Jones: concentrated revenue

"It happened in times past that these Asiatic states, after covering their civil and military expenses, found themselves in possession of a surplus of means of subsistence, which they could spend on works of magnificence and utility. Their command over the hands and arms of almost the entire non-agricultural population, and the exclusive control of the monarch and the priesthood over that surplus, gave them the means to erect those mighty monuments with which they filled the land… In the moving of colossal statues and enormous masses whose transport astounds us, almost nothing but human labour was squandered. The number of workers and the concentration of their toil sufficed. Thus we see mighty coral reefs swell up from the depths of the ocean into islands and solid land, though each individual depositor is tiny, weak, and contemptible. The non-agricultural workers of an Asiatic monarchy had little to bring to the work besides their individual bodily efforts, but their number was their strength, and the power of direction over these masses gave birth to those giant works. It was the concentration of the revenue on which the workers lived, in one hand or a few hands, that made such undertakings possible."

Diese Macht asiatischer und ägyptischer Könige oder etruskischer Theokraten usw. ist in der modernen Gesellschaft auf den Kapitalisten übergegangen, ob er nun als vereinzelter Kapitalist auftritt, oder, wie bei Aktiengesellschaften, als kombinierter Kapitalist.

power transferred to the capitalist

This power of Asiatic and Egyptian kings, or Etruscan theocrats, has passed in modern society to the capitalist — whether he appears as a single individual capitalist or, as in joint-stock companies, as a combined capitalist.

Die Kooperation im Arbeitsprozeß, wie wir sie in den Kulturanfängen der Menschheit, bei Jägervölkern^23a oder etwa in der Agrikultur indischer Gemeinwesen vorherrschend finden, beruht einerseits auf dem Gemeineigentum an den Produktionsbedingungen, andrerseits darauf, daß das einzelne Individuum sich von der Nabelschnur des Stammes oder des Gemeinwesens noch ebensowenig losgerissen hat wie das Bienenindividuum vom Bienenstock. Beides unterscheidet sie von der kapitalistischen Kooperation. Die sporadische Anwendung der Kooperation auf großem Maßstab in der antiken Welt, dem Mittelalter und den modernen Kolonien beruht auf unmittelbaren Herrschafts- und Knechtschaftsverhältnissen, zumeist auf der Sklaverei. Die kapitalistische Form setzt dagegen von vornherein den freien Lohnarbeiter voraus, der seine Arbeitskraft dem Kapital verkauft. Historisch jedoch entwickelt sie sich im Gegensatz zur Bauernwirtschaft und zum unabhängigen Handwerksbetrieb, ob dieser zünftige Form besitze oder nicht.²⁴ Ihnen gegenüber erscheint die kapitalistische Kooperation nicht als eine besondre historische Form der Kooperation, sondern die Kooperation selbst als eine dem kapitalistischen Produktionsprozeß eigentümliche und ihn spezifisch unterscheidende historische Form.

what is specific to capitalist cooperation

Cooperation in the labour process, as we find it prevailing at the dawn of human culture, among hunting peoples or in the agriculture of Indian communities, rests on one hand on common ownership of the conditions of production, and on the other on the fact that the individual has no more torn himself from the navel-cord of his tribe or community than a bee has from the hive. Both of these distinguish it from capitalist cooperation.

The sporadic application of cooperation on a large scale in the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and modern colonies rests on direct relations of domination and servitude — most often on slavery. The capitalist form, by contrast, presupposes from the start the free wage-worker who sells his labour-power to capital.

Historically, capitalist cooperation develops in opposition to peasant farming and independent handicraft, whether guild-organised or not. Seen from their standpoint, capitalist cooperation does not appear as one particular historical form of cooperation among others; rather, cooperation itself appears as a historical form peculiar to, and specifically distinguishing, the capitalist process of production.

