Key Arguments

• Workers strain themselves to maximize daily earnings
• This increased intensity raises the standard for what is considered 'average' or 'socially necessary'
• Competition among workers drives down the rate per piece
• The personal interest of the worker (higher daily pay) aligns with the capitalist's interest (more surplus value)

Source Quotes

Here the exploitation of the worker by capital takes place through the medium of the exploitation of one worker by another. Given the system of piece-wages, it is naturally in the personal interest of the worker that he should strain his labour-power as intensely as possible; this in turn enables the capitalist to raise the normal degree of intensity of labour more easily. Moreover, the lengthening of the working day is now in the personal interest of the worker, since with it his daily or weekly wages rise.

Given the system of piece-wages, it is naturally in the personal interest of the worker that he should strain his labour-power as intensely as possible; this in turn enables the capitalist to raise the normal degree of intensity of labour more easily. Moreover, the lengthening of the working day is now in the personal interest of the worker, since with it his daily or weekly wages rise. This gradually brings on a reaction like that already described in time-wages, quite apart from the fact 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.

But the wider scope that piece-wages give to individuality tends to develop both that individuality, and with it the worker’s sense of liberty, independence and self-control, and also the competition of workers with each other. The piece-wage therefore has a tendency, while raising the wages of individuals above the average, to lower this average itself. However, where a particular rate of piece-wage has for a long time been a fixed tradition, and its lowering, therefore, has presented especial difficulties, in such exceptional cases the masters have sometimes had recourse to the forcible transformation of piece-wages into time-wages.

Key Concepts

• Given the system of piece-wages, it is naturally in the personal interest of the worker that he should strain his labour-power as intensely as possible; this in turn enables the capitalist to raise the normal degree of intensity of labour more easily.
• lengthening of the working day is now in the personal interest of the worker
• raising the wages of individuals above the average, to lower this average itself

Context

Marx explaining the dialectical reaction where workers' efforts to earn more result in lower rates