Two Ways to Extract More Work — Das Kapital

Marx reunites the two strategies of surplus extraction and sharpens the concept of productive labour under capitalism. Absolute surplus-value extends the working day beyond necessary labour. Relative surplus-value shortens necessary labour through rising productivity.

They interpenetrate: methods that raise productivity also enable longer or harder work, and modern industry often combines both brutally. Productive labour now means labour that produces surplus-value for capital, not labour that merely creates useful things. A teacher in a for-profit school may count; a teacher outside capital's circuit may not, regardless of social usefulness.

Marx then examines natural limits and historical productivity. Surplus labour presupposes productivity above subsistence, but nature alone does not create exploitation. Fertile regions can even slow capitalist development by reducing pressure to innovate. Temperate zones with varied production and seasonal pressure become capital's heartland. The sago gatherer with abundant leisure does not automatically create surplus-value; compulsion and history do. Finally Marx dismantles John Stuart Mill's confused claim that profit arises innocently from labour producing more than it consumes.