In modern agriculture, as in the urban industries, the increased
productiveness
and quantity of the labour set in motion are bought at the cost of laying waste and consuming by disease labour-power itself.
Marx - Capital-Volume-I
(ns.
378, 379, 380.
)
V. False weights and measures. - The workmen demand to be paid weekly instead of fortnightly, and by weight instead of by cubical contents of the tubs; they also demand protection against the use of false weights, &c. (n. 1071. )
--If the tubs were fraudulently increased, a man. could discontinue working by giving 14 days' notice? ? --But if he goes to another place, there is the same thing going on there. ? (n. 1071. ) --But he can leave that place where the wrong has been committed? ? --It is general; wherever he goes, he has to submit to it. ? (n. 1072. ) --Could a man leave by giving 14 days' notice? ? --Yes. ? (n. 1073. ) And yet they are not satisfied!
VI. Inspection of mines. - Casualties from explosions are not the only things the workmen suffer from. (n. 234, sqq. )
--Our men complained very much of the bad ventilation of the collieries . . . the ventilation is so bad in general that the men can scarcely breathe; they are quite unfit for employment of any kind after they have been for a length of time in connexion with their work; indeed, just at the part of the mine where I am working, men have been obliged to leave their employment and come home in consequence of that . . . some of them have been out of work for weeks just in consequence of the bad state of the ventilation where there is not explosive gas . . . there is plenty of air generally in the main courses, yet pains are not taken to get air into the workings where men are working. ? --Why do you not apply to the inspector? ? --To tell the truth there are many men who are timid on that point; there have been cases of men being sacrificed and losing their employment in consequence of applying to the inspector. ? --Why is he a marked man for having complained? ? --Yes. . . . . . And he finds it difficult to get employment in another mine? ? --Yes. ? --Do you think the mines in your neighbourhood are sufficiently inspected to insure a compliance with the provisions of the Act? ? --No; they are not inspected at all . . . the inspector has been down just once in the pit, and it has been going seven years. . . . In the district to which I belong there are not a sufficient number of inspectors. We have one old man more than 70 years of age to inspect more than 130 collieries. ? --You wish to have a class of sub- inspectors? ? --Yes. ? (ns. 234, 241, 251, 254, 274, 275, 554, 276, 293. ) --But do you think it would be possible for Government to maintain such an army of inspectors as would be necessary to do all that you want them to do, without information from the men? ? --No, I should think it would be next to impossible. . . . ? --It would be desirable the inspectors should come oftener? ? --Yes, and without being sent for. ? (n. 280, 277. ) --Do you not think that the effect of having these inspectors examining the collieries so frequently would be to shift the responsibility (! ) of supplying proper ventilation from the owners of the collieries to the Government officials? ? --No, I do not think that, I think that they should make it their business to enforce the Acts which are already in existence. ? (n. 285. ) --When you speak of sub-inspectors, do you mean men at a less salary, and of an inferior stamp to the present inspectors? ? --I would not have them inferior, if you could get them otherwise. ? (n. 294. ) --Do you merely want more inspectors, or do you want a
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lower class of men as an inspector? ? --A man who would knock about, and see that things are kept right; a man who would not be afraid of himself. ? (n. 295. ) --If you obtained your wish in getting an inferior class of inspectors appointed, do you think that there would be no danger from want of skill, &c? ? --I think not, I think that the Government would see after that, and have proper men in that position. ? (n. 297. )
This kind of examination becomes at last too much even for the chairman of the committee, and he interrupts with the observation:
--You want a class of men who would look into all the details of the mine, and would go into all the holes and corners, and go into the real facts . . . they would report to the chief inspector, who would then bring his scientific knowledge to bear on the facts they have stated? ? (ns. 298, 299. ) --Would it not entail very great expense if all these old workings were kept ventilated? ? --Yes, expense might be incurred, but life would be at the same time protected. ? (n. 531. )
A working miner objects to the 17th section of the Act of 1860; he says,
--At the present time, if the inspector of mines finds a part of the mine unfit to work in, he has to report it to the mine-owner and the Home Secretary. After doing that, there is given to the owner 20 days to look over the matter; at the end of 20 days he has the power to refuse making any alteration in the mine; but, when he refuses, the mine-owner writes to the Home Secretary, at the same time nominating five engineers, and from those five engineers named by the mine- owner himself, the Home Secretary appoints one, I think, as arbitrator, or appoints arbitrators from them; now we think in that case the mine-owner virtually appoints his own arbitrator. ? (n. 581. )
Bourgeois examiner, himself a mine-owner:
--But . . . is this a merely speculative objection? ? (n. 586. ) --Then you have a very poor opinion of the integrity of mining engineers? ? --It is most certainly unjust and inequitable. ? (n. 588. ) --Do not mining engineers possess a sort of public character, and do not you think that they are above making such a partial decision as you apprehend? ? --I do not wish to answer such a question as that with respect to the personal character of those men. I believe that in many cases they would act very partially indeed, and that it ought not to be in their hands to do so, where men's lives are at stake. ? (n. 589. )
This same bourgeois is not ashamed to put this question: --Do you not think that the mine-owner also suffers loss from an explosion? ? Finally, --Are not you workmen in Lancashire able to take care of your own interests without calling in the Government to help you? ? --No. ? (n. 1042. )
In the year 1865 there were 3,217 coal mines in Great Britain, and 12 inspectors. A Yorkshire mine-owner himself calculates (Times, 26th January, 1867), that putting on one side their office work, which absorbs all their time, each mine can be visited but once in ten years by an inspector. No wonder that explosions have increased progressively, both in number and extent (sometimes with a loss of 200-300 men), during the last ten years. These are the beauties of --free? capitalist production! [This sentence has been added to the English text in conformity with the 4th German edition. - Ed. ]
The very defective Act, passed in 1872, is the first that regulates the hours of labour of the children employed in mines, and makes exploiters and owners, to a certain extent, responsible for so-called accidents.
