Question

On page 151 of Capital, Marx writes that “Between equal rights force decides. Hence it is that in the history of capitalist production, the determination of what is a working day presents itself as the result of a struggle, a struggle between collective capital, i.e., the class of capitalists, and collective labor, i.e., the working class.” Why is the definition of “working day” such an important issue? What are the “equal rights” that Marx mentions in the above quote?

Answer 1

Capitalist is the purchaser where as working class are the sellers. Working day has no linits due to exchange of commodities and the surplus labours. The Purchaser always try to make working class work all day possible as they try to exploit the working class. Now the working class has the right to reduce the working hours in a day as due to the commodities nature which implies a limit on the purchaser thus making the working class have their own rights which is attained by their struggle.

According to marx the equal rights of working class is that they are having same rights of captialists until what is the amount to sell or working hours of the labour.