Das Kapital — Kap. 19 · semantic zoom

K.19

Der Stücklohn

Chapter 18 separated a daily wage-total from the hourly price of labour. Chapter 19 follows the same wage relation into payment by product, where the product-count form makes labour-power appear to be paid as labour or as a finished thing.

Der Stücklohn ist nichts als verwandelte Form des Zeitlohns, wie der Zeitlohn die verwandelte Form des Wertes oder Preises der Arbeitskraft.

A transformed wage form

Piece-wage is only a transformed form of time-wage; time-wage is itself the transformed form in which labour-power’s value or price appears.

Beim Stücklohn sieht es auf den ersten Blick aus, als ob der vom Arbeiter verkaufte Gebrauchswert nicht die Funktion seiner Arbeitskraft sei, lebendige Arbeit, sondern bereits im Produkt vergegenständlichte Arbeit, und als ob der Preis dieser Arbeit nicht wie beim Zeitlohn durch die Bruchzahl

The product-payment appearance

Piece-wage initially makes the relation look otherwise. It seems as though the use-value bought from the worker were not living labour, the use of labour-power, but labour already objectified in the product; it further seems that its price is not determined as in time-wage by the fraction:

Tageswert der Arbeitskraft
/
Arbeitstag von gegebner Stundenzahl

The hidden fraction

Daily value of labour-power / working day of a given number of hours.

, sondern durch die Leistungsfähigkeit des Produzenten bestimmt werde.⁴⁵

Producer capacity seems decisive

The appearance is completed by treating the producer’s capacity for work as the determinant of price.

Zunächst müßte die Zuversicht, die an diesen Schein glaubt, bereits stark erschüttert werden durch die Tatsache, daß beide Formen des Arbeitslohns zur selben Zeit in denselben Geschäftszweigen nebeneinander bestehn. Z.B.

A first shock

Confidence in this appearance should be shaken by a simple fact: time- and piece-wages coexist simultaneously in the same branches of industry.

"Die Setzer von London arbeiten in der Regel nach Stücklohn, während Zeitlohn bei ihnen die Ausnahme bildet. Umgekehrt bei den Setzern in den Provinzen, wo der Zeitlohn die Regel und der Stücklohn die Ausnahme. Die Schiffszimmerleute im Hafen von London werden nach Stücklohn bezahlt, in allen andren englischen Häfen nach Zeitlohn."⁴⁶

London and provincial compositors

Dunning is quoted: London compositors generally work by the piece while provincial compositors generally work by time; London shipwrights work by job or piece while shipwrights elsewhere work by the day. The evidence remains Dunning’s attributed account.

In denselben Londoner Sattlerwerkstätten wird oft für dieselbe Arbeit den Franzosen Stücklohn und den Engländern Zeitlohn gezahlt. In den eigentlichen Fabriken, wo Stücklohn allgemein vorherrscht, entziehn sich einzelne Arbeitsfunktionen aus technischen Gründen dieser Messung und werden daher nach Zeitlohn gezahlt.⁴⁷ An und für sich ist es jedoch klar, daß die Formverschiedenheit in der Auszahlung des Arbeitslohns an seinem Wesen nichts ändert, obgleich die eine Form der Entwicklung der kapitalistischen Produktion günstiger sein mag als die andre.

Same work, different forms

London saddlery shops can pay French workers by piece and English workers by time for the same work. In factories where piece-wage predominates, technical exceptions can still be paid by time. The form of payment therefore changes nothing essential in the wage relation, though one form may better suit capitalist production.

Der gewöhnliche Arbeitstag betrage 12 Stunden, wovon 6 bezahlt, 6 unbezahlt. Sein Wertprodukt sei 6 sh., das einer Arbeitsstunde daher 6 d. Es stelle sich erfahrungsmäßig heraus, daß ein Arbeiter, der mit dem Durchschnittsgrad von Intensität und Geschick arbeitet, in der Tat also nur die gesellschaftlich notwendige Arbeitszeit zur Produktion eines Artikels verwendet, 24 Stücke, ob diskret, oder meßbare Teile eines kontinuierlichen Machwerks, in 12 Stunden liefert. So ist der Wert dieser 24 Stücke, nach Abzug des in ihnen enthaltnen konstanten Kapitalteils, 6 sh. und der Wert des einzelnen Stücks 3 d. Der Arbeiter erhält per Stücke 1 1 / 2 d. und verdient so in 12 Stunden 3 sh. Wie es beim Zeitlohn gleichgültig ist, ob man annimmt, daß der Arbeiter 6 Stunden für sich und 6 für den Kapitalisten, oder von jeder Stunde die eine Hälfte für sich und die andre für den Kapitalisten arbeitet, so auch hier, ob man sagt, jedes einzelne Stück sei halb bezahlt und halb unbezahlt, oder der Preis von 12 Stücken ersetze nur den Wert der Arbeitskraft, während in den 12 andern sich der Mehrwert verkörpere.

