measured by the time during which the labor power was exerted, it is the same thing as saying that the time required to produce a man's wages is always shorter than the time for which he was hired by the payment of these wages.
The amount of labor spent in reproducing the product which goes to the laborer as his wages may be called "necessary labor," for the reason that it is absolutely necessary in order to make further production or even existence itself on the same plane possible. The amount of labor, on the other hand, which the laborer puts in above the "necessary labor" we may call "surplus labor," for the reason that it is an overplus or addition to the amount of "necessary labor" which the laborer has already put in. The product which is produced in the "necessary labor" time, may for the same reasons be called "necessary" product, and its value—"necessary" value; and the product produced in the "surplus labor" time, and its value—"surplus" product and value. In using the words "necessary" and "surplus" in characterizing the different parts of labor, product, or value, we do not intend to convey any meaning of praise or justification in the case of the one, nor of condemnation or derogation in the case of the other. We use them in their purely technical sense, with absolutely no "ethical" or "appreciative" significance.
This surplus value being constantly produced by the commodity labor power which the capitalists engaged in production constantly employ in their business, is the secret and mysterious source of all the wealth and revenue which fall to the share of those classes of capitalist society, which, without producing themselves, and without either by force or cunning appropriating to themselves what others produced, are still found in possession of quite a considerable share of the worldly goods of our society. Because of the peculiar faculty of the commodity labor power to produce a surplus-product representing surplus-value, the capitalist class is enabled to obtain a part of the annual product of society without taking it from the producers.