Wie die durch die Kooperation entwickelte gesellschaftliche Produktivkraft der Arbeit als Produktivkraft des Kapitals erscheint, so die Kooperation selbst als eine spezifische Form des kapitalistischen Produktionsprozesses im Gegensatz zum Produktionsprozeß vereinzelter unabhängiger Arbeiter oder auch Kleinmeister. Es ist die erste Änderung, welche der wirkliche Arbeitsprozeß durch seine Subsumtion unter das Kapital erfährt. Diese Änderung geht naturwüchsig vor sich. Ihre Voraussetzung, gleichzeitige Beschäftigung einer größren Anzahl von Lohnarbeitern in demselben Arbeitsprozeß, bildet den Ausgangspunkt der kapitalistischen Produktion. Dieser fällt mit dem Dasein des Kapitals selbst zusammen. Wenn sich die kapitalistische Produktionsweise daher einerseits als historische Notwendigkeit für die Verwandlung des Arbeitsprozesses in einen gesellschaftlichen Prozeß darstellt, so andrerseits diese gesellschaftliche Form des Arbeitsprozesses als eine vom Kapital angewandte Methode, um ihn durch Steigerung seiner Produktivkraft profitlicher auszubeuten.

the first change under capital

Just as the social productive power of labour developed by cooperation appears as the productive power of capital, so cooperation itself appears — contrasted with the production process of isolated independent workers or even small masters — as a specific form of the capitalist production process. It is the first change that the real labour process undergoes once capital takes it over (its subsumption under capital).

This change comes about spontaneously. Its precondition — the simultaneous employment of a large number of wage-workers in the same labour process — forms the starting point of capitalist production, and that starting point coincides with the very existence of capital itself.

If, then, the capitalist mode of production presents itself on one hand as a historical necessity for the transformation of the labour process into a social process, on the other hand this social form of the labour process presents itself as a method used by capital to exploit it more profitably by raising its productive power.

In ihrer bisher betrachteten einfachen Gestalt fällt die Kooperation zusammen mit der Produktion auf größrer Stufenleiter, bildet aber keine feste charakteristische Form einer besondren Entwicklungsepoche der kapitalistischen Produktionsweise. Höchstens erscheint sie annähernd so in den noch handwerksmäßigen Anfängen der Manufaktur²⁵ und in jeder Art großer Agrikultur, welche der Manufakturperiode entspricht und sich wesentlich nur durch die Masse der gleichzeitig angewandten Arbeiter und den Umfang der konzentrierten Produktionsmittel von der Bauernwirtschaft unterscheidet. Die einfache Kooperation ist stets noch vorherrschende Form solcher Produktionszweige, worin das Kapital auf großer Stufenleiter operiert, ohne daß Teilung der Arbeit oder Maschinerie eine bedeutende Rolle spielte.

simple cooperation fixes no whole epoch

In the simple shape considered so far, cooperation coincides with production on a large scale, but it does not yet form a fixed, characteristic shape of a particular epoch in the development of the capitalist mode of production. At most it appears approximately to do so in the still handicraft-like beginnings of manufacture, and in that kind of large-scale agriculture which corresponds to the manufacture period and differs from peasant farming essentially only by the mass of workers simultaneously employed and the scale of the concentrated means of production.

Simple cooperation remains the prevailing form in those branches of production where capital operates on a large scale without division of labour or machinery playing any significant role.

Die Kooperation bleibt die Grundform der kapitalistischen Produktionsweise, obgleich ihre einfache Gestalt selbst als besondre Form neben ihren weiterentwickelten Formen erscheint.

the fundamental form persists

Cooperation remains the fundamental form of the capitalist mode of production, even though its simple shape continues to appear as one particular form alongside its further-developed forms.

K.11

Chapter Thirteen - Co-operation

Capitalist production only then really begins, as we have already seen, when each individual capital employs simultaneously a comparatively large number of labourers; when consequently the labour-process is carried on on an extensive scale and yields, relatively, large quantities of products. A greater number of labourers working together, at the same time, in one place (or, if you will, in the same field of labour), in order to produce the same sort of commodity under the mastership of one capitalist, constitutes, both historically and logically, the starting-point of capitalist production. With regard to the mode of production itself, manufacture, in its strict meaning, is hardly to be distinguished, in its earliest stages, from the handicraft trades of the guilds, otherwise than by the greater number of workmen simultaneously employed by one and the same individual capital. The workshop of the medieval master handicraftsman is simply enlarged.

where capitalist production starts

At first, therefore, the difference is purely quantitative. We have shown that the surplus-value produced by a given capital is equal to the surplus-value produced by each workman multiplied by the number of workmen simultaneously employed. The number of workmen in itself does not affect, either the rate of surplus-value, or the degree of exploitation of labour-power. If a working-day of 12 hours be embodied in six shillings, 1,200 such days will be embodied in 1,200 times 6 shillings. In one case 12 × 1,200 working-hours, and in the other 12 such hours are incorporated in the product. In the production of value a number of workmen rank merely as so many individual workmen; and it therefore makes no difference in the value produced whether the 1,200 men work separately, or united under the control of one capitalist.

at first purely quantitative

For value production, many workers always count only as many individual workers. Whether 1,200 workers produce separately or united under the command of the same capital makes no difference.