Paid and unpaid pieces

Take a twelve-hour day: six paid hours and six unpaid. Its value-product is 6s., so one hour creates 6d. A worker of average intensity and skill supplies 24 pieces in those twelve hours, using socially necessary labour-time. After constant capital is deducted, the 24 pieces contain 6s. of new value: 3d. each. At 1½d. per piece the worker receives 3s. The relation can be read in either equivalent way. Each piece is half paid and half unpaid; or the price of 12 pieces replaces labour-power’s value while surplus-value is embodied in the other 12.

Die Form des Stücklohns ist ebenso irrationell als die des Zeitlohns. Während z.B. zwei Stück Ware, nach Abzug des Werts der in ihnen aufgezehrten Produktionsmittel, als Produkt einer Arbeitsstunde 6 d. wert sind, erhält der Arbeiter für sie einen Preis von 3 d. Der Stücklohn drückt unmittelbar in der Tat kein Wertverhältnis aus. Es handelt sich nicht darum, den Wert des Stücks durch die in ihm verkörperte Arbeitszeit zu messen, sondern umgekehrt die vom Arbeiter verausgabte Arbeit durch die Zahl der von ihm produzierten Stücke. Beim Zeitlohn mißt sich die Arbeit an ihrer unmittelbaren Zeitdauer, beim Stücklohn am Produktenquantum, worin Arbeit während bestimmter Zeitdauer verdichtet.⁴⁸ Der Preis der Arbeitszeit selbst ist schließlich bestimmt durch die Gleichung: Wert der Tagesarbeit = Tageswert der Arbeitskraft. Der Stücklohn ist also nur eine modifizierte Form des Zeitlohns.

An irrational wage form

Piece-wage is as irrational a form as time-wage. Two pieces may contain 6d. of new value as one hour’s product while the worker receives 3d. for them. The issue is not measuring a product’s value by labour-time embodied in it; it is instead measuring the worker’s expended labour by the number of pieces produced. Time-wage measures immediate duration; piece-wage measures the product quantity in which labour is condensed during a given time. The price of labour-time is finally determined by the equation “value of a day’s labour = daily value of labour-power.” Piece-wage is therefore only modified time-wage.

Betrachten wir nun etwas näher die charakteristischen Eigentümlichkeiten des Stücklohns.

Characteristic mechanisms

Marx now turns from the wage form’s relation to its characteristic mechanisms.

Die Qualität der Arbeit ist hier durch das Werk selbst kontrolliert, das die durchschnittliche Güte besitzen muß, soll der Stückpreise voll bezahlt werden. Der Stücklohn wird nach dieser Seite hin zu fruchtbarster Quelle von Lohnabzügen und kapitalistischer Prellerei.

Quality becomes a deduction

The work itself controls quality: it must meet an average standard for the full piece-price to be paid. Piece-wage thereby becomes a fruitful source of wage deductions and capitalist cheating.

Er bietet den Kapitalisten ein ganz bestimmtes Maß für die Intensität der Arbeit. Nur Arbeitszeit, die sich in einem vorher bestimmten und erfahrungsmäßig festgesetzten Warenquantum verkörpert, gilt als gesellschaftlich notwendige Arbeitszeit und wird als solche bezahlt. In den größeren Schneiderwerkstätten Londons heißt daher ein gewisses Stück Arbeit, z.B. eine Weste usw., Stunde, halbe Stunde usw., die Stunde zu 6 d. Aus der Praxis ist bekannt, wieviel das Durchschnittsprodukt einer Stunde. Bei neuen Moden, Reparaturen usw. entsteht Streit zwischen Anwender und Arbeiter, ob ein bestimmtes Arbeitsstück = einer Stunde usw., bis auch hier die Erfahrung entscheidet. Ähnlich in den Londoner Möbelschreinereien usw. Besitzt der Arbeiter nicht die durchschnittliche Leistungsfähigkeit, kann er daher ein bestimmtes Minimum vom Tagwerk nicht liefern, so entläßt man ihn.⁴⁹

Quota measures intensity

Piece-wage gives capital a definite measure of intensity. Only labour embodied in a pre-set, experience-tested quantity of commodities counts as socially necessary and is paid. London tailoring calls a waistcoat or similar job an hour or half-hour at 6d.; average output is known from practice, while fashions and repairs can provoke disputes until experience settles them. London furniture workshops work similarly. A worker unable to provide the minimum average day’s output can be dismissed.