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The Royal Commission appointed in 1867 to inquire into the employment in agriculture of children, young persons, and women, has published some very important reports. Several attempts to apply the principles of the Factory Acts, but in a modified form, to agriculture have been made, but have so far resulted in complete failure. All that I wish to draw attention to here is the existence of an irresistible tendency towards the general application of those principles.
If the general extension of factory legislation to all trades for the purpose of protecting the working-class both in mind and body has become inevitable, on the other hand, as we have already pointed out, that extension hastens on the general conversion of numerous isolated small industries into a few combined industries carried on upon a large scale; it therefore accelerates the concentration of capital and the exclusive predominance of the factory system. It destroys both the ancient and the transitional forms, behind which the dominion of capital is still in part concealed, and replaces them by the direct and open sway of capital; but thereby it also generalises the direct opposition to this sway. While in each individual workshop it enforces uniformity, regularity, order, and economy, it increases by the immense spur which the limitation and regulation of the working day give to technical improvement, the anarchy and the catastrophes of capitalist production as a whole, the intensity of labour, and the competition of machinery with the labourer. By the destruction of petty and domestic industries it destroys the last resort of the --redundant population,? and with it the sole remaining safety-valve of the whole social mechanism. By maturing the material conditions, and the combination on a social scale of the processes of production, it matures the contradictions and antagonisms of the capitalist form of production, and thereby provides, along with the elements for the formation of a new society, the forces for exploding the old one. 244
Section 10: Modern Industry and Agriculture
The revolution called forth by modern industry in agriculture, and in the social relations of agricultural producers, will be investigated later on. In this place, we shall merely indicate a few results by way of anticipation. If the use of machinery in agriculture is for the most part free from the injurious physical effect it has on the factory operative, its action in superseding the labourers is more intense, and finds less resistance, as we shall see later in detail. In the counties of Cambridge and Suffolk, for example, the area of cultivated land has extended very much within the last 20 years (up to 1868), while in the same period the rural population has diminished, not only relatively, but absolutely. In the United States it is as yet only virtually that agricultural machines replace labourers; in other words, they allow of the cultivation by the farmer of a larger surface, but do not actually expel the labourers employed. In 1861 the number of persons occupied in England and Wales in the manufacture of agricultural machines was 1,034, whilst the number of agricultural labourers employed in the use of agricultural machines and steam-engines did not exceed 1,205.
In the sphere of agriculture, modern industry has a more revolutionary effect than elsewhere, for this reason, that it annihilates the peasant, that bulwark of the old society, and replaces him by the wage-labourer. Thus the desire for social changes, and the class antagonisms are brought to the same level in the country as in the towns. The irrational, old-fashioned methods of agriculture are replaced by scientific ones. Capitalist production completely tears asunder the old bond of union which held together agriculture and manufacture in their infancy. But at the same time it creates the material conditions for a higher synthesis in the future, viz. , the union of agriculture and industry on the basis of the more perfected forms they have each acquired during their temporary separation. Capitalist production, by collecting the population in great centres, and causing an ever-increasing preponderance of town population, on the one hand concentrates the historical
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motive power of society; on the other hand, it disturbs the circulation of matter between man and the soil, i. e. , prevents the return to the soil of its elements consumed by man in the form of food and clothing; it therefore violates the conditions necessary to lasting fertility of the soil. By this action it destroys at the same time the health of the town labourer and the intellectual life of the rural labourer. 245 But while upsetting the naturally grown conditions for the maintenance of that circulation of matter, it imperiously calls for its restoration as a system, as a regulating law of social production, and under a form appropriate to the full development of the human race. In agriculture as in manufacture, the transformation of production under the sway of capital, means, at the same time, the martyrdom of the producer; the instrument of labour becomes the means of enslaving, exploiting, and impoverishing the labourer; the social combination and organisation of labour-processes is turned into an organised mode of crushing out the workman's individual vitality, freedom, and independence. The dispersion of the rural labourers over larger areas breaks their power of resistance while concentration increases that of the town operatives.
In modern agriculture, as in the urban industries, the increased productiveness and quantity of the labour set in motion are bought at the cost of laying waste and consuming by disease labour-power itself. Moreover, all progress in capitalistic agriculture is a progress in the art, not only of robbing the labourer, but of robbing the soil; all progress in increasing the fertility of the soil for a given time, is a progress towards ruining the lasting sources of that fertility. The more a country starts its development on the foundation of modern industry, like the United States, for example, the more rapid is this process of destruction. 246Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth-the soil and the labourer.
1 Mill should have said, --of any human being not fed by other people's labour,? for, without doubt, machinery has greatly increased the number of well-to-do idlers.
2 See, for instance, Hutton: --Course of Mathematics. ?
3 --From this point of view we may draw a sharp line of distinction between a tool and a machine: spades, hammers, chisels, &c. , combinations of levers and of screws, in all of which, no matter how complicated they may be in other respects, man is the motive power, . . . all this falls under the idea of a tool; but the plough, which is drawn by animal power, and wind-mills, &c. , must be classed among machines. ? (Wilhelm Schulz: --Die Bewegung der Produktion. ? Zu? rich, 1843, p. 38. ) In many respects a book to be recommended.
