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other section lives on the products of that labour, the wages paid for the maintenance of the labourer will be less than the value of the goods he produces. This is the essence of the capitalist system of production. The amount of labour spent by the labourer in producing the value of his wages is "necessary" labour, and the product produced is "necessary" product, and the value of the product "necessary" value, whereas the labour put in above that necessary to reproduce the value of his wages is "surplus" labour, the product so produced "surplus" product, and its value "surplus" value, "necessary" being used herein the sense of necessary to make a living under the given conditions possible.
There are one or two other points to note. By increasing his capital, and by improving his plant and machinery, the capitalist increases his profit (although, be it noted, not his rate of profit, but we cannot go into this subject now). It might thus, at first sight, appear as though the machinery created at any rate some of his surplus value. But a machine, when produced for sale to the capitalist, is as much a commodity as any other article, and the value contained in it is equal to the necessary social labour required for its production. The same is true for the rest of the plant, the raw material, and accessories employed in the production of any particular article, let us say cloth. And spread over a number of years, this value of the raw materials, machinery, etc., finds its way into the finished productcloth. The cotton and accessories in the finished cloth, as cotton, etc., have not changed their value; the machine and other plant, as such, has not changed its value except in so far as it has given up a little of it, which is written off as "wear and tear."
Why, then, if profits are the result of the surplus value produced by surplus labour, do profits increase the more machinery is perfected? Simply because a machine is a time-saving apparatus. It enables the worker to reproduce the value equivalent to his wages in a shorter number of hours every day, thus leaving a longer number of hours to be employed in the production of surplus value. If previously the worker had to work six out of every twelve