Da Qualität und Intensität der Arbeit hier durch die Form des Arbeitslohns selbst kontrolliert werden, macht sie großen Teil der Arbeitsaufsicht überflüssig. Sie bildet daher sowohl die Grundlage der früher geschilderten modernen Hausarbeit als eines hierarchisch gegliederten Systems der Exploitation und Unterdrückung. Das letztere besitzt zwei Grundformen. Der Stücklohn erleichtert einerseits das Zwischenschieben von Parasiten zwischen Kapitalist und Lohnarbeiter, Unterverpachtung der Arbeit (subletting of labour). Der Gewinn der Zwischenpersonen fließt ausschließlich aus der Differenz zwischen dem Arbeitspreis, den der Kapitalist zahlt, und dem Teil dieses Preises, den sie dem Arbeiter wirklich zukommen lassen.⁵⁰ Dies System heißt in England charakteristisch das "Sweating-System" (Ausschweißungssystem). Andrerseits erlaubt der Stücklohn dem Kapitalisten, mit dem Hauptarbeiter - in der Manufaktur mit dem Chef einer Gruppe, in den Minen mit dem Ausbrecher der Kohle usw., in der Fabrik mit dem eigentlichen Maschinenarbeiter - einen Kontrakt für soviel per Stück zu schließen, zu einem Preis, wofür der Hauptarbeiter selbst die Anwerbung und Zahlung seiner Hilfsarbeiter übernimmt. Die Exploitation der Arbeiter durch das Kapital verwirklicht sich hier vermittelst der Exploitation des Arbeiters durch den Arbeiter.⁵¹

Control without supervision

Because quality and intensity are controlled through the wage form, much supervision becomes superfluous. Piece-wage supports modern domestic labour and a hierarchy of exploitation and oppression. One form inserts intermediaries between capital and wage-labour: their profit is the difference between the labour-price capital pays and what reaches the worker, the English “sweating system.” The other contracts through a head worker, who recruits and pays assistants; capital’s exploitation is mediated by labourers’ exploitation of labourers.

Den Stücklohn gegeben, ist es natürlich das persönliche Interesse des Arbeiters, seine Arbeitskraft möglichst intensiv anzuspannen, was dem Kapitalisten eine Erhöhung des Normalgrads der Intensität erleichtert.^51a

Intensifying oneself

Given piece-wage, workers have a personal interest in straining labour-power as intensely as possible, which makes it easier for capital to raise the normal degree of intensity.

Es ist ebenso das persönliche Interesse des Arbeiters, den Arbeitstag zu verlängern, weil damit sein Tages- oder Wochenlohn steigt.⁵² Es tritt damit die beim Zeitlohn bereits geschilderte Reaktion ein, abgesehn davon, daß die Verlängerung des Arbeitstags, selbst bei konstant bleibendem Stücklohn, an und für sich eine Senkung im Preise der Arbeit einschließt.

Longer days, lower labour-price

Workers likewise have an interest in lengthening the day because daily or weekly receipts rise with it. This brings back the time-wage reaction: even when the piece-rate remains constant, a longer day itself includes a fall in the price of labour.

Beim Zeitlohn herrscht mit wenigen Ausnahmen gleicher Arbeitslohn für dieselben Funktionen, während beim Stücklohn der Preis der Arbeitszeit zwar durch ein bestimmtes Produktenquantum gemessen ist, der Tags- oder Wochenlohn dagegen wechselt mit der individuellen Verschiedenheit der Arbeiter, wovon der eine nur das Minimum des Produkts in einer gegebnen Zeit liefert, der andre den Durchschnitt, der dritte mehr als den Durchschnitt. In bezug auf die wirkliche Einnahme treten hier also große Differenzen ein je nach dem verschiednen Geschick, Kraft, Energie, Ausdauer usw. der individuellen Arbeiter.⁵³ Dies ändert natürlich nichts an dem allgemeinen Verhältnis zwischen Kapital und Lohnarbeit. Erstens gleichen sich die individuellen Unterschiede für die Gesamtwerkstatt aus, so daß sie in einer bestimmten Arbeitszeit das Durchschnittsprodukt liefert und der gezahlte Gesamtlohn der Durchschnittslohn des Geschäftszweigs sein wird. Zweitens bleibt die Proportion zwischen Arbeitslohn und Mehrwert unverändert, da dem individuellen Lohn des einzelnen Arbeiters die von ihm individuell gelieferte Masse von Mehrwert entspricht. Aber der größere Spielraum, den der Stücklohn der Individualität bietet, strebt einerseits dahin, die Individualität und damit Freiheitsgefühl, Selbständigkeit und Selbstkontrolle der Arbeiter zu entwickeln, andrerseits ihre Konkurrenz unter- und gegeneinander. Er hat daher eine Tendenz, mit der Erhebung individueller Arbeitslöhne über das Durchschnittsniveau dies Niveau selbst zu senken. Wo aber bestimmter Stücklohn sich seit lange traditionell befestigt hatte und seine Herabsetzung daher besondre Schwierigkeiten bot, flüchteten die Meister ausnahmsweise auch zu seiner gewaltsamen Verwandlung in Zeitlohn. Hiergegen z.B. 1860 großer strike unter den Bandwebern von Conventry.⁵⁴ Der Stücklohn ist endlich eine Hauptstütze des früher geschilderten Stundensystems.⁵⁵