4 Before his time, spinning machines, although very imperfect ones, had already been used, and Italy was probably the country of their first appearance. A critical history of technology would show how little any of the inventions of the 18th century are the work of a single individual. Hitherto there is no such book. Darwin has interested us in the history of Nature's Technology, i. e. , in the formation of the organs of plants and animals, which organs serve as instruments of production for sustaining life. Does not the history of the productive organs of man, of organs that are the material basis of all social organisation, deserve equal attention? And would not such a history be easier to compile, since, as Vico says, human history differs from natural history in this, that we have made the former, but not the latter? Technology discloses man's mode of dealing with Nature, the process of production by which he sustains his life, and thereby also lays bare the mode of formation of his social relations, and of the mental conceptions that flow from them. Every history of religion, even, that fails to take account of this material basis, is uncritical. It is, in reality, much easier to discover by analysis the earthly core of the misty creations of religion, than, conversely, it is, to develop from the actual relations of life the corresponding celestialised forms of those relations. The latter method is the only materialistic, and therefore the only scientific one. The weak points in the abstract materialism of natural science, a materialism that excludes history and its process, are at once evident from the
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abstract and ideological conceptions of its spokesmen, whenever they venture beyond the bounds of their own speciality.
5 Especially in the original form of the power-loom, we recognise, at the first glance, the ancient loom. In its modern form, the power-loom has undergone essential alterations.
6 It is only during the last 15 years (i. e. , since about 1850), that a constantly increasing portion of these machine tools have been made in England by machinery, and that not by the same manufacturers who make the machines. Instances of machines for the fabrication of these mechanical tools are, the automatic bobbin-making engine, the cardsetting engine, shuttle-making machines, and machines for forging mule and throstle spindles.
7 Moses says: --Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treads the corn. ? The Christian philanthropists of Germany, on the contrary, fastened a wooden board round the necks of the serfs, whom they used as a motive power for grinding, in order to prevent them from putting flour into their mouths with their hands.
8 It was partly the want of streams with a good fall on them, and partly their battles with superabundance of water in other respects, that compelled the Dutch to resort to wind as a motive power. The wind-mill itself they got from Germany, where its invention was the origin of a pretty squabble between the nobles, the priests, and the emperor, as to which of those three the wind --belonged. ? The air makes bondage, was the cry in Germany, at the same time that the wind was making Holland free. What it reduced to bondage in this case, was not the Dutchman, but the land for the Dutchman. In 1836, 12,000 windmills of 6,000 horse-power were still employed in Holland, to prevent two-thirds of the land from being reconverted into morasses.
9 It was, indeed, very much improved by Watt's first so-called single acting engine; but, in this form, it continued to be a mere machine for raising water, and the liquor from salt mines.
10 --The union of all these simple instruments, set in motion by a single motor, constitutes a machine. ? (Babbage, l. c. )
11 In January, 1861, John C. Morton read before the Society of Arts a paper on --The forces employed in agriculture. ? He there states: --Every improvement that furthers the uniformity of the land makes the steam-engine more and more applicable to the production of pure mechanical force. . . . Horse-power is requisite wherever crooked fences and other obstructions prevent uniform action. These obstructions are vanishing day by day. For operations that demand more exercise of will than actual force, the only power applicable is that controlled every instant by the human mind-in other words, man-power. ? Mr. Morton then reduces steam-power, horse-power, and man-power, to the unit in general use for steam- engines, namely, the force required to raise 33,000 lbs. one foot in one minute, and reckons the cost of one horse-power from a steam-engine to be 3d. , and from a horse to be 51/2d. per hour. Further, if a horse must fully maintain its health, it can work no more than 8 hours a day. Three at the least out of every seven horses used on tillage land during the year can be dispensed with by using steam-power, at an expense not greater than that which, the horses dispensed with, would cost during the 3 or 4 months in which alone they can be used effectively. Lastly, steam-power, in those agricultural operations in which it can be employed, improves, in comparison with horse-power, the quality of the work. To do the work of a steam-engine would require 66 men, at a total cost of 15S. an hour, and to do the work of a horse, 32 men, at a total cost of 8s. an hour.
12 Faulhaber, 1625; De Caus, 1688.
13 The modern turbine frees the industrial exploitation of water-power from many of its former fetters.
14 --In the early days of textile manufactures, the locality of the factory depended upon the existence of a stream having a sufficient fall to turn a water-wheel; and, although the establishment of the water- mills was the commencement of the breaking up of the domestic system of manufacture, yet the mills
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necessarily situated upon streams, and frequently at considerable distances the one from the other, formed part of a rural, rather than an urban system; and it was not until the introduction of the steam- power as a substitute for the stream that factories were congregated in towns, and localities where the coal and water required for the production of steam were found in sufficient quantities. The steam- engine is the parent of manufacturing towns. ? (A. Redgrave in --Reports of the Insp. of Fact. , 30th April, 1860,? p. 36. )
15 From the standpoint of division of labour in Manufacture, weaving was not simple, but, on the contrary, complicated manual labour; and consequently the power-loom is a machine that does very complicated work. It is altogether erroneous to suppose that modern machinery originally appropriated those operations alone, which division of labour had simplified. Spinning and weaving were, during the manufacturing period, split up into new species, and the implements were modified and improved; but the labour itself was in no way divided, and it retained its handicraft character. It is not the labour, but the instrument of labour, that serves as the starting-point of the machine.
