Under what conditions does this sale of the labour of the proletarians to the bourgeoisie take place?
A. Labour is a commodity like any other and its price is therefore determined by exactly the same laws that apply to other commodities. In a regime of large-scale industry or of free competition — as we shall see, the two come to the same thing — the price of a commodity is on the average always equal to the costs of production. Hence the price of labour is also equal to the costs of production of labour. But the costs of production consist of precisely the quantity of means of subsistence necessary to keep the worker fit for work and to prevent the working class from dying out. The worker will therefore get no more for his labour than is necessary for this purpose; the price of labour or the wage will therefore be the lowest, the minimum, required for the maintenance of life. However, since business is sometimes worse and some times better, the worker receives sometimes more and some times less, just as the factory owner sometimes gets more and sometimes less for his commodities. Bu
