As Marx noted earlier, in this chapter,
"Labour-time, even if exchange-value is eliminated, always remains the creative substance of wealth and the measure of the cost of its production. But free time, disposable time, is wealth itself, partly for the enjoyment of the product, partly for free activity which—unlike labour—is not dominated by the pressure of an extraneous purpose which must be fulfilled, and the fulfilment of which is regarded as a natural necessity or a social duty, according to one’s inclination.
It is self-evident that if labour-time is reduced to a normal length and, furthermore, labour is no longer performed for someone else, but for myself, and, at the same time, the social contradictions between master and men, etc., being abolished, it acquires a quite different, a free character, it becomes real social labour, and finally the basis of disposable time—the labour of a man who has also disposable time, must be of a much higher quality than that of the beast of burden.”
It is this social relation between wage labour and capital that establishes the value of capital, as the average rate of profit, on the basis of the cost of putting that labour to work (c + v), as against the value that labour creates (v + s), so that the extent of the value of capital is equal to its self-expansion s/(c + v), or the rate of profit.
For the industrial capitalist (which includes both productive and commercial capitalists), this relation also exists in relation to the money-lending capitalist, and the owner of landed property. Just as the labourer is only allowed to access the means of production if they provide unpaid labour, so the industrial capitalist, who does not own money-capital of their own, (or who needs to borrow more of it) is only allowed to access it, by the money-lending capitalist, if they, in turn, provide unpaid labour (surplus value) to them. The same is true of the industrial capitalist who needs to use land in the hands of the owners of landed property. If the money-lender lends €100 to the industrial capitalist, who buys a machine with it, on which they make €10 profit, that latter repays the €100 loan, plus an amount of interest. The interest, say €5, represents an amount of unpaid labour, surplus value.
The money-lender got back, in the €100 the exact same amount of value they had handed to the industrial capitalist, but they have also obtained an additional €5, whilst exchanging nothing for it, in return. It is the equivalent of €5 of unpaid labour. The same is true of rent, where the owner of landed property, obtains a rent, equal to the surplus profit of the capitalist farmer, whilst giving no equal value in exchange for it. In examining the productiveness of capital, therefore, it is important to keep in mind this distinction between the commodities that comprise the elements of capital, as opposed to capital itself, as self-expanding value, as the social relation with wage-labour.
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