16 Before the epoch of Mechanical Industry, the wool manufacture was the predominating manufacture in England. Hence it was in this industry that, in the first half of the 18th century, the most experiments were made. Cotton, which required less careful preparation for its treatment by machinery, derived the benefit of the experience gained on wool, just as afterwards the manipulation of wool by machinery was developed on the lines of cotton-spinning and weaving by machinery. It was only during the 10 years immediately preceding 1866, that isolated details of the wool manufacture, such as woolcombing, were incorporated in the factory system. --The application of power to the process of combing wool . . . extensively in operation since the introduction of the combingmachine, especially Lister's . . . undoubtedly had the effect of throwing a very large number of men out of work. Wool was formerly combed by hand, most frequently in the cottage of the comber. It is now very generally combed in the factory, and hand-labour is superseded, except in some particular kinds of work, in which hand-combed wool is still preferred. Many of the hand-combers found employment in the factories, but the produce of the hand-combers bears so small a proportion to that of the machine, that the employment of a very large number of combers has passed away. ? (--Rep. of lnsp. of Fact. for 31st Oct. , 1856,? p. 16. )
17 --The principle of the factory system, then, is to substitute . . . the partition of a process into its essential constituents, for the division or graduation of labour among artisans. ? (Andrew Ure: --The Philosophy of Manufactures,? Lond. , 1835, p. 20. )
18 The power-loom was at first made chiefly of wood; in its improved modern form it is made of iron. To what an extent the old forms of the instruments of production influenced their new forms at first starting, is shown by, amongst other things, the most superficial comparison of the present power- loom with the old one, of the modern blowing apparatus of a blast-furnace with the first inefficient mechanical reproduction of the ordinary bellows, and perhaps more strikingly than in any other way, by the attempts before the invention of the present locomotive, to construct a locomotive that actually had two feet, which after the fashion of a horse, it raised alternately from the ground. It is only after considerable development of the science of mechanics, and accumulated practical experience, that the form of a machine becomes settled entirely in accordance with mechanical principles, and emancipated from the traditional form of the tool that gave rise to it.
19 Eli Whitney's cotton gin had until very recent times undergone less essential changes than any other machine of the 18th century. It is only during the last decade (i. e. , since 1856) that another American, Mr. Emery, of Albany, New York, has rendered Whitney's gin antiquated by an improvement as simple as it is effective.
20 --The Industry of Nations,? Lond. , 1855, Part II. , p. 239. This work also remarks: ? Simple and outwardly unimportant as this appendage to lathes may appear, it is not, we believe, averring too much
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to state, that its influence in improving and extending the use of machinery has been as great as that produced by Watt's improvements of the steam-engine itself. Its introduction went at once to perfect all machinery, to cheapen it, and to stimulate invention and improvement. ?
21 One of these machines, used for forging paddle-wheel shafts in London, is called --Thor. ? It forges a shaft of 161/2 tons with as much ease as a blacksmith forges a horseshoe.
22 Wood-working machines that are also capable of being employed on a small scale are mostly American inventions.
23 Science, generally speaking, costs the capitalist nothing, a fact that by no means hinders him from exploiting it. The science of others is as much annexed by capital as the labour of others. Capitalistic appropriation and personal appropriation, whether of science or of material wealth, are, however, totally different things. Dr. Ure himself deplores the gross ignorance of mechanical science existing among his dear machinery-exploiting manufacturers, and Liebig can a tale unfold about the astounding ignorance of chemistry displayed by English chemical manufacturers.
24 Ricardo lays such stress on this effect of machinery (of which, in other connexions, he takes no more notice than he does of the general distinction between the labour process and the process of creating surplus value), that he occasionally loses sight of the value given up by machines to the product, and puts machines on the same footing as natural forces. Thus --Adam Smith nowhere undervalues the services which the natural agents and machinery perform for us, but he very justly distinguishes the nature of the value which they add to commodities. . . as they perform their work gratuitously, the assistance which they afford us, adds nothing to value in exchange. ? (Ric. , l. c. , pp. 336, 337. ) This observation of Ricardo is of course correct in so far as it is directed against J. B. Say, who imagines that machines render the --service? of creating value which forms a part of --profits. ?
25 A horse-power is equal to a force of 33,000 foot-pounds per minute, i. e. , to a force that raises 33,000 pounds one foot in a minute, or one pound 33,000 feet. This is the horse power meant in the text. In ordinary language, and also here and there in quotations in this work, a distinction is drawn between the --nominal? and the --commercial? or --indicated? horse-power of the same engine. The old or nominal horse-power is calculated exclusively from the length of piston-stroke, and the diameter of the cylinder, and leaves pressure of steam and piston speed out of consideration. It expresses practically this: This engine would be one of 50 horse-power, if it were driven with the same low pressure of steam, and the same slow piston speed, as in the days of Boulton and Watt. But the two latter factors have increased enormously since those days. In order to measure the mechanical force exerted today by an engine, an indicator has been invented which shows the pressure of the steam in the cylinder. The piston speed is easily ascertained. Thus the --indicated? or --commercial? horse- power of an engine is expressed by a mathematical formula, involving diameter of cylinder, length of stroke, piston speed, and steam pressure, simultaneously, and showing what multiple of 33,000 pounds is really raised by the engine in a minute. Hence, one --nominal? horse-power may exert three, four, or even five --indicated? or --real? horse-powers. This observation is made for the purpose of explaining various citations in the subsequent pages. -- F. E.
26 The reader who is imbued with capitalist notions will naturally miss here the --interest? that the machine, in proportion to its capital value, adds to the product. It is, however, easily seen that since a machine no more creates new value than any other part of constant capital, it cannot add any value under the name of --interest. ? It is also evident that here, where we are treating of the production of surplus value, we cannot assume a priori the existence of any part of that value under the name of interest. The capitalist mode of calculating, which appears, prima^ facie, absurd, and repugnant to the laws of the creation of value, will be explained in the third book of this work.