Nevertheless, within certain limits, a modification takes place. The labour realised in value, is labour of an average social quality; is consequently the expenditure of average labour-power. Any average magnitude, however, is merely the average of a number of separate magnitudes all of one kind, but differing as to quantity. In every industry, each individual labourer, be he Peter or Paul, differs from the average labourer. These individual differences, or “errors” as they are called in mathematics, compensate one another, and vanish, whenever a certain minimum number of workmen are employed together. The celebrated sophist and sycophant, Edmund Burke, goes so far as to make the following assertion, based on his practical observations as a farmer; viz., that “in so small a platoon” as that of five farm labourers, all individual differences in the labour vanish, and that consequently any given five adult farm labourers taken together, will in the same time do as much work as any other five. ¹ But, however that may be, it is clear, that the collective working-day of a large number of workmen simultaneously employed, divided by the number of these workmen, gives one day of average social labour. For example, let the working-day of each individual be 12 hours. Then the collective working-day of 12 men simultaneously employed, consists of 144 hours; and although the labour of each of the dozen men may deviate more or less from average social labour, each of them requiring a different time for the same operation, yet since the working-day of each is one-twelfth of the collective working-day of 144 hours, it possesses the qualities of an average social working-day. From the point of view, however, of the capitalist who employs these 12 men, the working-day is that of the whole dozen. Each individual man’s day is an aliquot part of the collective working-day, no matter whether the 12 men assist one another in their work, or whether the connexion between their operations consists merely in the fact, that the men are all working for the same capitalist. But if the 12 men are employed in six pairs, by as many different small masters, it will be quite a matter of chance, whether each of these masters produces the same value, and consequently whether he realises the general rate of surplus-value. Deviations would occur in individual cases. If one workman required considerably more time for the production of a commodity than is socially necessary, the duration of the necessary labour-time would, in his case, sensibly deviate from the labour-time socially necessary on an average; and consequently his labour would not count as average labour, nor his labour-power as average labour-power. It would either be not saleable at all, or only at something below the average value of labour-power. A fixed minimum of efficiency in all labour is therefore assumed, and we shall see, later on, that capitalist production provides the means of fixing this minimum. Nevertheless, this minimum deviates from the average, although on the other hand the capitalist has to pay the average value of labour-power. Of the six small masters, one would therefore squeeze out more than the average rate of surplus-value, another less. The inequalities would be compensated for the society at large, but not for the individual masters. Thus the laws of the production of value are only fully realised for the individual producer, when he produces as a capitalist, and employs a number of workmen together, whose labour, by its collective nature, is at once stamped as average social labour. ²

within limits, average labour emerges

M–A merges

the law of value fully realized

Even without an alteration in the system of working, the simultaneous employment of a large number of labourers effects a revolution in the material conditions of the labour-process. The buildings in which they work, the store-houses for the raw material, the implements and utensils used simultaneously or in turns by the workmen; in short, a portion of the means of production, are now consumed in common. On the one hand, the exchange-value of these means of production is not increased; for the exchange-value of a commodity is not raised by its use-value being consumed more thoroughly and to greater advantage. On the other hand, they are used in common, and therefore on a larger scale than before. A room where twenty weavers work at twenty looms must be larger than the room of a single weaver with two assistants. But it costs less labour to build one workshop for twenty persons than to build ten to accommodate two weavers each; thus the value of the means of production that are concentrated for use in common on a large scale does not increase in direct proportion to the expansion and to the increased useful effect of those means. When consumed in common, they give up a smaller part of their value to each single product; partly because the total value they part with is spread over a greater quantity of products, and partly because their value, though absolutely greater, is, having regard to their sphere of action in the process, relatively less than the value of isolated means of production. Owing to this, the value of a part of the constant capital falls, and in proportion to the magnitude of the fall, the total value of the commodity also falls. The effect is the same as if the means of production had cost less. The economy in their application is entirely owing to their being consumed in common by a large number of workmen. Moreover, this character of being necessary conditions of social labour, a character that distinguishes them from the dispersed and relatively more costly means of production of isolated, independent labourers, or small masters, is acquired even when the numerous workmen assembled together do not assist one another, but merely work side by side. A portion of the instruments of labour acquires this social character before the labour-process itself does so.

