Key Arguments

• Marx states the general principle: 'Machinery, like every other component of constant capital, creates no new value, but yields up its own value to the product it serves to beget.'
• Because of this, 'instead of being cheapened, the product is made dearer in proportion to the value of the machine,' since the machine’s own value enters the commodity.
• He emphasizes that machinery enters the labour process as a whole but the valorization process only by parts: 'machinery, while always entering as a whole into the labour process, enters only piece by piece into the process of valorization. It never adds more value than it loses, on an average, by depreciation.'
• Hence 'there is a great difference between the value of a machine and the value transferred in a given time by the machine to the product,' and 'between the machine as a factor in the formation of value and as a factor in the formation of the product.'
• He notes that these differences grow with the machine’s service life: 'The longer the period during which the machine serves in the same labour process, the greater are those differences.'

Source Quotes

Therefore, although it is clear at the first glance that large-scale industry raises the productivity of labour to an extraordinary degree by incorporating into the production process both the immense forces of nature and the results arrived at by natural science, it is by no means equally clear that this increase in productive force is not, on the other hand, purchased with an increase in the amount of labour expended. Machinery, like every other component of constant capital, creates no new value, but yields up its own value to the product it serves to beget. In so far as the machine has value and, as a result, transfers value to the product, it forms an element in the value of the latter.

Machinery, like every other component of constant capital, creates no new value, but yields up its own value to the product it serves to beget. In so far as the machine has value and, as a result, transfers value to the product, it forms an element in the value of the latter. Instead of being cheapened, the product is made dearer in proportion to the value of the machine.

And it is crystal clear that machines and systems of machinery, large-scale industry’s characteristic instruments of labour, are incomparably more loaded with value than the implements used in handicrafts and in manufacture. In the first place, it must be observed that machinery, while always entering as a whole into the labour process, enters only piece by piece into the process of valorization. It never adds more value than it loses, on an average, by depreciation.

In the first place, it must be observed that machinery, while always entering as a whole into the labour process, enters only piece by piece into the process of valorization. It never adds more value than it loses, on an average, by depreciation. Hence there is a great difference between the value of a machine and the value transferred in a given time by the machine to the product.

Hence there is a great difference between the value of a machine and the value transferred in a given time by the machine to the product. Equally, there is a great difference between the machine as a factor in the formation of value and as a factor in the formation of the product. The longer the period during which the machine serves in the same labour process, the greater are those differences.

Key Concepts

• Machinery, like every other component of constant capital, creates no new value, but yields up its own value to the product it serves to beget.
• In so far as the machine has value and, as a result, transfers value to the product, it forms an element in the value of the latter.
• machinery, while always entering as a whole into the labour process, enters only piece by piece into the process of valorization.
• It never adds more value than it loses, on an average, by depreciation.
• there is a great difference between the machine as a factor in the formation of value and as a factor in the formation of the product.

Context

Marx is clarifying how machinery functions within the value-forming process, distinguishing physical use in production from quantitative value transfer via depreciation.