27 This portion of value which is added by the machinery, decreases both absolutely and relatively, when the machinery does away with horses and other animals that are employed as mere moving
? ?
V. False weights and measures. - The workmen demand to be paid weekly instead of fortnightly, and by weight instead of by cubical contents of the tubs; they also demand protection against the use of false weights, &c. (n. 1071. )
--If the tubs were fraudulently increased, a man. could discontinue working by giving 14 days' notice? ? --But if he goes to another place, there is the same thing going on there. ? (n. 1071. ) --But he can leave that place where the wrong has been committed? ? --It is general; wherever he goes, he has to submit to it. ? (n. 1072. ) --Could a man leave by giving 14 days' notice? ? --Yes. ? (n. 1073. ) And yet they are not satisfied!
VI. Inspection of mines. - Casualties from explosions are not the only things the workmen suffer from. (n. 234, sqq. )
--Our men complained very much of the bad ventilation of the collieries . . . the ventilation is so bad in general that the men can scarcely breathe; they are quite unfit for employment of any kind after they have been for a length of time in connexion with their work; indeed, just at the part of the mine where I am working, men have been obliged to leave their employment and come home in consequence of that . . . some of them have been out of work for weeks just in consequence of the bad state of the ventilation where there is not explosive gas . . . there is plenty of air generally in the main courses, yet pains are not taken to get air into the workings where men are working. ? --Why do you not apply to the inspector? ? --To tell the truth there are many men who are timid on that point; there have been cases of men being sacrificed and losing their employment in consequence of applying to the inspector. ? --Why is he a marked man for having complained? ? --Yes. . . . . . And he finds it difficult to get employment in another mine? ? --Yes. ? --Do you think the mines in your neighbourhood are sufficiently inspected to insure a compliance with the provisions of the Act? ? --No; they are not inspected at all . . . the inspector has been down just once in the pit, and it has been going seven years. . . . In the district to which I belong there are not a sufficient number of inspectors. We have one old man more than 70 years of age to inspect more than 130 collieries. ? --You wish to have a class of sub- inspectors? ? --Yes. ? (ns. 234, 241, 251, 254, 274, 275, 554, 276, 293. ) --But do you think it would be possible for Government to maintain such an army of inspectors as would be necessary to do all that you want them to do, without information from the men? ? --No, I should think it would be next to impossible. . . . ? --It would be desirable the inspectors should come oftener? ? --Yes, and without being sent for. ? (n. 280, 277. ) --Do you not think that the effect of having these inspectors examining the collieries so frequently would be to shift the responsibility (! ) of supplying proper ventilation from the owners of the collieries to the Government officials? ? --No, I do not think that, I think that they should make it their business to enforce the Acts which are already in existence. ? (n. 285. ) --When you speak of sub-inspectors, do you mean men at a less salary, and of an inferior stamp to the present inspectors? ? --I would not have them inferior, if you could get them otherwise. ? (n. 294. ) --Do you merely want more inspectors, or do you want a
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lower class of men as an inspector? ? --A man who would knock about, and see that things are kept right; a man who would not be afraid of himself. ? (n. 295. ) --If you obtained your wish in getting an inferior class of inspectors appointed, do you think that there would be no danger from want of skill, &c? ? --I think not, I think that the Government would see after that, and have proper men in that position. ? (n. 297. )
This kind of examination becomes at last too much even for the chairman of the committee, and he interrupts with the observation:
--You want a class of men who would look into all the details of the mine, and would go into all the holes and corners, and go into the real facts . . . they would report to the chief inspector, who would then bring his scientific knowledge to bear on the facts they have stated? ? (ns. 298, 299. ) --Would it not entail very great expense if all these old workings were kept ventilated? ? --Yes, expense might be incurred, but life would be at the same time protected. ? (n. 531. )
A working miner objects to the 17th section of the Act of 1860; he says,
--At the present time, if the inspector of mines finds a part of the mine unfit to work in, he has to report it to the mine-owner and the Home Secretary. After doing that, there is given to the owner 20 days to look over the matter; at the end of 20 days he has the power to refuse making any alteration in the mine; but, when he refuses, the mine-owner writes to the Home Secretary, at the same time nominating five engineers, and from those five engineers named by the mine- owner himself, the Home Secretary appoints one, I think, as arbitrator, or appoints arbitrators from them; now we think in that case the mine-owner virtually appoints his own arbitrator. ? (n. 581. )
Bourgeois examiner, himself a mine-owner:
--But . . . is this a merely speculative objection? ? (n. 586. ) --Then you have a very poor opinion of the integrity of mining engineers? ? --It is most certainly unjust and inequitable. ? (n. 588. ) --Do not mining engineers possess a sort of public character, and do not you think that they are above making such a partial decision as you apprehend? ? --I do not wish to answer such a question as that with respect to the personal character of those men. I believe that in many cases they would act very partially indeed, and that it ought not to be in their hands to do so, where men's lives are at stake. ? (n. 589. )
This same bourgeois is not ashamed to put this question: --Do you not think that the mine-owner also suffers loss from an explosion? ? Finally, --Are not you workmen in Lancashire able to take care of your own interests without calling in the Government to help you? ? --No. ? (n. 1042. )
In the year 1865 there were 3,217 coal mines in Great Britain, and 12 inspectors. A Yorkshire mine-owner himself calculates (Times, 26th January, 1867), that putting on one side their office work, which absorbs all their time, each mine can be visited but once in ten years by an inspector. No wonder that explosions have increased progressively, both in number and extent (sometimes with a loss of 200-300 men), during the last ten years. These are the beauties of --free? capitalist production! [This sentence has been added to the English text in conformity with the 4th German edition. - Ed. ]
The very defective Act, passed in 1872, is the first that regulates the hours of labour of the children employed in mines, and makes exploiters and owners, to a certain extent, responsible for so-called accidents.