shared means, less value

Economy in the use of the means of production has to be considered under two aspects. First, as cheapening commodities, and thereby bringing about a fall in the value of labour-power. Secondly, as altering the ratio of the surplus-value to the total capital advanced, i.e., to the sum of the values of the constant and variable capital. The latter aspect will not be considered until we come to the third book, to which, with the object of treating them in their proper connexion, we also relegate many other points that relate to the present question. The march of our analysis compels this splitting up of the subject-matter, a splitting up that is quite in keeping with the spirit of capitalist production. For since, in this mode of production, the workman finds the instruments of labour existing independently of him as another man’s property, economy in their use appears, with regard to him, to be a distinct operation, one that does not concern him, and which, therefore, has no connexion with the methods by which his own personal productiveness is increased.

means-economy, one side deferred

When numerous labourers work together side by side, whether in one and the same process, or in different but connected processes, they are said to co-operate, or to work in co-operation. ³

cooperation defined

The form of labour of many who work side by side and with one another in a planned way, in the same production process or in connected ones, is called cooperation.

Just as the offensive power of a squadron of cavalry, or the defensive power of a regiment of infantry is essentially different from the sum of the offensive or defensive powers of the individual cavalry or infantry soldiers taken separately, so the sum total of the mechanical forces exerted by isolated workmen differs from the social force that is developed, when many hands take part simultaneously in one and the same undivided operation, such as raising a heavy weight, turning a winch, or removing an obstacle. ⁴ In such cases the effect of the combined labour could either not be produced at all by isolated individual labour, or it could only be produced by a great expenditure of time, or on a very dwarfed scale. Not only have we here an increase in the productive power of the individual, by means of co-operation, but the creation of a new power, namely, the collective power of masses. ⁵

the collective power of mass

Apart from the new power that arises from the fusion of many forces into one single force, mere social contact begets in most industries an emulation and a stimulation of the animal spirits that heighten the efficiency of each individual workman. Hence it is that a dozen persons working together will, in their collective working-day of 144 hours, produce far more than twelve isolated men each working 12 hours, or than one man who works twelve days in succession. ⁶ The reason of this is that man is, if not as Aristotle contends, a political, ⁷ at all events a social animal.

social contact and emulation

This is because man is by nature — if not, as Aristotle held, a political animal, then at any rate a social animal.

Although a number of men may be occupied together at the same time on the same, or the same kind of work, yet the labour of each, as a part of the collective labour, may correspond to a distinct phase of the labour-process, through all whose phases, in consequence of co-operation, the subject of their labour passes with greater speed. For instance, if a dozen masons place themselves in a row, so as to pass stones from the foot of a ladder to its summit, each of them does the same thing; nevertheless, their separate acts form connected parts of one total operation; they are particular phases, which must be gone through by each stone; and the stones are thus carried up quicker by the 24 hands of the row of men than they could be if each man went separately up and down the ladder with his burden. ⁸ The object is carried over the same distance in a shorter time. Again, a combination of labour occurs whenever a building, for instance, is taken in hand on different sides simultaneously; although here also the co-operating masons are doing the same, or the same kind of work. The 12 masons, in their collective working-day of 144 hours, make much more progress with the building than one mason could make working for 12 days, or 144 hours. The reason is, that a body of men working in concert has hands and eyes both before and behind, and is, to a certain degree, omnipresent. The various parts of the work progress simultaneously.

continuous and many-sided work

In the above instances we have laid stress upon the point that the men do the same, or the same kind of work, because this, the most simple form of labour in common, plays a great part in co-operation, even in its most fully developed stage. If the work be complicated, then the mere number of the men who co-operate allows of the various operations being apportioned to different hands, and, consequently, of being carried on simultaneously. The time necessary for the completion of the whole work is thereby shortened.

