measure of value. That is to say, the measure of the value of the capitalist commodity "general human labor power" is the amount of this labor power necessary for its reproduction under the social conditions of production existing at the time when it is dealt in on the market. This dual position of the commodity general human labor power is what has mystified and baffled the investigators into the laws of production and distribution of wealth in capitalist society. When this dual position is properly understood the mystery vanishes, and the anatomy and physiology, as well as the psychology of capitalist society are revealed to the mind's eye, so that their construction and modus operandi can be studied in detail.
We have seen already that the value of a commodity is determined by the amount of labor which will necessarily have to be expended in its reproduction. This amount of labor will have to be bought in the open market by the producer in the shape of labor power, potential labor, and he will have to pay for it, barring accidents, its value. That is to say, he will have to pay the value of the labor necessary to produce this labor power, or, in other words, he will have to pay, in the form of wages, the amount of goods which the laborer consumes while exerting his labor power. This amount will vary, of course, with the productivity of labor in general, and with the standard of living of the workingmen. But it will invariably be less than the amount of goods produced by the laborer in this exertion of his labor power. This is a prerequisite not only of capitalist production, but of any social form of production wherein a part only of the members of society are actively engaged in the work of production. In other words, in our capitalist system, when a man sells his labor power to another man for a certain number of hours every day in consideration of a certain wage, the amount of labor necessary in order to produce the product represented by his wage is always smaller than the total amount of labor which he sold to his employer. As general human labor can only be