Individual variation, unchanged relation

Time-wage normally pays the same rate for the same function. Under piece-wage, product quantity measures labour-time while day or week earnings vary with workers’ skill, strength, energy, and endurance. Yet the general relation of capital and wage-labour does not change: individual differences average out across the workshop, and the wage/surplus-value proportion remains. The wider scope for individuality can develop feelings of liberty, independence, and self-control, while also producing competition among workers and a tendency to lower the average. Where a traditional piece-rate was hard to cut, masters could forcibly convert it to time-wage; Marx cites the 1860 Coventry ribbon-weavers’ strike. Piece-wage also supports the hour-system.

Aus der bisherigen Darstellung ergibt sich, daß der Stücklohn die der kapitalistischen Produktionsweise entsprechendste Form des Arbeitslohns ist. Obgleich keineswegs neu - er figuriert neben dem Zeitlohn offiziell u.a. in den französischen und englischen Arbeiterstatuten des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts -, gewinnt er doch erst größren Spielraum während der eigentlichen Manufakturperiode. In der Sturm- und Drangperiode der großen Industrie, namentlich von 1797 bis 1815, dient er als Hebel zur Verlängrung der Arbeitszeit und Herabsetzung des Arbeitslohns. Sehr wichtiges Material für die Bewegung des Arbeitslohns während jener Periode findet man in den Blaubüchern: "Report and Evidence from the Select Committee on Petitions respecting the Corn Laws" (Parlamentssession 1813/14) und "Reports from the Lords' Committee, on the state of the Growth, Commerce, and Consumption of Grain, and all Laws relating thereto". (Session 1814/15.) Man findet hier den dukumentarischen Nachweis für die fortwährende Senkung des Arbeitspreises seit dem Beginn des Antijakobinerkriegs. In der Weberei z.B. war der Stücklohn so gefallen, daß trotz des sehr verlängerten Arbeitstags der Taglohn jetzt niedriger stand als vorher.

A historical wage lever

Piece-wage is the form of wages most suited to capitalist production. It is not new: French and English labour statutes already record it beside time-wage in the fourteenth century, but it expands during manufacture. In the stormy youth of modern industry, especially from 1797 to 1815, it serves as a lever for longer working days and lower wages. Marx points to parliamentary Corn-Law and grain reports of 1813–15 as documentary evidence of the continuing fall in labour’s price from the anti-Jacobin War; in weaving, piece-rates fell so far that even much longer days yielded lower daily wages.

"Die reale Einnahme des Webers ist sehr viel weniger als früher: seine Superiorität über den gewöhnlichen Arbeiter, die erst sehr groß war, ist fast ganz verschwunden. In der Tat, der Unterschied in den Löhnen geschickter und gewöhnlicher Arbeit ist jetzt viel unbedeutender als während irgendeiner früheren Periode."⁵⁶

The weaver's testimony

A quoted 1815 source says the cotton weaver’s real earnings had fallen far below their former level and that the earlier wage difference between skilled and ordinary labour had nearly disappeared. This is the attributed testimony in Remarks on the Commercial Policy of Great Britain, not an unmarked narrator claim.

Wie wenig die mit dem Stücklohn gesteigerte Intensität und Ausdehnung der Arbeit dem ländlichen Proletariat fruchteten, zeige folgende einer Parteischrift für Landlords und Pächter entlehnte Stelle:

A landlord-side source

Marx introduces the next rural evidence as a passage taken from a partisan writing for landlords and farmers, to show how little piece-wage’s increased intensity and extension benefited the agricultural proletariat.

