“ Productivity of labour is also bound up with natural conditions, which frequently become less productive as productivity grows — inasmuch as the latter depends on social conditions. ”
Karl Marx, Das Kapital (1894). copy citation
| Author | Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Source | Das Kapital |
| Topic | labour human condition |
| Date | 1894 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Capital-Volume-... |
Context
“The fact that the development of the productivity in different lines of industry proceeds at substantially different rates and frequently even in opposite directions, is not due merely to the anarchy of competition and the peculiarity of the bourgeois mode of production. Productivity of labour is also bound up with natural conditions, which frequently become less productive as productivity grows — inasmuch as the latter depends on social conditions. Hence the opposite movements in these different spheres — progress here, and retrogression there. Consider the mere influence of the seasons, for instance, on which the bulk of raw materials depends for its mass, the exhaustion of forest lands, coal and iron mines, etc.”
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