Karl Marx Quotes About Labor

Quotes about: Labor

• Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.

  Karl Marx

  Ghouls, Division Of Labor, Vampire

• What the working man sells is not directly his Labor, but his Laboring Power, the temporary disposal of which he makes over to the capitalist. This is so much the case that I do not know whether by the English Law, but certainly by some Continental Laws, the maximum time is fixed for which a man is allowed to sell his laboring power. If allowed to do so for any indefinite period whatever, slavery would be immediately restored. Such a sale, if it comprised his lifetime, for example, would make him at once the lifelong slave of his employer.

  Karl Marx

  Work, Men, Law

  Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Wolfgang Schirmacher (1997). “German socialist philosophy”, Continuum Intl Pub Group

• Machines were, it may be said, the weapon employed by the capitalists to quell the revolt of specialized labor.

  Karl Marx

  Machines, May, Weapons

  Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels (1976). “Karl Marx, Frederick Engels: Collected Works”, International Pub

• The product of mental labor - science - always stands far below its value, because the labor-time necessary to reproduce it has no relation at all to the labor-time required for its original production.

  Karl Marx

  Time, Science, Scientist

  "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844". Book by Karl Marx, "Relative and Absolute Surplus Value", 1932.

• Constant labor of one uniform kind destroys the intensity and flow of a man's animal spirits, which find recreation and delight in mere change of activity.

  Karl Marx

  Animal, Men, Delight

  Karl Marx (1932). “Capital: The Communist Manifesto and Other Writings”

• The more the division of labor and the application of machinery extend, the more does competition extend among the workers, the more do their wages shrink together.

  Karl Marx

  Division Of Labor, Competition, Together

  Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels (1973). “Karl Marx on Society and Social Change: With Selections by Friedrich Engels”, p.97, University of Chicago Press

• Labor produces marvels for the rich but it produces deprivation for the worker. It produces palaces, but hovels for the worker. It produces beauty, but deformity for the worker. It replaces labor by machines, but it throws one section of the workers back to barbaric labor, and it turns the remainder into machines.

  Karl Marx

  Work, Palaces, Machines

  "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts". Book by Karl Marx, "Alienated Labor" (p. 135), 1983.

• Labor in the white skin can never free itself as long as labor in the black skin is branded.

  Karl Marx

  White, Long, Black

• He who before was the money owner, now strides in front as capitalist; the possessor of labor-power follows as his laborer. The one with an air of importance, smirking, intent on business; the other hesitant, like one who is bringing his own hide to market and has nothing to expect but a hiding.

  Karl Marx

  Air, Hiding, Owners

• The values of commodities are directly as the times of labor employed in their production, and are inversely as the productive powers of the labor employed.

  Karl Marx

  Commodity, Labor, Employed

  Karl Marx (1913). “Value, Price and Profit”

• A commodity has a value because it is a crystallization of social labor. The greatness of its value, or its relative value, depends upon the greater or less amount of that social substance contained in it; that is to say, on the relative mass of labor necessary for its production.

  Karl Marx

  Greatness, Relative Value, Substance

  Karl Marx (1913). “Value, Price and Profit”

• The directing motive, the end and aim of capitalist production, is to extract the greatest possible amount of surplus value, and consequently to exploit labor-power to the greatest possible extent.

  Karl Marx

  Ends, Motive, Aim

  Karl Marx (2012). “Das Kapital: A Critique of Political Economy”, p.178, Regnery Publishing

• ...the realm of freedom does not commence until the point is passed where labor under the compulsion of necessity and of external utility is required.

  Karl Marx

  Doe, Compulsion, Realms

  Karl Marx (2007). “Capital: A Critique of Political Economy - The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole”, p.954, Cosimo, Inc.

• Labor, being itself a commodity, is measured as such by the labor time needed to produce the labor-commodity. And what is needed to produce this labor-commodity? Just enough labor time to produce the objects indispensable to the constant maintenance of labor, that is, to keep the worker alive and in a condition to propagate his race. The natural price of labor is no other than the wage minimum.

  Karl Marx

  Race, Maintenance, Alive

  Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels (2016). “Delphi Collected Works of Karl Marx (Illustrated)”, p.326, Delphi Classics

• The entire so-called history of the world is nothing but the creation of man through human labor.

  Karl Marx

  Men, Creation Of Man, World

  Karl Marx (2012). “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844”, p.113, Courier Corporation

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