"Bei weitem der größere Teil der Agrikulturoperationen wird durch Leute verrichtet, die für den Tag oder auf Stückwerk gedungen sind. Ihr Wochenlohn beträgt ungefähr 12 sh.; und obgleich man voraussetzen mag, daß ein Mann bei Stücklohn, unter dem größeren Arbeitssporn, 1 sh. oder vielleicht 2 sh. mehr verdient als beim Wochenlohn, so findet man dennoch, bei Schätzung seiner Gesamteinnahme, daß sein Verlust an Beschäftigung im Lauf des Jahrs diesen Zuschuß aufwiegt ... Man wird ferner im allgemeinen finden, daß die Löhne dieser Männer ein gewisses Verhältnis zum Preis der notwendigen Lebensmittel haben, so daß ein Mann mit zwei Kindern fähig ist, seine Familie ohne Zuflucht zur Pfarreiunterstützung zu erhalten."⁵⁷

Rural piece-work testimony

The attributed landlord/farmer passage says most agricultural operations are done by day hires or piece-workers earning about 12s. weekly. It allows that piece-work may add 1s. or 2s., but says annual loss of employment outweighs the addition; it also claims wages bear a relation to necessary food prices sufficient for a man with two children without parish relief. The claims remain those of A Defence of the Landowners and Farmers of Great Britain.

Malthus bemerkte damals mit Bezug auf die vom Parlament veröffentlichten Tatsachen:

Malthus responds

Marx next introduces Malthus’s response to facts published by Parliament.

"Ich gestehe, ich sehe mit Mißvergnügen die große Ausdehnung der Praxis des Stücklohns. Wirklich harte Arbeit während 12 oder 14 Stunden des Tags, für irgend längere Zeitperioden, ist zuviel für ein menschliches Wesen."⁵⁸

Hard work's human limit

Malthus is quoted as viewing the great expansion of piece-wage with misgiving: genuinely hard labour for twelve or fourteen hours a day, or longer periods, is too much for a human being. This is Malthus’s attributed statement.

In den dem Fabrikgesetz unterworfenen Werkstätten wird Stücklohn allgemeine Regel, weil das Kapital dort den Arbeitstag nur noch intensiv ausweiten kann.⁵⁹

Factory Acts and intensification

In workshops governed by Factory Acts, piece-wage becomes the general rule because capital can extend the day only intensively there.

Mit der wechselnden Produktivität der Arbeit stellt dasselbe Produktenquantum wechselnde Arbeitszeit dar. Also wechselt auch der Stücklohn, da er Preisausdruck einer bestimmten Arbeitszeit. In unserem obigen Beispiel wurden in 12 Stunden 24 Stück produziert, während das Wertprodukt der 12 Stunden 6 sh. war, der Tageswert der Arbeitskraft 3 sh., der Preis der Arbeitsstunde 3 d. und der Lohn für ein Stück 1 1 / 2 d. In einem Stück war 1 / 2 Arbeitsstunde eingesaugt. Liefert derselbe Arbeitstag nun etwa infolge verdoppelter Produktivität der Arbeit 48 Stück statt 24, und bleiben alle andern Umstände unverändert, so sinkt der Stücklohn von 1 1 / 2 d. auf 3 / 4 d., da jedes Stück jetzt nur noch 1 / 4 statt 1 / 2 Arbeitsstunde darstellt. 24 × 1 1 / 2 d. = 3 sh. und ebenso 48 × 3 / 4 d. = 3 sh. In anderen Worten: Der Stücklohn wird in demselben Verhältnis heruntergesetzt, worin die Zahl der während derselben Zeit produzierten Stücke wächst⁶⁰, also die auf dasselbe Stück verwandte Arbeitszeit abnimmt. Dieser Wechsel des Stücklohns, soweit rein nominell, ruft beständige Kämpfe zwischen Kapitalist und Arbeiter hervor. Entweder, weil der Kapitalist den Vorwand benutzt, um wirklich den Preis der Arbeit herabzusetzen, oder weil die gesteigerte Produktivkraft der Arbeit von gesteigerter Intensität derselben begleitet ist. Oder weil der Arbeiter den Schein des Stücklohns, als ob ihm sein Produkt gezahlt werde und nicht seine Arbeitskraft, ernst nimmt und sich daher gegen eine Lohnherabsetzung sträubt, welcher die Herabsetzung im Verkaufspreis der Ware nicht entspricht.