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The Royal Commission appointed in 1867 to inquire into the employment in agriculture of children, young persons, and women, has published some very important reports. Several attempts to apply the principles of the Factory Acts, but in a modified form, to agriculture have been made, but have so far resulted in complete failure. All that I wish to draw attention to here is the existence of an irresistible tendency towards the general application of those principles.
If the general extension of factory legislation to all trades for the purpose of protecting the working-class both in mind and body has become inevitable, on the other hand, as we have already pointed out, that extension hastens on the general conversion of numerous isolated small industries into a few combined industries carried on upon a large scale; it therefore accelerates the concentration of capital and the exclusive predominance of the factory system. It destroys both the ancient and the transitional forms, behind which the dominion of capital is still in part concealed, and replaces them by the direct and open sway of capital; but thereby it also generalises the direct opposition to this sway. While in each individual workshop it enforces uniformity, regularity, order, and economy, it increases by the immense spur which the limitation and regulation of the working day give to technical improvement, the anarchy and the catastrophes of capitalist production as a whole, the intensity of labour, and the competition of machinery with the labourer. By the destruction of petty and domestic industries it destroys the last resort of the --redundant population,? and with it the sole remaining safety-valve of the whole social mechanism. By maturing the material conditions, and the combination on a social scale of the processes of production, it matures the contradictions and antagonisms of the capitalist form of production, and thereby provides, along with the elements for the formation of a new society, the forces for exploding the old one. 244
Section 10: Modern Industry and Agriculture
The revolution called forth by modern industry in agriculture, and in the social relations of agricultural producers, will be investigated later on. In this place, we shall merely indicate a few results by way of anticipation. If the use of machinery in agriculture is for the most part free from the injurious physical effect it has on the factory operative, its action in superseding the labourers is more intense, and finds less resistance, as we shall see later in detail. In the counties of Cambridge and Suffolk, for example, the area of cultivated land has extended very much within the last 20 years (up to 1868), while in the same period the rural population has diminished, not only relatively, but absolutely. In the United States it is as yet only virtually that agricultural machines replace labourers; in other words, they allow of the cultivation by the farmer of a larger surface, but do not actually expel the labourers employed. In 1861 the number of persons occupied in England and Wales in the manufacture of agricultural machines was 1,034, whilst the number of agricultural labourers employed in the use of agricultural machines and steam-engines did not exceed 1,205.
In the sphere of agriculture, modern industry has a more revolutionary effect than elsewhere, for this reason, that it annihilates the peasant, that bulwark of the old society, and replaces him by the wage-labourer. Thus the desire for social changes, and the class antagonisms are brought to the same level in the country as in the towns. The irrational, old-fashioned methods of agriculture are replaced by scientific ones. Capitalist production completely tears asunder the old bond of union which held together agriculture and manufacture in their infancy. But at the same time it creates the material conditions for a higher synthesis in the future, viz. , the union of agriculture and industry on the basis of the more perfected forms they have each acquired during their temporary separation. Capitalist production, by collecting the population in great centres, and causing an ever-increasing preponderance of town population, on the one hand concentrates the historical
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motive power of society; on the other hand, it disturbs the circulation of matter between man and the soil, i. e. , prevents the return to the soil of its elements consumed by man in the form of food and clothing; it therefore violates the conditions necessary to lasting fertility of the soil. By this action it destroys at the same time the health of the town labourer and the intellectual life of the rural labourer. 245 But while upsetting the naturally grown conditions for the maintenance of that circulation of matter, it imperiously calls for its restoration as a system, as a regulating law of social production, and under a form appropriate to the full development of the human race. In agriculture as in manufacture, the transformation of production under the sway of capital, means, at the same time, the martyrdom of the producer; the instrument of labour becomes the means of enslaving, exploiting, and impoverishing the labourer; the social combination and organisation of labour-processes is turned into an organised mode of crushing out the workman's individual vitality, freedom, and independence. The dispersion of the rural labourers over larger areas breaks their power of resistance while concentration increases that of the town operatives.
In modern agriculture, as in the urban industries, the increased productiveness and quantity of the labour set in motion are bought at the cost of laying waste and consuming by disease labour-power itself. Moreover, all progress in capitalistic agriculture is a progress in the art, not only of robbing the labourer, but of robbing the soil; all progress in increasing the fertility of the soil for a given time, is a progress towards ruining the lasting sources of that fertility. The more a country starts its development on the foundation of modern industry, like the United States, for example, the more rapid is this process of destruction. 246Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth-the soil and the labourer.
1 Mill should have said, --of any human being not fed by other people's labour,? for, without doubt, machinery has greatly increased the number of well-to-do idlers.
2 See, for instance, Hutton: --Course of Mathematics. ?
3 --From this point of view we may draw a sharp line of distinction between a tool and a machine: spades, hammers, chisels, &c. , combinations of levers and of screws, in all of which, no matter how complicated they may be in other respects, man is the motive power, . . . all this falls under the idea of a tool; but the plough, which is drawn by animal power, and wind-mills, &c. , must be classed among machines. ? (Wilhelm Schulz: --Die Bewegung der Produktion. ? Zu? rich, 1843, p. 38. ) In many respects a book to be recommended.
