Summary
Marx exposes how piece-rate wages—getting paid per completed task rather than per hour—are just time wages in disguise. Whether you're paid $15/hour or $3 per widget, the fundamental relationship stays the same: you're still selling your labor power, and the boss still extracts surplus value from your work. The chapter reveals how piece wages create several dangerous illusions. First, they make it seem like you're being paid for your actual output rather than your time, giving workers a false sense of control. Second, they appear to reward individual skill and effort, but Marx shows the math: if technology makes you twice as productive, your piece rate gets cut in half, leaving your daily pay unchanged. Most insidiously, piece wages make workers police themselves and each other. Since pay depends on output, there's no need for as much supervision—workers push themselves harder and compete against colleagues instead of organizing together. This system also enables subcontracting schemes where middlemen skim profits between the main employer and workers, creating what Marx calls the 'sweating system.' The chapter demonstrates how piece wages, while seeming more fair and individualistic, actually serve capital's interests better than hourly wages by intensifying work, extending hours, and dividing workers. Marx shows that regardless of how wages are calculated, the core exploitation remains: workers create more value than they receive, and the payment method just changes how that exploitation is disguised and enforced.
Coming Up in Chapter 22
Having dissected how wages work within individual countries, Marx next examines why workers in different nations earn vastly different amounts for similar work—and what this reveals about global capitalism's uneven development.
Share it with friends
An excerpt from the original text.(~500 words)
PIECE-WAGES Economic Manuscripts: Capital Vol. I - Chapter Twenty-One Karl Marx. Capital Volume One Chapter Twenty-One: Piece-Wages Wages by the piece are nothing else than a converted form of wages by time, just as wages by time are a converted form of the value or price of labour-power. In piece wages it seems at first sight as if the use-value bought from the labourer was, not the function of his labour-power, living labour, but labour already realized in the product, and as if the price of this labour was determined, not as with time-wages, by the fraction daily value of labour-power the working day of a given number of hours but by the capacity for work of the producer. The confidence that trusts in this appearance ought to receive a first severe shock from the fact that both forms of wages exist side by side, simultaneously, in the same branches of industry; e.g., “the compositors of London, as a general rule, work by the piece, time-work being the exception, while those in the country work by the day, the exception being work by the piece. The shipwrights of the port of London work by the job or piece, while those of all other parts work by the day.” In the same saddlery shops of London, often for the same work, piece wages are paid to the French, time-wages to the English. In the regular factories in which throughout piece wages predominate, particular kinds of work are unsuitable to this form of wage, and are therefore paid by time. But it is, moreover, self-evident that the difference of form in the payment of wages alters in no way their essential nature, although the one form may be more favorable to the development of capitalist production than the other. Let the ordinary working-day contain 12 hours of which 6 are paid, 6 unpaid. Let its value-product be 6 shillings, that of one hour’s labour therefore 6d. Let us suppose that, as the result of experience, a labourer who works with the average amount of intensity and skill, who, therefore, gives in fact only the time socially necessary to the production of an article, supplies in 12 hours 24 pieces, either distinct products or measurable parts of a continuous whole. Then the value of these 24 pieces, after. subtraction of the portion of constant capital contained in them, is 6 shillings, and the value of a single piece 3d. The labourer receives 1 ½d. per piece, and thus earns in 12 hours 3 shillings. Just as, with time-wages, it does not matter whether we assume that the labourer works 6 hours for himself and 6 hours for the capitalist, or half of every hour for himself, and the other half for the capitalist, so here it does not matter whether we say that each individual piece is half paid, and half unpaid for, or that the price of 12 pieces is the equivalent only of the value of the labour-power, whilst in the...
Master this chapter. Complete your experience
Purchase the complete book to access all chapters and support classic literature
As an Amazon Associate, we earn a small commission from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you.
Available in paperback, hardcover, and e-book formats
Intelligence Amplifier™ Analysis
The Road of False Ownership - When Control Is an Illusion
Systems that appear to give individual control while actually increasing exploitation through self-supervision and competition.
Why This Matters
Connect literature to life
This chapter teaches how to see through compensation schemes that promise more control while delivering less security.
Practice This Today
This week, notice when job offers emphasize 'unlimited earning potential' or 'be your own boss'—calculate the actual guaranteed hourly minimum and ask who bears the risks.
Now let's explore the literary elements.
Terms to Know
Piece-wages
Payment based on how much you produce (per item, per task) rather than how many hours you work. Marx shows this is just hourly wages in disguise, designed to make workers push themselves harder.
Modern Usage:
Think commission-based sales jobs, Uber drivers paid per ride, or freelancers paid per project—you're still selling your time and energy, just packaged differently.
Labour-power
Your capacity to work—your energy, skills, and time that you sell to an employer. It's not the work itself, but your ability to do work that becomes a commodity.
Modern Usage:
When you clock in at any job, you're selling your labour-power; the company owns your productive capacity for those hours.
Surplus value
The extra value you create beyond what you're paid. If you generate $50 worth of value per hour but only get paid $15, that $35 difference is surplus value the boss keeps.
Modern Usage:
Every profitable business extracts surplus value—otherwise they couldn't make money off employees.
Sweating system
A chain of subcontractors where each middleman takes a cut, squeezing workers at the bottom. The main company stays clean while workers get exploited down the line.
Modern Usage:
Think gig economy platforms, temp agencies, or how Amazon uses delivery contractors—multiple layers between you and the real boss.
Self-policing
When the payment system makes workers monitor and push themselves without direct supervision. Piece wages create this because your pay depends on your output.
Modern Usage:
Sales quotas, productivity metrics, and app-based work ratings all make workers police themselves instead of needing constant management.
Converted form
Marx's term for how the same exploitation appears in different disguises. Piece wages and hourly wages look different but serve the same function for employers.
