118
Chapter 5
23
“Profit, in the usual condition of the market, is not made by exchanging. Had it not existed before,
neither could it after that transaction.” (Ramsay, l.c., p. 184.)
24
From the foregoing investigation, the reader will see that this statement only means that the
formation of capital must be possible even though the price and value of a commodity be the same; for
its formation cannot be attributed to any deviation of the one from the other. If prices actually differ
from values, we must, first of all, reduce the former to the latter, in other words, treat the difference as
accidental in order that the phenomena may be observed in their purity, and our observations not
interfered with by disturbing circumstances that have nothing to do with the process in question. We
know, moreover, that this reduction is no mere scientific process. The continual oscillations in prices,
their rising and falling, compensate each other, and reduce themselves to an average price, which is
their hidden regulator. It forms the guiding star of the merchant or the manufacturer in every
undertaking that requires time. He knows that when a long period of time is taken, commodities are
sold neither over nor under, but at their average price. If therefore he thought about the matter at all,
he would formulate the problem of the formation of capital as follows: How can we account for the
origin of capital on the supposition that prices are regulated by the average price, i. e., ultimately by
the value of the commodities? I say “ultimately,” because average prices do not directly coincide with
the values of commodities, as Adam Smith, Ricardo, and others believe.
25
“Hic Rhodus, hic saltus!” – Latin, usually translated: “Rhodes is here, here is where you jump!”
Originates from the traditional Latin translation of the punch line from Aesop’s fable
The Boastful
Athlete
which has been the subject of some mistranslations. In Greek, the maxim reads:
“ιδού η ρόδος,
ιδού και το πήδημα”
The story is that an athlete boasts that when in Rhodes, he performed a stupendous jump, and that
there were witnesses who could back up his story. A bystander then remarked, ‘Alright! Let’s say this
is Rhodes, demonstrate the jump here and now.’ The fable shows that people must be known by their
deeds, not by their own claims for themselves. In the context in which Hegel used it in the Philosophy
of Right, this could be taken to mean that the philosophy of right must have to do with the actuality of
modern society, not the theories and ideals that societies create for themselves, nor, as Hegel goes on
to say, to “teach the world what it ought to be.”
The epigram is given by Hegel first in Greek, then in Latin (in the form “Hic Rhodus, hic saltus”), and
he then says: “With little change, the above saying would read (in German): “Hier ist die Rose, hier
tanze”: “Here is the rose, dance here”
This is taken to be an allusion to the ‘rose in the cross’ of the Rosicrucians (who claimed to possess
esoteric knowledge with which they could transform social life), implying that the material for
understanding and changing society is given in society itself, not in some other-worldly theory,
punning first on the Greek (Rhodos = Rhodes, rhodon = rose), then on the Latin (saltus = jump
[noun], salta = dance [imperative]). [MIA Editors.]
Chapter 6: The Buying and Selling of Labour-
Power
The change of value that occurs in the case of money intended to be converted into capital, cannot
take place in the money itself, since in its function of means of purchase and of payment, it does
no more than realise the price of the commodity it buys or pays for; and, as hard cash, it is value
petrified, never varying.
1
Just as little can it originate in the second act of circulation, the re-sale
of the commodity, which does no more than transform the article from its bodily form back again
into its money-form. The change must, therefore, take place in the commodity bought by the first
act, M-C, but not in its value, for equivalents are exchanged, and the commodity is paid for at its
full value. We are, therefore, forced to the conclusion that the change originates in the use-value,
as such, of the commodity, i.e., in its consumption. In order to be able to extract value from the
consumption of a commodity, our friend, Moneybags, must be so lucky as to find, within the
sphere of circulation, in the market, a commodity, whose use-value possesses the peculiar
property of being a source of value, whose actual consumption, therefore, is itself an embodiment
of labour, and, consequently, a creation of value. The possessor of money does find on the market
such a special commodity in capacity for labour or labour-power.
By labour-power or capacity for labour is to be understood the aggregate of those mental and
physical capabilities existing in a human being, which he exercises whenever he produces a use-
value of any description.
But in order that our owner of money may be able to find labour-power offered for sale as a
commodity, various conditions must first be fulfilled. The exchange of commodities of itself
implies no other relations of dependence than those which result from its own nature. On this
assumption, labour-power can appear upon the market as a commodity, only if, and so far as, its
possessor, the individual whose labour-power it is, offers it for sale, or sells it, as a commodity. In
order that he may be able to do this, he must have it at his disposal, must be the untrammelled
owner of his capacity for labour, i.e., of his person.
2
He and the owner of money meet in the
market, and deal with each other as on the basis of equal rights,
with this difference alone, that
one is buyer, the other seller; both, therefore, equal in the eyes of the law. The continuance of this
relation demands that the owner of the labour-power should sell it only for a definite period, for if
he were to sell it rump and stump, once for all, he would be selling himself, converting himself
from a free man into a slave, from an owner of a commodity into a commodity. He must
constantly look upon his labour-power as his own property, his own commodity, and this he can
only do by placing it at the disposal of the buyer temporarily, for a definite period of time. By this
means alone can he avoid renouncing his rights of ownership over it.
3
The second essential condition to the owner of money finding labour-power in the market as a
commodity is this – that the labourer instead of being in the position to sell commodities in which
his labour is incorporated, must be obliged to offer for sale as a commodity that very labour-
power, which exists only in his living self.
In order that a man may be able to sell commodities other than labour-power, he must of course
have the means of production, as raw material, implements, &c. No boots can be made without
leather. He requires also the means of subsistence. Nobody – not even “a musician of the future”
– can live upon future products, or upon use-values in an unfinished state; and ever since the first
moment of his appearance on the world’s stage, man always has been, and must still be a
consumer, both before and while he is producing. In a society where all products assume the form