necessary for reproduction, and it is a matter of course that the buyer of the commodity labour-power should do as all buyers of commodities do—consume it altogether for his own advantage.192
It is by this avocation, the buying of labour-power in the market, and the consumption of all the results of its exercise beyond what is necessary for its reproduction, that the capitalist lives, just as the avocation by which the workman lives is the actual production of commodities.
Capitalism cannot be said even to begin before a number of individual owners of money employ simultaneously a number of workmen on the same terms, 242 that is to say, before the development of a concert of action towards profit among the employers, and a concert of action towards production for the profit of the employers among the employed.
“A greater number of labourers working together at the same time in one place (or, if you will, in the same field of labour), in order to produce the same sort of commodity under the mastership of one capitalist, constitutes, both historically and logically, the starting-point of capitalist production.”
It differs from the medieval system, that of the guilds and their craftsmen, by the greater number of the workmen employed; but this change to a new form of organisation made at once considerable difference in the rate and manner of production; there was less comparative expense of the means of production, such as buildings, tools, warehouses,etc.193 A 243 consequence of this concentration of workmen under one roof was the development of the function of direction in the master as independent of his qualities as a craftsman, and the forcing on the system of this function as a necessary part of production. The master of the guild-craftsman period held his place because he was a better workman and more experienced than his fellows; he did not differ from them in kind but in degree only; if he fell sick, for instance, his