Modern Usage:
Salary vs. hourly, commission vs. base pay, contractor vs. employee—different packaging, same underlying relationship.
Characters in This Chapter
London compositors
Working examples
Typesetters in London who work by the piece while their country counterparts work by the day. Marx uses them to show how the same job can use different wage systems simultaneously.
Modern Equivalent:
City freelancers vs. rural employees
Port of London shipwrights
Contrasting workers
Ship builders who work by the job while shipwrights elsewhere work by the day. They demonstrate how location and local conditions affect wage systems, not worker preference.
Modern Equivalent:
Contract tech workers in Silicon Valley
French saddlery workers
Exploited group
French workers in London saddle shops who get piece wages while English workers in the same shops get time wages. Shows how employers use different systems to divide workers.
Modern Equivalent:
Immigrant workers on different pay scales
The capitalist
System architect
The employer who chooses wage systems based on what maximizes profit extraction, not worker welfare. Appears throughout as the driving force behind these payment schemes.
Modern Equivalent:
Corporate executives designing compensation packages
Key Quotes & Analysis
"Wages by the piece are nothing else than a converted form of wages by time, just as wages by time are a converted form of the value or price of labour-power."
Context: Opening the chapter to establish his main argument
Marx immediately cuts through the illusion that piece wages are fundamentally different. He's showing that both systems serve the same purpose—extracting surplus value from workers—just with different packaging.
In Today's Words:
Getting paid per task instead of per hour doesn't change the basic deal—you're still selling yourself to make someone else rich.
"The confidence that trusts in this appearance ought to receive a first severe shock from the fact that both forms of wages exist side by side, simultaneously, in the same branches of industry."
Context: After giving examples of different wage systems in the same industries
Marx is saying if piece wages were really about rewarding skill or effort, you wouldn't see such arbitrary differences. The examples prove it's about control and profit, not fairness.
In Today's Words:
If piece-rate pay was actually better for workers, why do some companies use it and others don't for the exact same jobs?
"In the regular factories in which throughout piece wages predominate, particular kinds of work are unsuitable to this form."
Context: Explaining how even piece-wage factories use time wages for certain tasks
This reveals that wage systems are chosen based on what gives employers the most control and profit extraction for each type of work, not what's fair to workers.
In Today's Words:
Companies pick whatever payment method squeezes the most productivity out of each job.
Thematic Threads
Class
In This Chapter
Piece wages disguise the fundamental class relationship between workers and owners by making exploitation seem like individual choice
Development
Builds on earlier themes of surplus value extraction, showing how payment methods serve class interests
In Your Life:
You might see this when your workplace offers 'flexible' arrangements that actually increase your workload without real compensation
Identity
In This Chapter
Workers develop false consciousness, seeing themselves as individual entrepreneurs rather than collective laborers
Development
Continues Marx's analysis of how capitalism shapes worker self-perception and relationships
In Your Life:
You might catch yourself thinking 'I'm not like other workers' when your job has performance incentives that isolate you from colleagues
Control
In This Chapter
The illusion of controlling your earnings through effort masks the reality of systematic rate manipulation
Development
Introduced here as a key mechanism of capitalist labor relations
In Your Life:
You might experience this in any job where 'working smarter' somehow never translates to proportionally higher long-term earnings
Competition
In This Chapter
Piece wages pit workers against each other instead of encouraging collective action against employers
Development
Introduced here, showing how payment structures divide the working class
In Your Life:
You might notice yourself resenting coworkers' success instead of questioning why there isn't enough success to go around
Surveillance
In This Chapter
Workers become self-supervising under piece-rate systems, eliminating the need for external oversight
Development
Introduced here as an advanced form of workplace control
In Your Life:
You might find yourself working through breaks or checking work emails at home without anyone explicitly asking you to
You now have the context. Time to form your own thoughts.
Discussion Questions
- 1
Marx shows that whether you're paid hourly or per piece, the fundamental relationship stays the same. What does he mean by this, and why does the payment method matter less than it appears?
analysis • surface - 2
Why does Marx argue that piece-rate wages make workers 'police themselves'? What changes in workplace dynamics when pay depends on individual output rather than hours worked?
analysis • medium - 3
Where do you see this 'piece-rate' pattern in modern work? Think about gig economy jobs, sales positions, or performance-based pay structures. How do they create similar effects to what Marx describes?
application • medium - 4
If you were offered a choice between hourly wages and piece-rate pay for the same type of work, what questions would you ask to determine which actually serves your interests better?
application • deep - 5
Marx suggests that systems appearing to give workers more control often give them less. What does this reveal about how power disguises itself in modern relationships—not just at work, but in other areas of life?
reflection • deep
Critical Thinking Exercise
Calculate Your Real Hourly Rate
Think of a job you've had or know about where pay seemed tied to performance, output, or results rather than straight hourly wages. This could be commission sales, gig work, piece-rate manufacturing, or even salaried work with productivity expectations. Calculate what you actually earned per hour worked, including unpaid time like commuting, waiting, or administrative tasks.
Consider:
- •Include all time spent working, not just 'productive' time that generated pay
- •Factor in expenses you covered (gas, phone, equipment) that reduced your actual earnings
- •Compare your calculated hourly rate to what a straight hourly wage would have paid for the same total time
Journaling Prompt
Write about a time when you felt like you had control over your earnings but later realized the system was designed to benefit someone else more than you. What did you learn about recognizing when apparent freedom is actually disguised constraint?
Coming Up Next...
Chapter 22: Why Your Paycheck Goes Further Elsewhere
The coming pages reveal wages in different countries can't be compared at face value, and teach us worker productivity affects what employers actually pay per unit of work. These discoveries help us navigate similar situations in our own lives.