MARXIAN POLITICAL ECONOMY 43 surplus value. The relation of the worker to the capitalist remains the same as before: just as little as better clothing, food and treatment., and a larger peculium, do away with the exploitation of the slave, so little do they set aside that of the wage-worker. A rise in price of labour, as a consequence of the accumulation of capital, only means, in fact, that the length and weight of the golden chain which the wage worker has already forged for himself allow of a relaxation of the tension of it.2 As noted before, rise in wages is checked as soon as it seriously cuts into the surplus value of the capitalist class which then cuts down investment; consequently, demand for labour power declines, and the cause of the wage rise, namely the shortage of the supply of labour power in relation to its demand, disappears. To go a step further, the rise in wages, along with the ever present competition among capitalists, leads in fact to the use of machines that displace labour, thus rendering a part of the workforce "superfluous5 or ^surplus9. Marx's argument here is extremely important and it contrasts sharply with Malthusian views on the problem, fashionable among the ruling classes then and now. Malthus claimed that the mechanism that equilibrated the demand for and supply of labour was a ^natural' law of population. According to his argument, whenever as a result of a sudden rise in the demand for labour, the wages of workers rose above subsistence levels, the working classes tended to multiply rapidly. The consequent increase in their numbers would set right once again the balance between supply and demand for labour, wages would be restored to subsistence levels, and the working classes would then reproduce at a ^normal' rate. Such an argument was naturally very pleasing to the ruling classes, since it claimed that unemployment and low wages were consequences, not of the capitalist system and its inherent laws, but of natural forces and the ignorance of the working masses. Marx rightly denounced the Malthusian argument as ^a libel on the human race" and showed by a concrete illustration the absurdity of it all. Referring to a temporary rise in the wages (to rather modest levels in fact) in the English agricultural districts, Marx pointed out: ^What did the farmers do now? Did they wait until, in consequence of this brilliant (!) remuneration, the agricultural labourers had so increased and multiplied that their wages must fall again, as prescribed by the dogmatic economic brain? They introduced more machinery, and in a moment the labourers were redundant again."3 So much on the relation between accumulation and wages. Quite in contrast to Malthusian arguments, it is the process of capitalist accumulation itself that periodically renders a part of the labouring population unemployed. To sec this, two other strands of the argument must now be pursued.