In the same way that capital does not buy a specific type of labour-power, say the labour-power of a lathe operator, for its specific use-value, of turning metal, but for its use value, as abstract labour, of creating new value, and thereby surplus value, so the capitalist does not buy a lathe, for its use value as a lathe to assist the lathe operator in turning metal, but for its capacity, as capital to produce the average rate of profit. It is the demand and supply for this use value, which determines its market price – the rate of interest. In the same way, land, which has no value, because it also is not the product of labour, has a price for the use value it provides, which is determined by the demand and supply for that use value. Where land enables a capitalist farmer to produce a surplus profit, the demand for land rises, enabling landowners to charge a rent for the land, equal to this surplus profit.
The value of the machine, as a machine, however, is simply €100. If I sell the machine as a machine, i.e. as a commodity, I can only obtain this value, equal to the labour-time required for its reproduction – assuming prices equal exchange values. The commodities that comprise the elements of constant and variable-capital have no magical property to expand in value, and, those same commodities, in previous modes of production, acted only as means of production, not capital. It is nothing about these commodities, as means of production, as constant and variable-capital that enables them to produce a profit, but only the social relation that is created between them, and their use as capital, and wage labour. In the same way, it is nothing about wage-labour, as wage labour, that enables it to produce new value, and thereby to also produce a surplus value. That is a property of labour itself, irrespective of whether it is wage-labour, the labour of members of a communist society, of the primitive commune, or the labour of members of a peasant household. All that changes in these different societies, is the form in which this value, and of the surplus value manifests itself.
As Marx puts it,
“In so far as it has the specifically social character of wage-labour, it is not value-creating.”,
He continues,
“... and the specific social conditions, under which this labour-power is sold, have nothing to do with labour as a general agent in production... And, in general, when we establish labour as value-creating, we do not consider it in its concrete form as a condition of production, but in its social delimitation which differs from that of wage-labour.”
(Marx – Capital III, Chapter 48)
It is that social relation that ensures that the labourer, who can only work if they are allowed access to the means of production, in the possession of the capitalist, is only allowed that access if they provide free labour to the capitalist in addition to the paid labour. Similarly, the worker can only live if they have access to the means of consumption (wage goods), which are also in the possession of the capitalists, as they appropriate them, as soon as they are produced by the worker. So, again, the worker only has access if they supply labour-power to the capitalist as a commodity, at its value, and which the capitalist will only buy if the worker also then provides additional unpaid labour to the capitalist. This relation does not create surplus value, other than in the sense that it ensures that the labourers must perform surplus labour, whereas previously it was up to them to choose to do so or not. The fact that a labourer performs surplus labour, in excess of that required to reproduce their labour-power, is what produces surplus value, whether that labourer is an independent producer, or a wage labourer. The specific social relation merely determines who has control over this surplus labour, and the form it assumes. The independent peasant producer, produces a surplus value, and it is appropriated from them as feudal rent by the landlord, as Labour Rent, Rent in Kind, or Money Rent, though some of these producers may be able to retain some of the surplus value they produce, which is used for their accumulation. The wage worker produces new value, and a surplus value, and this surplus value is appropriated by the capitalist as profit, whilst further parts are appropriated as rent, interest and taxes. The surplus value produced by labourers in a primitive commune or a communist society takes the form of a surplus product, immediately under the control of the commune itself, and available to enable either accumulation of means of production, an increase in consumption, or an increase in leisure-time.
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