Productivity changes piece-rates

The same quantity of product represents different labour-times as productivity changes, so the piece-rate, the money expression of a determined labour-time, changes too. In the earlier twelve-hour example, 24 pieces yield a 6s. value-product; labour-power’s daily value is 3s., the labour-hour’s price 3d., and the piece-rate 1½d. Each piece contains one-half hour. If doubled productivity yields 48 pieces, each contains one-quarter hour and the rate falls to ¾d.: 24 × 1½d. = 3s. and 48 × ¾d. = 3s. The local Moore–Aveling transcription drops the leading 1 in the setup and reads ½d.; the original 1887 scan, p. 569, prints 1½d., agreeing with the German, the stated fall, and both equalities. This rate change is purely nominal only under those unchanged conditions. It still produces conflict if capital uses it as a pretext for a real cut, if productivity is accompanied by intensified labour, or if workers take seriously the appearance that their product rather than their labour-power is paid and resist a rate cut not matched by a lower selling price.

"Die Arbeiter überwachen sorgfältig den Preis des Rohmaterials und den Preis der fabrizierten Güter und sind so fähig, die Profite ihrer Meister genau zu veranschlagen."⁶¹

Operatives estimate profit

Fawcett is quoted: operatives watch raw-material and manufactured-goods prices and therefore believe themselves able to estimate their masters’ profits. This is the operatives’ attributed claim.

Solchen Anspruch <3. und 4. Auflage: Ausspruch> fertigt das Kapital mit Recht als groben Irrtum über die Natur der Lohnarbeit ab.⁶² Es zetert über diese Anmaßung, Steuern auf den Fortschritt der Industrie zu legen, und erklärt rundweg, daß die Produktivität der Arbeit <4. Auflage: Arbeiter> den Arbeiter überhaupt nichts angeht.⁶³

Capital's dismissive answer

Capital dismisses that claim as a gross error about wage-labour, denounces an alleged tax on industrial progress, and declares that productivity does not concern workers. This is staged as capital’s polemical reply, not Marx’s endorsed rule.

K.19

Piece-Wages

Wages by the piece are nothing else than a converted form of wages by time, just as wages by time are a converted form of the value or price of labour-power.

A transformed wage form

Piece-wage is only a transformed form of time-wage; time-wage is itself the transformed form in which labour-power’s value or price appears.

In piece wages it seems at first sight as if the use-value bought from the labourer was, not the function of his labour-power, living labour, but labour already realized in the product, and as if the price of this labour was determined, not as with time-wages, by the fraction

The product-payment appearance

daily value of labour-power
the working day of a given number of hours

The hidden fraction

Daily value of labour-power / working day of a given number of hours.

but by the capacity for work of the producer. ¹

Producer capacity seems decisive

The appearance is completed by treating the producer’s capacity for work as the determinant of price.

The confidence that trusts in this appearance ought to receive a first severe shock from the fact that both forms of wages exist side by side, simultaneously, in the same branches of industry; e.g.,

A first shock

Confidence in this appearance should be shaken by a simple fact: time- and piece-wages coexist simultaneously in the same branches of industry.

“the compositors of London, as a general rule, work by the piece, time-work being the exception, while those in the country work by the day, the exception being work by the piece. The shipwrights of the port of London work by the job or piece, while those of all other parts work by the day.” ²

London and provincial compositors

In the same saddlery shops of London, often for the same work, piece wages are paid to the French, time-wages to the English. In the regular factories in which throughout piece wages predominate, particular kinds of work are unsuitable to this form of wage, and are therefore paid by time. ³ But it is, moreover, self-evident that the difference of form in the payment of wages alters in no way their essential nature, although the one form may be more favorable to the development of capitalist production than the other.

Same work, different forms

Let the ordinary working-day contain 12 hours of which 6 are paid, 6 unpaid. Let its value-product be 6 shillings, that of one hour’s labour therefore 6d. Let us suppose that, as the result of experience, a labourer who works with the average amount of intensity and skill, who, therefore, gives in fact only the time socially necessary to the production of an article, supplies in 12 hours 24 pieces, either distinct products or measurable parts of a continuous whole. Then the value of these 24 pieces, after. subtraction of the portion of constant capital contained in them, is 6 shillings, and the value of a single piece 3d. The labourer receives 1 ½d. per piece, and thus earns in 12 hours 3 shillings. Just as, with time-wages, it does not matter whether we assume that the labourer works 6 hours for himself and 6 hours for the capitalist, or half of every hour for himself, and the other half for the capitalist, so here it does not matter whether we say that each individual piece is half paid, and half unpaid for, or that the price of 12 pieces is the equivalent only of the value of the labour-power, whilst in the other 12 pieces surplus-value is incorporated.

Paid and unpaid pieces

The form of piece wages is just as irrational as that of time-wages. Whilst in our example two pieces of a commodity, after subtraction of the value of the means of production consumed in them, are worth 6d. as being the product of one hour, the labourer receives for them a price of 3d. Piece wages do not, in fact, distinctly express any relation of value. It is not, therefore, a question of measuring the value of the piece by the working-time incorporated in it, but on the contrary, of measuring the working-time the labourer has expended by the number of pieces he has produced. In time-wages, the labour is measured by its immediate duration; in piece wages, by the quantity of products in which the labour has embodied itself during a given time. ⁴ The price of labour time itself is finally determined by the equation: value of a day’s labour = daily value of labour-power. Piece-wage is, therefore, only a modified form of time-wage.

