enough value to pay his own wages, but the boss, having bought the laboring-power by the day, may be able to make the wage-worker work ten hours daily. The miner needs only to work two hours to produce a value of $2.00 to reproduce his labor-power. As Marx would say:
He must daily reproduce a value of $2.00 (which he will do in two hours), to daily reproduce his labor-power.
But when he sells his laboring-power to the boss the boss acquires the right to use his labor-power the entire day—as many hours as the worker's physical endurance will permit.
If he forces the miner to work ten hours daily, the workingman will be laboring eight hours beyond the time necessary to pay his own wages (or value of his labor-power). These eight hours of surplus labor are embodied in a surplus value or a surplus product.
In two hours the miner produces in coal value sufficient to pay for his labor-power, but in the eight succeeding hours of labor he will produce coal valuing $8.00, all of which the capitalist retains for himself.
Since the miner sold his laboring-power to the capitalist, the coal, or value the miner produces, belongs to the capitalist.
Thus the capitalist spends $2.00 a day in wages (or two hours of labor) and acquires coal, or other commodities, equal to $10.00 (or ten hours of labor). Thus come profits.
