"As capitalist, he is only capital personified. His soul is the soul of capital."
— Marx, Karl (1818-1883)
Author
Place of Publication
Hamburg
Publisher
Otto Meissner
Date
1867
Metaphor
"As capitalist, he is only capital personified. His soul is the soul of capital."
Metaphor in Context
The capitalist has bought the labour-power at its day-rate. To him its use-value belongs during one working day. He has thus acquired the right to make the labourer work for him during one day. But, what is a working day? At all events, less than a natural day. By how much? The capitalist has his own views of this ultima Thule [the outermost limit], the necessary limit of the working day. As capitalist, he is only capital personified. His soul is the soul of capital. But capital has one single life impulse, the tendency to create value and surplus value, to make its constant factor, the means of production, absorb the greatest possible amount of surplus labour. Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks. The time during which the labourer works, is the time during which the capitalist consumes the labour-power he has purchased of him.
(III.x.1, pp. 341-2 in Penguin edition)
(III.x.1, pp. 341-2 in Penguin edition)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Text from the translation at www.marxists.org.
See also Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume One, trans. Ben Fowkes (New York: Penguin Books, 1990).
See also Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume One, trans. Ben Fowkes (New York: Penguin Books, 1990).
Date of Entry
05/09/2012