An irrational wage form

Let us now consider a little more closely the characteristic peculiarities of piece wages.

Characteristic mechanisms

Marx now turns from the wage form’s relation to its characteristic mechanisms.

The quality of the labour is here controlled by the work itself, which must be of average perfection if the piece-price is to be paid in full. Piece wages become, from this point of view, the most fruitful source of reductions of wages and capitalistic cheating.

Quality becomes a deduction

The work itself controls quality: it must meet an average standard for the full piece-price to be paid. Piece-wage thereby becomes a fruitful source of wage deductions and capitalist cheating.

They furnish to the capitalist an exact measure for the intensity of labour. Only the working-time which is embodied in a quantum of commodities determined beforehand, and experimentally fixed, counts as socially necessary working-time, and is paid as such. In the larger workshops of the London tailors, therefore, a certain piece of work, a waistcoat, e.g., is called an hour, or half an hour, the hour at 6d. By practice it is known how much is the average product of one hour. With new fashions, repairs, &c., a contest arises between master and labourer as to whether a particular piece of work is one hour, and so on, until here also experience decides. Similarly in the London furniture workshops, &c. If the labourer does not possess the average capacity, if he cannot in consequence supply a certain minimum of work per day, he is dismissed. ⁵

Quota measures intensity

Since the quality and intensity of the work are here controlled by the form of wage itself, superintendence of labour becomes in great part superfluous. Piece wages therefore lay the foundation of the modern “domestic labour,” described above, as well as of a hierarchically organized system of exploitation and oppression. The latter has two fundamental forms. On the one hand, piece wages facilitate the interposition of parasites between the capitalist and the wage-labourer, the “sub-letting of labour.” The gain of these middlemen comes entirely from the difference between the labour-price which the capitalist pays, and the part of that price which they actually allow to reach the labourer. ⁶ In England this system is characteristically called the “sweating system.” On the other hand, piece-wage allows the capitalist to make a contract for so much per piece with the head labourer — in manufactures with the chief of some group, in mines with the extractor of the coal, in the factory with the actual machine-worker — at a price for which the head labourer himself undertakes the enlisting and payment of his assistant work people. The exploitation of the labourer by capital is here effected through the exploitation of the labourer by the labourer. ⁷

Control without supervision

Given piece-wage, it is naturally the personal interest of the labourer to strain his labour-power as intensely as possible; this enables the capitalist to raise more easily the normal degree of intensity of labour. ⁸ It is moreover now the personal interest of the labourer to lengthen the working-day, since with it his daily or weekly wages rise. ⁹ This gradually brings on a reaction like that already described in time-wages, without reckoning that the prolongation of the working-day, even if the piece wage remains constant, includes of necessity a fall in the price of the labour.

Intensifying oneself

Given piece-wage, workers have a personal interest in straining labour-power as intensely as possible, which makes it easier for capital to raise the normal degree of intensity.

M–A merges

Longer days, lower labour-price

In time-wages, with few exceptions, the same wage holds for the same kind of work, whilst in piece wages, though the price of the working time is measured by a certain quantity of product, the day’s or week’s wage will vary with the individual differences of the labourers, of whom one supplies in a given time the minimum of product only, another the average, a third more than the average. With regard to actual receipts there is, therefore, great variety according to the different skill, strength, energy, staying-power, &c., of the individual labourers. ¹⁰ Of course this does not alter the general relations between capital and wage-labour. First, the individual differences balance one another in the workshop as a whole, which thus supplies in a given working-time the average product, and the total wages paid will be the average wages of that particular branch of industry. Second, the proportion between wages and surplus-value remains unaltered, since the mass of surplus labour supplied by each particular labourer corresponds with the wage received by him. But the wider scope that piece-wage gives to individuality tends to develop on the one hand that individuality, and with it the sense of liberty, independence, and self-control of the labourers, and on the other, their competition one with another. Piece-work has, therefore, a tendency, while raising individual wages above the average, to lower this average itself. But where a particular rate of piece-wage has for a long time been fixed by tradition, and its lowering, therefore, presented especial difficulties, the masters, in such exceptional cases, sometimes had recourse to its compulsory transformation into time-wages. Hence, e.g., in 1860 a great strike among the ribbon-weavers of Coventry. ¹¹ Piece-wage is finally one of the chief supports of the hour-system described in the preceding chapter. ¹²

