ABSTRACT
Here too past labour – in the automaton and the machinery moved by it – steps forth as acting apparently in independence of [living] labour, it subordinates labour instead of being subordinate to it, it is the iron man confronting the man of flesh and blood.1 The subsumption of his labour under capital – the absorption of his labour by capital – which lies in the nature of capitalist production, appears here as a technological fact. The keystone of the arch is complete. Dead (todt) labour has been endowed with movement, and living labour only continues to be present as one of dead labour’s conscious organs. The living connection of the whole workshop no longer lies here in cooperation; instead, the system of machinery forms a unity, set in motion by the prime motor and comprising the whole workshop, to which the living workshop is subordinated, in so far as it consists of workers.
