The first essay in the collection, “Wages of Labor,” begins with the declaration that the worker is in every respect at a disadvantage to the capitalist. The worker needs the capitalist, of which there are relatively few, for their livelihood, whereas the capitalist has countless potential workers from whom to choose. Capitalists can team up with each other to protect their respective monopolies, whereas workers cannot cooperate because they are in competition with one another for jobs. The workers’ reliance on wages fixed them to a particular location, such as a farm or factory. Since capitalists also derive rents and interest payments from various financial investments, they can make money practically anywhere, and so the worker is utterly reliant on capital investment remaining in place. Due to this imbalance, the worker is ultimately another economic asset, like a machine or head of livestock, whose value is measured not merely in terms of the labor they are capable of generating, but in comparison with every other laborer with similar qualifications. Whenever the supply of laborers exceeds the demand, some segments of the labor force will fall into a desperate state. Even those who can find work will be paid below its value since the employer can always find someone who will work for less.

Due to the asymmetry between worker and employer, the worker loses out no matter how the market evolves. If prices fall, the value of their labor decreases. If prices rise, demand is likely to fall, canceling any potential rise in wages. In each case, the capitalist may enjoy greater or lesser profit margins, while the worker risks their ability to provide for themselves and their families. Theoretically, a general increase in productivity and wealth should be favorable to both workers and capitalists, even if the latter benefit disproportionately. Marx argues that in practice, even the most favorable economic conditions ultimately prove harmful to workers. If demand for goods exceeds supply, then workers will extend their hours to the detriment of their health. A capitalist system demands high turnover so that the available workers are always fresh. Furthermore, a wealthier society makes the capitalist still more powerful relative to workers. Technological innovation leads to a more complicated division of labor, isolating each worker in one task that is increasingly removed from the finished product. They become a cog in a vast machine, and disruption in any of its parts can obliterate their wages at any moment. Such disruptions can also cause problems for capitalists as larger firms use their pricing power to put smaller firms out of business. This pushes former capitalists into the working class, increasing the supply of labor and decreasing wages. As a handful of capitalists consolidate power, the working class will be vast and powerless, forced to compete with one another for the most meager scraps from the table. The wealthier a society becomes, the closer the workers approach a state of mere subsistence. For Marx, this is not just a consequence of capitalism, but its explicit purpose—to transfer the wealth generated by workers to the owners of capital.

Marx then contrasts the prevailing theories of his time with the reality of capitalism. In theory, a worker should enjoy the fruits of their labor, but their wages represent a fraction of the value their labor produces, while those who become rich are landowners and financiers who contribute little to the value creation. The accumulation of wealth should increase the pot available to the worker, but instead, they work themselves to exhaustion while a tiny elite controls the profits.

Having established a more objective view of how political economy works, Marx turns to the philosophic significance of workers being reduced to the condition of mere animals or machines. Marx provides long quotations from the socialist Wilhelm Schulz that describe how the condition of workers is worsening, citing the example of English workers in a cotton factory whose wages remained flat as population growth endangered their job security, labor-saving devices increased their hours, and the gap between rich and poor continued to grow. Schulz laments that workers, including women and children, are engaged in backbreaking labor for long hours, with no time to enjoy their lives, when mechanization has made it possible for society to meet its needs at far less social cost. It is only the profit motive of capitalism, not actual social needs, that drive these workers into such a bleak condition. To close the chapter, Marx turns to the French socialist Charles Loudon, who shows that industrial cities in England and Ireland are not only slipping into poverty and vice but survive only because they receive constant infusions of new labor from the countryside. He compares workers to soldiers who are constantly giving their lives in an endless war of conquest.