why the simplest form matters

In many industries, there are critical periods, determined by the nature of the process, during which certain definite results must be obtained. For instance, if a flock of sheep has to be shorn, or a field of wheat to be cut and harvested, the quantity and quality of the product depends on the work being begun and ended within a certain time. In these cases, the time that ought to be taken by the process is prescribed, just as it is in herring fishing. A single person cannot carve a working-day of more than, say 12 hours, out of the natural day, but 100 men co-operating extend the working-day to 1,200 hours. The shortness of the time allowed for the work is compensated for by the large mass of labour thrown upon the field of production at the decisive moment. The completion of the task within the proper time depends on the simultaneous application of numerous combined working-days; the amount of useful effect depends on the number of labourers; this number, however, is always smaller than the number of isolated labourers required to do the same amount of work in the same period. ¹⁰ It is owing to the absence of this kind of co-operation that, in the western part of the United States, quantities of corn, and in those parts of East India where English rule has destroyed the old communities, quantities of cotton, are yearly wasted. ¹¹

critical natural deadlines

On the one hand, co-operation allows of the work being carried on over an extended space; it is consequently imperatively called for in certain undertakings, such as draining, constructing dykes, irrigation works, and the making of canals, roads and railways. On the other hand, while extending the scale of production, it renders possible a relative contraction of the arena. This contraction of arena simultaneous with, and arising from, extension of scale, whereby a number of useless expenses are cut down, is owing to the conglomeration of labourers, to the aggregation of various processes, and to the concentration of the means of production.

expanding and contracting space

The combined working-day produces, relatively to an equal sum of isolated working-days, a greater quantity of use-values, and, consequently, diminishes the labour-time necessary for the production of a given useful effect. Whether the combined working-day, in a given case, acquires this increased productive power, because it heightens the mechanical force of labour, or extends its sphere of action over a greater space, or contracts the field of production relatively to the scale of production, or at the critical moment sets large masses of labour to work, or excites emulation between individuals and raises their animal spirits, or impresses on the similar operations carried on by a number of men the stamp of continuity and many-sidedness, or performs simultaneously different operations, or economises the means of production by use in common, or lends to individual labour the character of average social labour whichever of these be the cause of the increase, the special productive power of the combined working-day is, under all circumstances, the social productive power of labour, or the productive power of social labour. This power is due to co-operation itself. When the labourer co-operates systematically with others, he strips off the fetters of his individuality, and develops the capabilities of his species. ¹³

labour's own social power

It springs from cooperation itself. In planned, combined work with others, the worker sheds his individual limits and develops his species-capacity — the specifically human power to work socially.

As a general rule, labourers cannot co-operate without being brought together: their assemblage in one place is a necessary condition of their co-operation. Hence wage-labourers cannot co-operate, unless they are employed simultaneously by the same capital, the same capitalist, and unless therefore their labour-powers are bought simultaneously by him. The total value of these labour-powers, or the amount of the wages of these labourers for a day, or a week, as the case may be, must be ready in the pocket of the capitalist, before the workmen are assembled for the process of production. The payment of 300 workmen at once, though only for one day, requires a greater outlay of capital, than does the payment of a smaller number of men, week by week, during a whole year. Hence the number of the labourers that co-operate, or the scale of co-operation, depends, in the first instance, on the amount of capital that the individual capitalist can spare for the purchase of labour-power; in other words, on the extent to which a single capitalist has command over the means of subsistence of a number of labourers.

cooperation requires capital's advance

And as with the variable, so it is with the constant capital. For example, the outlay on raw material is 30 times as great, for the capitalist who employs 300 men, as it is for each of the 30 capitalists who employ 10 men. The value and quantity of the instruments of labour used in common do not, it is true, increase at the same rate as the number of workmen, but they do increase very considerably. Hence, concentration of large masses of the means of production in the hands of individual capitalists, is a material condition for the co-operation of wage-labourers, and the extent of the co-operation or the scale of production, depends on the extent of this concentration.

concentration of constant capital too

We saw in a former chapter, that a certain minimum amount of capital was necessary, in order that the number of labourers simultaneously employed, and, consequently, the amount of surplus-value produced, might suffice to liberate the employer himself from manual labour, to convert him from a small master into a capitalist, and thus formally to establish capitalist production. We now see that a certain minimum amount is a necessary condition for the conversion of numerous isolated and independent processes into one combined social process.

from formal threshold to material condition

We also saw that at first, the subjection of labour to capital was only a formal result of the fact, that the labourer, instead of working for himself, works for and consequently under the capitalist. By the co-operation of numerous wage-labourers, the sway of capital develops into a requisite for carrying on the labour-process itself, into a real requisite of production. That a capitalist should command on the field of production, is now as indispensable as that a general should command on the field of battle.

