We continue our series on Marx’s Capital with an analysis of Chapters 12-14. Having demonstrated how the capitalists squeeze greater profits from workers by extending the hours of the working day, Marx now turns his attention towards how the capitalists increase their profits by increasing the productivity of workers through the division of labour and co-operation within the workplace.

In their desperate search for profitable fields of investment, the capitalist class, especially the financial oligarchy, has presided over an explosive growth of unproductive expenditure that today threatens to undermine the very edifice of capitalism. Rob Sewell examines the qualitative difference between productive and unproductive labour within capitalism.

We continue our series on Marx’s Capital by looking at Chapters 9-11, in which Marx looks at the question of exploitation and the issue of the working day, opening up the roof of the factory and peering in to examine the conditions inside. What we see when we peek behind this magician’s curtain is a brutal history of exploitation and class struggle.