But what happens to the increased productivity, if it does not improve the lives of the workers? Marx’s answer is that it is skimmed off from the worker’s output in the form of surplus value. The capitalist obtains the use-value of the worker’s labour-power, and pays only the exchange-value. Because labour-power is a commodity that can be used to produce more value than it has itself, the capitalist is able to retain the difference between the two.
