Why Your Paycheck Goes Further Elsewhere — Das Kapital

National wage differences look like simple comparisons of currency and living standards, but Marx shows the comparison fails without normalization. One must equalize the working day, compare intensity and productivity, and translate time-wages into piece-wages where needed. More developed capitalist countries have higher national intensity and productivity, so the same hour creates more value and more money wages without proving workers are better off.

On the world market, more productive nations can sell above their individual value and capture value from less developed producers. Factory reports show continental mills with lower nominal wages, longer hours, and yet higher labour cost per product than England. Russian factories under English managers combine extreme overwork, shameful pay, and protectionism just to survive.

Redgrave's tables show British spinners tending far more spindles per worker than continental peers. Railway builders abroad confirm that higher nominal wages can coincide with lower relative price of labour for capital. Carey's optimistic theory that wages rise with national productivity is dismantled as apologetics ignoring surplus-value and state intervention.