4 Before his time, spinning machines, although very imperfect ones, had already been used, and Italy was probably the country of their first appearance. A critical history of technology would show how little any of the inventions of the 18th century are the work of a single individual. Hitherto there is no such book. Darwin has interested us in the history of Nature's Technology, i. e. , in the formation of the organs of plants and animals, which organs serve as instruments of production for sustaining life. Does not the history of the productive organs of man, of organs that are the material basis of all social organisation, deserve equal attention? And would not such a history be easier to compile, since, as Vico says, human history differs from natural history in this, that we have made the former, but not the latter? Technology discloses man's mode of dealing with Nature, the process of production by which he sustains his life, and thereby also lays bare the mode of formation of his social relations, and of the mental conceptions that flow from them. Every history of religion, even, that fails to take account of this material basis, is uncritical. It is, in reality, much easier to discover by analysis the earthly core of the misty creations of religion, than, conversely, it is, to develop from the actual relations of life the corresponding celestialised forms of those relations. The latter method is the only materialistic, and therefore the only scientific one. The weak points in the abstract materialism of natural science, a materialism that excludes history and its process, are at once evident from the
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abstract and ideological conceptions of its spokesmen, whenever they venture beyond the bounds of their own speciality.
5 Especially in the original form of the power-loom, we recognise, at the first glance, the ancient loom. In its modern form, the power-loom has undergone essential alterations.
6 It is only during the last 15 years (i. e. , since about 1850), that a constantly increasing portion of these machine tools have been made in England by machinery, and that not by the same manufacturers who make the machines. Instances of machines for the fabrication of these mechanical tools are, the automatic bobbin-making engine, the cardsetting engine, shuttle-making machines, and machines for forging mule and throstle spindles.
7 Moses says: --Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treads the corn. ? The Christian philanthropists of Germany, on the contrary, fastened a wooden board round the necks of the serfs, whom they used as a motive power for grinding, in order to prevent them from putting flour into their mouths with their hands.
8 It was partly the want of streams with a good fall on them, and partly their battles with superabundance of water in other respects, that compelled the Dutch to resort to wind as a motive power. The wind-mill itself they got from Germany, where its invention was the origin of a pretty squabble between the nobles, the priests, and the emperor, as to which of those three the wind --belonged. ? The air makes bondage, was the cry in Germany, at the same time that the wind was making Holland free. What it reduced to bondage in this case, was not the Dutchman, but the land for the Dutchman. In 1836, 12,000 windmills of 6,000 horse-power were still employed in Holland, to prevent two-thirds of the land from being reconverted into morasses.
9 It was, indeed, very much improved by Watt's first so-called single acting engine; but, in this form, it continued to be a mere machine for raising water, and the liquor from salt mines.
10 --The union of all these simple instruments, set in motion by a single motor, constitutes a machine. ? (Babbage, l. c. )
11 In January, 1861, John C. Morton read before the Society of Arts a paper on --The forces employed in agriculture. ? He there states: --Every improvement that furthers the uniformity of the land makes the steam-engine more and more applicable to the production of pure mechanical force. . . . Horse-power is requisite wherever crooked fences and other obstructions prevent uniform action. These obstructions are vanishing day by day. For operations that demand more exercise of will than actual force, the only power applicable is that controlled every instant by the human mind-in other words, man-power. ? Mr. Morton then reduces steam-power, horse-power, and man-power, to the unit in general use for steam- engines, namely, the force required to raise 33,000 lbs. one foot in one minute, and reckons the cost of one horse-power from a steam-engine to be 3d. , and from a horse to be 51/2d. per hour. Further, if a horse must fully maintain its health, it can work no more than 8 hours a day. Three at the least out of every seven horses used on tillage land during the year can be dispensed with by using steam-power, at an expense not greater than that which, the horses dispensed with, would cost during the 3 or 4 months in which alone they can be used effectively. Lastly, steam-power, in those agricultural operations in which it can be employed, improves, in comparison with horse-power, the quality of the work. To do the work of a steam-engine would require 66 men, at a total cost of 15S. an hour, and to do the work of a horse, 32 men, at a total cost of 8s. an hour.
12 Faulhaber, 1625; De Caus, 1688.
13 The modern turbine frees the industrial exploitation of water-power from many of its former fetters.
14 --In the early days of textile manufactures, the locality of the factory depended upon the existence of a stream having a sufficient fall to turn a water-wheel; and, although the establishment of the water- mills was the commencement of the breaking up of the domestic system of manufacture, yet the mills
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necessarily situated upon streams, and frequently at considerable distances the one from the other, formed part of a rural, rather than an urban system; and it was not until the introduction of the steam- power as a substitute for the stream that factories were congregated in towns, and localities where the coal and water required for the production of steam were found in sufficient quantities. The steam- engine is the parent of manufacturing towns. ? (A. Redgrave in --Reports of the Insp. of Fact. , 30th April, 1860,? p. 36. )
15 From the standpoint of division of labour in Manufacture, weaving was not simple, but, on the contrary, complicated manual labour; and consequently the power-loom is a machine that does very complicated work. It is altogether erroneous to suppose that modern machinery originally appropriated those operations alone, which division of labour had simplified. Spinning and weaving were, during the manufacturing period, split up into new species, and the implements were modified and improved; but the labour itself was in no way divided, and it retained its handicraft character. It is not the labour, but the instrument of labour, that serves as the starting-point of the machine.
