Introducing Marx: A Graphic Guide (Graphic Guides)

by Rius

For the same sum with which the capitalist has bought their labour power, e.g. two marks, he could have bought two pounds of sugar or a definite amount of any other commodity. The two marks, with which he bought two pounds of sugar, are the price of the two pounds of sugar. The two marks, with which he bought twelve hours’ use of labour power, are the price of twelve hours’ labour. Labour power, therefore, is a commodity, neither more nor less than sugar. The former is measured by the clock, the latter by the scales. (Marx, Wage-Labour and Capital)

Marx : Labour is comodity

The proletariat is that class of society whose means of livelihood entirely depend on the sale of its labor and not on the profit derived from capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose whole existence depend on the demand for labor, hence on the alternation of good times and bad, on the vagaries of unbridled competition. The proletariat, or class of proletarians, is, in a word, the working class of the 19th century.

Marx : Proletariat definition