command becomes a production requisite

All combined labour on a large scale requires, more or less, a directing authority, in order to secure the harmonious working of the individual activities, and to perform the general functions that have their origin in the action of the combined organism, as distinguished from the action of its separate organs. A single violin player is his own conductor; an orchestra requires a separate one. The work of directing, superintending, and adjusting, becomes one of the functions of capital, from the moment that the labour under the control of capital, becomes co-operative. Once a function of capital, it acquires special characteristics.

the orchestra needs a conductor

The directing motive, the end and aim of capitalist production, is to extract the greatest possible amount of surplus-value, ¹⁴ and consequently to exploit labour-power to the greatest possible extent. As the number of the co-operating labourers increases, so too does their resistance to the domination of capital, and with it, the necessity for capital to overcome this resistance by counterpressure. The control exercised by the capitalist is not only a special function, due to the nature of the social labour-process, and peculiar to that process, but it is, at the same time, a function of the exploitation of a social labour-process, and is consequently rooted in the unavoidable antagonism between the exploiter and the living and labouring raw material he exploits.

Again, in proportion to the increasing mass of the means of production, now no longer the property of the labourer, but of the capitalist, the necessity increases for some effective control over the proper application of those means. ¹⁵ Moreover, the co-operation of wage labourers is entirely brought about by the capital that employs them. Their union into one single productive body and the establishment of a connexion between their individual functions, are matters foreign and external to them, are not their own act, but the act of the capital that brings and keeps them together. Hence the connexion existing between their various labours appears to them, ideally, in the shape of a preconceived plan of the capitalist, and practically in the shape of the authority of the same capitalist, in the shape of the powerful will of another, who subjects their activity to his aims.

the driving motive: exploitation

If, then, the control of the capitalist is in substance two-fold by reason of the two-fold nature of the process of production itself, which, on the one hand, is a social process for producing use-values, on the other, a process for creating surplus-value in form that control is despotic. As co-operation extends its scale, this despotism takes forms peculiar to itself. Just as at first the capitalist is relieved from actual labour so soon as his capital has reached that minimum amount with which capitalist production, as such, begins, so now, he hands over the work of direct and constant supervision of the individual workmen, and groups of workmen, to a special kind of wage-labourer. An industrial army of workmen, under the command of a capitalist, requires, like a real army, officers (managers), and sergeants (foremen, overlookers), who, while the work is being done, command in the name of the capitalist. The work of supervision becomes their established and exclusive function. When comparing the mode of production of isolated peasants and artisans with production by slave-labour, the political economist counts this labour of superintendence among the faux frais of production. ¹⁶ But, when considering the capitalist mode of production, he, on the contrary, treats the work of control made necessary by the co-operative character of the labour-process as identical with the different work of control, necessitated by the capitalist character of that process and the antagonism of interests between capitalist and labourer. ¹⁷ It is not because he is a leader of industry that a man is a capitalist; on the contrary, he is a leader of industry because he is a capitalist. The leadership of industry is an attribute of capital, just as in feudal times the functions of general and judge, were attributes of landed property. ¹⁸

twofold in content, despotic in form

The labourer is the owner of his labour-power until he has done bargaining for its sale with the capitalist; and he can sell no more than what he has i.e., his individual, isolated labour-power. This state of things is in no way altered by the fact that the capitalist, instead of buying the labour-power of one man, buys that of 100, and enters into separate contracts with 100 unconnected men instead of with one. He is at liberty to set the 100 men to work, without letting them co-operate. He pays them the value of 100 independent labour-powers, but he does not pay for the combined labour-power of the hundred. Being independent of each other, the labourers are isolated persons, who enter into relations with the capitalist, but not with one another. This co-operation begins only with the labour-process, but they have then ceased to belong to themselves. On entering that process, they become incorporated with capital. As co-operators, as members of a working organism, they are but special modes of existence of capital. Hence, the productive power developed by the labourer when working in co-operation, is the productive power of capital. This power is developed gratuitously, whenever the workmen are placed under given conditions, and it is capital that places them under such conditions. Because this power costs capital nothing, and because, on the other hand, the labourer himself does not develop it before his labour belongs to capital, it appears as a power with which capital is endowed by Nature – a productive power that is immanent in capital.

the unpaid combination

The colossal effects of simple co-operation are to be seen in the gigantic structures of the ancient Asiatics, Egyptians, Etruscans, &c.

the colossal effects

The colossal effect of simple cooperation shows itself in the gigantic works of the ancient Asiatics, Egyptians, Etruscans, and others.