16 Before the epoch of Mechanical Industry, the wool manufacture was the predominating manufacture in England. Hence it was in this industry that, in the first half of the 18th century, the most experiments were made. Cotton, which required less careful preparation for its treatment by machinery, derived the benefit of the experience gained on wool, just as afterwards the manipulation of wool by machinery was developed on the lines of cotton-spinning and weaving by machinery. It was only during the 10 years immediately preceding 1866, that isolated details of the wool manufacture, such as woolcombing, were incorporated in the factory system. --The application of power to the process of combing wool . . . extensively in operation since the introduction of the combingmachine, especially Lister's . . . undoubtedly had the effect of throwing a very large number of men out of work. Wool was formerly combed by hand, most frequently in the cottage of the comber. It is now very generally combed in the factory, and hand-labour is superseded, except in some particular kinds of work, in which hand-combed wool is still preferred. Many of the hand-combers found employment in the factories, but the produce of the hand-combers bears so small a proportion to that of the machine, that the employment of a very large number of combers has passed away. ? (--Rep. of lnsp. of Fact. for 31st Oct. , 1856,? p. 16. )
17 --The principle of the factory system, then, is to substitute . . . the partition of a process into its essential constituents, for the division or graduation of labour among artisans. ? (Andrew Ure: --The Philosophy of Manufactures,? Lond. , 1835, p. 20. )
18 The power-loom was at first made chiefly of wood; in its improved modern form it is made of iron. To what an extent the old forms of the instruments of production influenced their new forms at first starting, is shown by, amongst other things, the most superficial comparison of the present power- loom with the old one, of the modern blowing apparatus of a blast-furnace with the first inefficient mechanical reproduction of the ordinary bellows, and perhaps more strikingly than in any other way, by the attempts before the invention of the present locomotive, to construct a locomotive that actually had two feet, which after the fashion of a horse, it raised alternately from the ground. It is only after considerable development of the science of mechanics, and accumulated practical experience, that the form of a machine becomes settled entirely in accordance with mechanical principles, and emancipated from the traditional form of the tool that gave rise to it.
19 Eli Whitney's cotton gin had until very recent times undergone less essential changes than any other machine of the 18th century. It is only during the last decade (i. e. , since 1856) that another American, Mr. Emery, of Albany, New York, has rendered Whitney's gin antiquated by an improvement as simple as it is effective.
20 --The Industry of Nations,? Lond. , 1855, Part II. , p. 239. This work also remarks: ? Simple and outwardly unimportant as this appendage to lathes may appear, it is not, we believe, averring too much
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to state, that its influence in improving and extending the use of machinery has been as great as that produced by Watt's improvements of the steam-engine itself. Its introduction went at once to perfect all machinery, to cheapen it, and to stimulate invention and improvement. ?
21 One of these machines, used for forging paddle-wheel shafts in London, is called --Thor. ? It forges a shaft of 161/2 tons with as much ease as a blacksmith forges a horseshoe.
22 Wood-working machines that are also capable of being employed on a small scale are mostly American inventions.
23 Science, generally speaking, costs the capitalist nothing, a fact that by no means hinders him from exploiting it. The science of others is as much annexed by capital as the labour of others. Capitalistic appropriation and personal appropriation, whether of science or of material wealth, are, however, totally different things. Dr. Ure himself deplores the gross ignorance of mechanical science existing among his dear machinery-exploiting manufacturers, and Liebig can a tale unfold about the astounding ignorance of chemistry displayed by English chemical manufacturers.
24 Ricardo lays such stress on this effect of machinery (of which, in other connexions, he takes no more notice than he does of the general distinction between the labour process and the process of creating surplus value), that he occasionally loses sight of the value given up by machines to the product, and puts machines on the same footing as natural forces. Thus --Adam Smith nowhere undervalues the services which the natural agents and machinery perform for us, but he very justly distinguishes the nature of the value which they add to commodities. . . as they perform their work gratuitously, the assistance which they afford us, adds nothing to value in exchange. ? (Ric. , l. c. , pp. 336, 337. ) This observation of Ricardo is of course correct in so far as it is directed against J. B. Say, who imagines that machines render the --service? of creating value which forms a part of --profits. ?
25 A horse-power is equal to a force of 33,000 foot-pounds per minute, i. e. , to a force that raises 33,000 pounds one foot in a minute, or one pound 33,000 feet. This is the horse power meant in the text. In ordinary language, and also here and there in quotations in this work, a distinction is drawn between the --nominal? and the --commercial? or --indicated? horse-power of the same engine. The old or nominal horse-power is calculated exclusively from the length of piston-stroke, and the diameter of the cylinder, and leaves pressure of steam and piston speed out of consideration. It expresses practically this: This engine would be one of 50 horse-power, if it were driven with the same low pressure of steam, and the same slow piston speed, as in the days of Boulton and Watt. But the two latter factors have increased enormously since those days. In order to measure the mechanical force exerted today by an engine, an indicator has been invented which shows the pressure of the steam in the cylinder. The piston speed is easily ascertained. Thus the --indicated? or --commercial? horse- power of an engine is expressed by a mathematical formula, involving diameter of cylinder, length of stroke, piston speed, and steam pressure, simultaneously, and showing what multiple of 33,000 pounds is really raised by the engine in a minute. Hence, one --nominal? horse-power may exert three, four, or even five --indicated? or --real? horse-powers. This observation is made for the purpose of explaining various citations in the subsequent pages. -- F. E.
26 The reader who is imbued with capitalist notions will naturally miss here the --interest? that the machine, in proportion to its capital value, adds to the product. It is, however, easily seen that since a machine no more creates new value than any other part of constant capital, it cannot add any value under the name of --interest. ? It is also evident that here, where we are treating of the production of surplus value, we cannot assume a priori the existence of any part of that value under the name of interest. The capitalist mode of calculating, which appears, prima^ facie, absurd, and repugnant to the laws of the creation of value, will be explained in the third book of this work.
27 This portion of value which is added by the machinery, decreases both absolutely and relatively, when the machinery does away with horses and other animals that are employed as mere moving
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