An increase in the productivity of labour means nothing more than that the same capital creates the same value with less labour, or that less labour creates the same product with more capital.

The circulation of capital realizes value , while living labour creates value.

As a beast of toil an ox is fixed capital. If he is eaten, he no longer functions as an instrument of labour, nor as fixed capital either.

Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society.

In proportion as capital accumulates, the lot of the laborer, be his payment high or low, must grow worse.

Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.