“It has happened in times past that these Oriental States, after supplying the expenses of their civil and military establishments, have found themselves in possession of a surplus which they could apply to works of magnificence or utility and in the construction of these their command over the hands and arms of almost the entire non-agricultural population has produced stupendous monuments which still indicate their power. The teeming valley of the Nile ... produced food for a swarming non-agricultural population, and this food, belonging to the monarch and the priesthood, afforded the means of erecting the mighty monuments which filled the land.... In moving the colossal statues and vast masses of which the transport creates wonder, human labour almost alone, was prodigally used.... The number of the labourers and the concentration of their efforts sufficed. We see mighty coral reefs rising from the depths of the ocean into islands and firm land, yet each individual depositor is puny, weak, and contemptible. The non-agricultural labourers of an Asiatic monarchy have little but their individual bodily exertions to bring to the task, but their number is their strength, and the power of directing these masses gave rise to the palaces and temples, the pyramids, and the armies of gigantic statues of which the remains astonish and perplex us. It is that confinement of the revenues which feed them, to one or a few hands, which makes such undertakings possible.”

Richard Jones: concentrated revenue

This power of Asiatic and Egyptian kings, Etruscan theocrats, &c., has in modern society been transferred to the capitalist, whether he be an isolated, or as in joint-stock companies, a collective capitalist.

power transferred to the capitalist

Co-operation, such as we find it at the dawn of human development, among races who live by the chase, ²⁰ or, say, in the agriculture of Indian communities, is based, on the one hand, on ownership in common of the means of production, and on the other hand, on the fact, that in those cases, each individual has no more torn himself off from the navel-string of his tribe or community, than each bee has freed itself from connexion with the hive. Such co-operation is distinguished from capitalistic co-operation by both of the above characteristics. The sporadic application of co-operation on a large scale in ancient times, in the middle ages, and in modern colonies, reposes on relations of dominion and servitude, principally on slavery. The capitalistic form, on the contrary, pre-supposes from first to last, the free wage-labourer, who sells his labour-power to capital. Historically, however, this form is developed in opposition to peasant agriculture and to the carrying on of independent handicrafts whether in guilds or not. ²¹ From the standpoint of these, capitalistic co-operation does not manifest itself as a particular historical form of co-operation, but co-operation itself appears to be a historical form peculiar to, and specifically distinguishing, the capitalist process of production.

what is specific to capitalist cooperation

Just as the social productive power of labour that is developed by co-operation, appears to be the productive power of capital, so co-operation itself, contrasted with the process of production carried on by isolated independent labourers, or even by small employers, appears to be a specific form of the capitalist process of production. It is the first change experienced by the actual labour-process, when subjected to capital. This change takes place spontaneously. The simultaneous employment of a large number of wage-labourers, in one and the same process, which is a necessary condition of this change, also forms the starting-point of capitalist production. This point coincides with the birth of capital itself. If then, on the one hand, the capitalist mode of production presents itself to us historically, as a necessary condition to the transformation of the labour-process into a social process, so, on the other hand, this social form of the labour-process presents itself, as a method employed by capital for the more profitable exploitation of labour, by increasing that labour’s productiveness.

the first change under capital

In the elementary form, under which we have hitherto viewed it, co-operation is a necessary concomitant of all production on a large scale, but it does not, in itself, represent a fixed form characteristic of a particular epoch in the development of the capitalist mode of production. At the most it appears to do so, and that only approximately, in the handicraft-like beginnings of manufacture, ²² and in that kind of agriculture on a large scale, which corresponds to the epoch of manufacture, and is distinguished from peasant agriculture, mainly by the number of the labourers simultaneously employed, and by the mass of the means of production concentrated for their use. Simple co-operation is always the prevailing form, in those branches of production in which capital operates on a large scale, and division of labour and machinery play but a subordinate part.

simple cooperation fixes no whole epoch

Simple cooperation remains the prevailing form in those branches of production where capital operates on a large scale without division of labour or machinery playing any significant role.

Co-operation ever constitutes the fundamental form of the capitalist mode of production, nevertheless the elementary form of co-operation continues to subsist as a particular form of capitalist production side by side with the more developed forms of that mode of production.

the fundamental form persists

Cooperation remains the fundamental form of the capitalist mode of production, even though its simple shape continues to appear as one particular form alongside its further-developed forms.