How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Paragraph) or (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
'What is a working day? What is the length of time during which capital may consume the labour-power whose daily value it has paid for? How far may the working day be extended beyond the amount of labour-time necessary for the reproduction of labour-power itself?' We have seen that capital's reply to these questions is this: the working day contains the full 24 hours, with the deduction of the few hours of rest without which labour-power is absolutely incapable of renewing its services. (10.5.1)
Marx looked at the 19th century in Europe and saw employers enforcing brutal control over workers' every minute. But consider the famous perks for employees at Google, where workers even have nap pods available for rest. Does this represent selfless kindness on the part of Google and a change in how society regards people's time? Or have capitalists just learned different strategies for extracting productivity from time-management since the 19th century?
Quote #8
It is not the normal maintenance of labour-power which determines the limits of the working day here, but rather the greatest possible daily expenditure of labour-power, no matter how diseased, compulsory and painful it may be, which determines the limits of the workers' period of rest. (10.5.1)
In chapter 10, Marx also describes a child, William Wood, who had to work for fifteen hours a day six days a week. That's the kind of work environment he had in mind when he talked about capitalists controlling time to such an extent that working could be called a disease.
Quote #9
Capital asks no questions about the length of life of labour-power. What interests it is purely and simply the maximum of labour-power that can be set in motion in a working day. It attains this objective by shortening the life of labour-power, in the same way as a greedy farmer snatches more produce from the soil by robbing it of its fertility. (10.5.1)
Marx saw capitalists not asking questions about the length of their workers' lives and being willing to shorten them to get more productivity. Consider how some workers today are given bonuses for undertaking hazardous duties. How have things changed? Have the motivations of capitalists changed? Has the attitude of society? How do any changes impact Marx's argument?