“ In capitalist society spare time is acquired for one class by converting the whole life-time of the masses into labour time. ”
Karl Marx, Das Kapital (1867). copy citation
| Author | Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Source | Das Kapital |
| Topic | society masses |
| Date | 1867 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling |
| Weblink | https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Capital-Volume-... |
Context
“The intensity and productiveness of labour being given, the time which society is bound to devote to material production is shorter, and as a consequence, the time at its disposal for the free development, intellectual and social, of the individual is greater, in proportion as the work is more and more evenly divided among all the able-bodied members of society, and as a particular class is more and more deprived of the power to shift the natural burden of labour from its own shoulders to those of another layer of society. In this direction, the shortening of the working day finds at last a limit in the generalisation of labour. In capitalist society spare time is acquired for one class by converting the whole life-time of the masses into labour time.
Chapter 18: Various Formula for the Rate of Surplus-Value We have seen that the rate of surplus-value is represented by the following formulae:
The two first of these formulae represent, as a ratio of values, that which, in the third, is represented as a ratio of the times during which those values are produced.”
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