Exploring Capital Accumulation and Labor Dynamics

This chapter delves into Marx's analysis of how capital accumulation impacts the laboring poor and wage laborers, discussing the relationship between rising wages and the reinvestment of surplus value by capitalists. It examines the interplay between wage rates, profit rates, and the demand for labor, highlighting how increasing productivity and technological changes shift the composition of capital towards means of production. The chapter emphasizes the trend of capitalism becoming more capital-intensive over time and the implications for the mass of surplus value gained unless exploitation rates are raised.