If wages were a price for labour, i.e. a price equal to the value created by labour, in the production process, then, indeed, there could be no surplus value, and, consequently, no profit, rent, interest or taxes. But, then, there would be no capitalism either, because capital only employs labour, in order to produce profits. What the description of these revenues as prices for the supply of factors of production disguises is the true underlying relation of wage-labour and capital, and the exploitation of the former by the latter, as a condition of its employment. What it disguises is the nature of what the worker actually sells to capital, being not their labour, but their labour-power.
The value of that labour-power is itself determined, like any other commodity, by the labour-time required for its production, which means the labour-time required for the reproduction of the workers. The workers require food, shelter, clothing, education, healthcare and so on, and, as Marx describes in Capital and The Grundrisse, in relation to The Civilising Mission of Capital, the actual physical components of all these use-values required for the reproduction of the workers changes from one country to another, one period of time to another. It involves a historical and cultural component. What wages actually are, therefore, is not a money payment for the supply of labour, but is the value of all these commodities required for the reproduction of labour-power.
If we take capital, as a whole, and the working-class as a whole, real wages are equal to all of those commodities, produced by workers, but in the hands of the capitalists, which are handed back to the workers, to ensure the reproduction of their labour-power. Money wages are only required, because of the nature of commodity production and exchange, under capitalism, in which workers are employed by a wide range of different capitals, each producing different types of commodity. In the 19th century, that was demonstrated by the fact that some employers utilised the Truck System, paying their workers, not money wages, but tokens, which could only be redeemed against goods sold in the stores operated by the employer. The welfare state operates on the same basis, as a huge Truck System, in which part of the workers' wage – the social wage – is paid in truck, in the form of various welfare services such as healthcare, education, social care, and so on.
Nominal or money wages are the market price of labour-power, and like all other market prices, fluctuate on the basis of movements in demand and supply for the given commodity. On that basis, nominal wages may be higher or lower than the value of labour-power.
The description of wages as a price for labour, as against, what they really are, the price of labour-power, disguises this real relation, and source of surplus value – profits, rent, interest, taxes. But, also, because wages are a price for labour-power, whose value can be objectively determined on the basis of the value of the commodities required for its reproduction, it disguises the fact that all of these other revenues – profit, rent, interest, taxes – are a residual, whose magnitude is determined by the magnitude of the former. If the value of labour-power rises, so that a greater part of the working-day is required as necessary labour, then the proportion of surplus labour is accordingly reduced, so that the amount of surplus value is proportionally reduced, meaning the proportion that can be paid out as profit, rent, interest or taxes is reduced.
That does not mean that the amount of surplus value may not rise, only that its proportional share is reduced. If 100 workers are employed for 10 hours, of which 5 hours is necessary labour, a total of 500 hours of surplus labour/value is produced. If the same 100 workers work for 20 hours, of which 12 hours is necessary labour, the total surplus labour/value rises to 800 hours, but the proportion of surplus labour/rate of surplus value has fallen from 100% to 66.6%. Nor does it mean, as Marx describes in Capital III, that because the proportion of surplus value falls, the proportion of any of its derivatives, manifest in these other revenues, necessarily falls. If surplus value is 500, and is divided 400 profit of enterprise, 50 rent, 30 interest and 20 taxes, a fall to a surplus value of 450 might still see, a rise in any of these revenues, with a consequent fall in the others. For example, 340 profit of enterprise, 55 rent, 35 interest, 20 taxes.
If the value of labour-power rises, causing wages to rise, but capital must still seek to reproduce itself, on an expanded basis, the consequence of a fall in the industrial rate of profit, will mean that the surplus profit produced in primary production will rise, causing rents to rise. A greater proportion of profit will be required to finance capital accumulation, meaning less is thrown into money markets as loanable-money capital, causing interest rates to rise, whilst taxes are what is required to finance the functioning of the capitalist state, and consequently unchanged.
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