How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Paragraph) or (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Coats and linen, however, are not merely values in general, but values of definite magnitude, and, following our assumption, the coat is worth twice as much of the 10 yards of linen. Why is there this difference in value? Because the linen contains only half as much labour as the coat, so that labour-power had to be expended twice as long to produce the second as to produce the first. (1.2.12)
To measure the value of a commodity—be it a coat or linen—you need to measure the quantity of time that went into producing it. This simple concept is known as the labor theory of value. Marx isn't the only proponent of the idea, but he's definitely one of the biggest. He places the concept of time right in the center of his economic views.
Quote #2
The fact that half a day's labour is necessary to keep the worker alive during 24 hours does not in any way prevent him from working a whole day. Therefore the value of labour-power, and the value which that labour-power valorizes in the labour-process, are two entirely different magnitudes; and this difference was what the capitalist had in mind when he was purchasing the labour-power [...] What was really decisive for him was the specific use-value which this commodity possesses of being a source not only of value, but of more value than it has itself. (7.2.22)
Seeing our time through the lens of Marx's theory brings new meaning to the workday. Now, we all have to keep ourselves alive. That's a worker's necessary labor time, which pays for the cost of him- or herself. But we're worked much more than that—and that's called surplus labor time. Imagine that half of your every minute at work is spent working for the cost to maintain your standard of living, and the other 30 seconds is work that goes into your employer's pocket. Does this sound like a fair deal?
Quote #3
If the Règlement organique of the Danubian Principalities was a positive expression of the appetite for surplus labour which every paragraph legalized, the English Factory Acts are the negative expression of the same appetite. These laws curb capital's drive towards a limitless draining away of labour-power by forcibly limiting the working day on the authority of the state, but a state ruled by capitalist and landlord. Apart from the daily more threatening advance of the working-class movement, the limiting of factory labour was dictated by the same necessity as forced the manuring of English fields with guano. The same blind desire for profit that in the one case exhausted the soil had in the other case seized hold of the vital force of the nation at its roots. Periodical epidemics speak as clearly on this point as the diminishing military standard of height in France and Germany. (10.2.6)
If your time is completely dominated by work, you have no time to rest, and your exhaustion would make you a less productive worker. Besides keeping the working class in check, Marx says the government passes laws to regulate the time of the workday so that reckless capitalists won't destroy their own workers through overwork. Rest is also necessary to keep the population a fit fighting force in case of war, after all.
Quote #4
These 'small thefts' of capital from the workers' meal-times and recreation times are also described by the factory inspectors as 'petty pilferings of minutes', 'snatching a few minutes' or, in the technical language of the workers, 'nibbling and cribbling at meal-times'. (10.2.14)
The point of this passage is to illustrate how capitalists tried to steal workers' meal and break times. But we're not sure why nibbling and cribbling is technical language.
Quote #5
Moments are the elements of profit. (10.2.15)
Capitalists must seek to make every moment more efficient and profitable, Marx argues, since they must not lose out to their competitors. How are different professions affected by the need to race against the clock? Consider doctors interacting with patients, for example.
Quote #6
In this connection, nothing is more characteristic than the designation of the workers who work full time as 'full-timers', and the children under 13 who are only allowed to work six hours as 'half-timers'. The worker is here nothing more than personified labour-time. All individual distinctions are obliterated in that between 'full-timers' and 'half-timers'. (10.2.16)
When we refer to people as part-timers or full-timers, something as abstract and invisible as time has become their identity.
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?
Quote #10
By extending the working day, therefore, capitalist production, which is essentially the production of surplus-value, the absorption of surplus labour, not only produces a deterioration of human labour-power by robbing it of its normal moral and physical conditions of development and activity, but also produces the premature exhaustion and death of this labour-power itself. It extends the worker's production-time within a given period by shortening his life. (10.5.2)
Marx has a way of repeating himself, which is why the entire first volume of Das Kapital is around 1000 pages—and that's not even considering the other volumes. Still, the question of time is central to his analysis of capitalism, which is why he keeps returning to the discussion of it.