Wage labour and Capital

Introduction by Engels
Articles in “Nueva Gaceta Renana”, in 1849

hitherto: todavía, hasta aquí

modifications: “According to the original reading, the worker sells his labour for wages, which he
receives from the capitalist; according to the present text, he sells his labour-power.

Sought: buscado

the value of a commodity is equal to its cost of productioin.

Steadily: continuamente

“the labourer's cost of production consists of the sum of the means of subsistence (or their
price in money) which on the average are requisite to enable him to work, to maintain in him
this capacity for work, and to replace him at his departure, …

“according to the assertion of classical political economy, commodities are in the long run sold at
their values, that is, thay are sold at prics which correspond to the necessary quantities of labour
contained in them.

Offshoot: vástago

wrecked: destrozado

“What the economists had considered as the cost of production of “labour” was really the cost of
production, not of “labour”, but of the living labourer himself.”

coal: carbón

dyestuff: colorante, tinte

stranded: varado

upon: sobre

“labor-power is, in our present-day capitalist society, a commodity like every other
commodity, but yet a very peculiar commodity. It has, namely, the pecularity of being a value-
creating force, the source of value, and, moreover, when properly trated, the source of more
value than it possesses itself.

“the working class alone produces all values. For value is only another expression for labour, that
expression, namely, by ehich is designated, in our capitalist society of today, the amount of socially
necessary labour embodied in a particular commodity.