Individual variation, unchanged relation

From what has been shown so far, it follows that piece-wage is the form of wages most in harmony with the capitalist mode of production. Although by no means new — it figures side by side with time-wages officially in the French and English labour statutes of the 14th century — it only conquers a larger field for action during the period of manufacture, properly so-called. In the stormy youth of modern industry, especially from 1797 to 1815, it served as a lever for the lengthening of the working-day, and the lowering of wages. Very important materials for the fluctuation of wages during that period are to be found in the Blue books: “Report and Evidence from the Select Committee on Petitions respecting the Corn Laws” (Parliamentary Session of 1813-14), and “Report from the Lords’ Committee, on the State of the Growth, Commerce, and Consumption of Grain, and all Laws relating thereto” (Session of 1814-15). Here we find documentary evidence of the constant lowering of the price of labour from the beginning of the anti-Jacobin War. In the weaving industry, e.g., piece wages had fallen so low that, in spite of the very great lengthening of the working-day, the daily wages were then lower than before.

A historical wage lever

“The real earnings of the cotton weaver are now far less than they were; his superiority over the common labourer, which at first was very great, has now almost entirely ceased. Indeed... the difference in the wages of skillful and common labour is far less now than at any former period.” ¹³

The weaver's testimony

How little the increased intensity and extension of labour through piece wages benefited the agricultural proletariat, the following passage borrowed from a work on the side of the landlords and farmers shows:

A landlord-side source

“By far the greater part of agricultural operations is done by people who are hired for the day or on piece-work. Their weekly wages are about 12s., and although it may be assumed that a man earns on piece-work under the greater stimulus to labour, 1s. or perhaps 2s. more than on weekly wages, yet it is found, on calculating his total income, that his loss of employment, during the year, outweighs this gain...Further, it will generally be found that the wages of these men bear a certain proportion to the price of the necessary means of subsistence, so that a man with two children is able to bring up his family without recourse to parish relief.” ¹⁴

Rural piece-work testimony

Malthus at that time remarked with reference to the facts published by Parliament:

Malthus responds

Marx next introduces Malthus’s response to facts published by Parliament.

“I confess that I see, with misgiving, the great extension of the practice of piece-wage. Really hard work during 12 or 14 hours of the day, or for any longer time, is too much for any human being.” ¹⁵

Hard work's human limit

In the workshops under the Factory Acts, piece wages become the general rule, because capital can there only increase the efficacy of the working-day by intensifying labour. ¹⁶

Factory Acts and intensification

In workshops governed by Factory Acts, piece-wage becomes the general rule because capital can extend the day only intensively there.

With the changing productiveness of labour the same quantum of product represents a varying working-time. Therefore, piece-wage also varies, for it is the money expression of a determined working-time. In our example above, 24 pieces were produced in 12 hours, whilst the value of the product of the 12 hours was 6s., the daily value of the labour-power 3s., the price of the labour-hour 3d., and the wage for one piece ½d. In one piece half-an-hour’s labour was absorbed. If the same working-day now supplies, in consequence of the doubled productiveness of labour, 48 pieces instead of 24, and all other circumstances remain unchanged, then the piece-wage falls from 1 ½d. to 3/4d., as every piece now only represents 1/4, instead of ½ of a working-hour. 24 by 1½d. = 3s., and in like manner 48 by 3/4d. = 3s. In other words, piece-wage is lowered in the same proportion as the number of the pieces produced in the same time rises, ¹⁷ and, therefore, as the working time spent on the same piece falls. This change in piece-wage, so far purely nominal, leads to constant battles between capitalist and labour. Either because the capitalist uses it as a pretext for actually lowering the price of labour, or because increased productive power of labour is accompanied by an increased intensity of the same. Or because the labourer takes seriously the appearance of piece wages (viz., that his product is paid for, and not his labour-power) and therefore revolts against a lowering of wages, unaccompanied by a lowering in the selling price of the commodity.

Productivity changes piece-rates

“The operatives...carefully watch the price of the raw material and the price of manufactured goods, and are thus enabled to form an accurate estimate of their master’s profits.” ¹⁸

Operatives estimate profit

Fawcett is quoted: operatives watch raw-material and manufactured-goods prices and therefore believe themselves able to estimate their masters’ profits. This is the operatives’ attributed claim.

The capitalist rightly knocks on the head such pretensions as gross errors as to the nature of wage-labour. ¹⁹ He cries out against this usurping attempt to lay taxes on the advance of industry, and declares roundly that the productiveness of labour does not concern the labourer at all. ²⁰

Capital's dismissive answer