WAGE Labour and Capital, is a pamphlet based on Karl Marx’s 1847 lectures to the German Workers’ Society in Brussels, subsequently edited by Friedrich Engels and published in 1891 together with an introduction.  

It’s an early formulation of Marx’s critique of capitalism and a practical teaching tool aimed at workers preparing for political struggle.

While written in a vastly different economic era, its concepts continue to resonate in the context of today’s escalating inequality, economic crisis, and attacks on workers’ rights.  

Its enduring relevance lies not only in its historical significance: it remains an accessible introduction to Marxist economics and political economy.

Context

In 1847 Marx was in Brussels, where he had sought refuge after his expulsion from France in 1845.

Europe was on the brink of revolution, driven by economic hardship and demands for political representation. Marx was intensively researching and elaborating the ideas that would later mature into Capital and he was asked to give a series of lectures to the German Workers’ Society.  

The lectures were intended to provide an accessible introduction to the economics of capitalism. He and Engels became central figures in the Communist League (formed in 1847) which commissioned them to write The Communist Manifesto (published in February 1848 and the topic of another of this Marxist Classics series).  

In March 1848, Marx was arrested and expelled again, first to Paris then briefly to Cologne, Germany. Here he founded and co-edited a newspaper, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in which the lectures were first published in April 1849.  

Following this, Marx was expelled (yet again), moving permanently to London in June together with his family.

The first English translation of Wage Labour and Capital was published in 1886. Later, in 1891, Engels prepared a revised German text, aligning the content with Marx’s later analysis of the political economy of capitalism and adding an important foreword. These were first published in English in 1897 and 1902.

Reception and impact

Marx’s 1847 lectures and their 1849 publication in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, had a modest though significant impact within the early socialist movement.

Marx and Engels themselves were not yet leading figures; other currents — anarchism, utopian socialism, reformism — were influential. Nevertheless, alongside The Communist Manifesto the text was used by the Communist League (which dissolved in 1852) and others in Marx’s political circle as a clear, accessible primer on economic concepts that often appeared abstract or inaccessible.

Wage Labour and Capital, became more prominent following Marx’s death, when Engels re-edited and republished it in 1891.

Engels’s foreword serves several purposes. He explains that the text was written in 1847, before Marx’s economic theories had fully matured.

He carefully situates the work as a product of its time, not as a fully formed exposition of Marx’s final positions. For example, Engels explains, Marx had not yet arrived at the crucial distinction between labour and labour-power.  

However (Engels declares), the fundamental insights of Marxism were already present. This message was politically important: he wanted to show that Marxism was a coherent but developing system.  

Overall, Engels’s foreword functions as a bridge between 1847 and 1891 — both intellectually and politically.

Wage Labour and Capital, together with Engels’ edits, can be seen as a short introduction to the concepts elaborated in detail in the three volumes of Karl Marx’s ground-breaking Capital (of which Volume I was published in 1867).

It remained so until the publication in 1898 of Value, Price and Profit (also known as Wages, Price and Profit) by his daughter Eleanor Marx. This was based on her father’s 1865 notes for his presentations to the International Working Men’s Association (The First International).

Wage Labour and Capital remained one of the most widely read Marxist texts at least until 1917. Its emphasis on political economy and the inherently exploitative and crisis-ridden nature of capitalism helped to shape the Marxism of the Second International.

Lenin drew heavily on Engels’s popularisations and the edited text became standard in party schools.

Content

The English translations of Engels’s 1891 revisions of Marx’s 1847 text form the basis of most published pamphlet editions today. Most are relatively short, usually between 30 to 40 pages, with Engels’s foreword taking up around a third of the whole.  

Despite its brevity, Wage Labour and Capital outlines most of the key ideas that Marx later expands in Capital.

At the time of its composition much of his critique of political economy was still in development and, as Engels explains, many concepts (most notably surplus value) had not yet been fully formulated. However, the basic outlines of Marx’s materialist interpretation of society and his critique of exploitation were already present.

The pamphlet explains that, under capitalism, workers do not sell the products they create. They sell their capacity to work — their “labour-power.” This becomes a commodity traded on the market like any other.  

Wages are not a fair exchange that reflects the value created by labour. Rather, they represent the cost of maintaining the worker’s ability to work and reproduce the next generation of workers.  

Capital is not just the means of production — land, tools or money — it’s also the means to control and to exploit the worker and to create profit by paying workers less than the value they produce.  

Competition drives capitalists to adopt machinery, intensify production and expand markets though cheapening goods. This leads to periodic economic crises and to the impoverishment of workers even as the productive power of society increases.

Subsequent use and value today

Throughout the 20th century, especially during the rise of labour movements, anti-colonial struggles, and socialist revolutions, Wage Labour and Capital was frequently republished.  

Over the decades, it has become one of the most widely circulated introductions to Marxist political economy alongside Value, Price and Profit. Both cover similar topics.

Shorter and more accessible than Capital, they have both often been used for political education in labour movement, socialist and Marxist organisations.  

One of the features of Wage Labour and Capital however is that together with Engels’s foreword it illustrates the development of Marx’s economic thought as well as how his legacy was shaped by Engels’s editorial decisions after Marx’s death.

Engels had a profound commitment to presenting Marx’s ideas clearly and consistently. He is very explicit about the changes that he made to Marx’s text and it seems almost certain that Marx would have agreed with them.  

The text still serves as an accessible introduction for those interested in socialism, political economy and the need both to understand and change our world.

The Marx Memorial Library and Workers’ School series of introductory classes on ‘Marxist Classics’ continues tomorrow, Tuesday March 31, with a discussion of Karl Marx’s pamphlet Value, Price and Profit, edited and published by his daughter Eleanor: an earlier Full Marx feature on tinyurl.com/ValuePriceProfitMStar has links to the text.  

For more information and to register, go to marx-memorial-library.org.uk, where you will find details of other events and courses including the next full online course Capital, Crisis and Imperialism starting on April 21.

The text of Marx’s Wage Labour and Capital can be found on tinyurl.com/WageLabourCapital, and tinyurl.com/WageLabourCapital-pdf will take you to a downloadable pdf.