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{{quotation|Within the capitalist system all methods for raising the social productivity of labour are put into effect at the cost of the individual worker [...] All means for the development of production undergo a [[dialectic]]al inversion so that they become a means of domination and [[Rate of exploitation|exploitation]] of the producers; they distort the worker into a fragment of a man, they degrade him to the level of an appendage of a machine, they destroy the actual content of his labour by turning it into a torment, they [[Marx's theory of alienation|alienate]] from him the intellectual potentialities of the labour process [...], they transform his life into working-time, and drag his wife and child beneath the wheels of the juggernaut of capital. But all methods of the production of [[Surplus value|surplus-value]] are at the same time methods of [[Capital accumulation|accumulation]], and every extension of accumulation becomes, conversely, a means for the development of these methods. It follows therefore that in proportion as capital accumulates, ''the situation of the worker, be his payment high or low, must grow worse'' [emphasis added]. [...] Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, the torment of labour, slavery, ignorance, brutalization and moral degradation at the opposite pole, i.e. on the side of the class that produces its own product as capital. {{sister-inline|project=ws|links=[[wikisource:Das Kapital Volume One/Chapter 25#Section 4|Text on Wikisource]]|short=yes}}|Karl Marx, ''[[Das Kapital|Capital: A Critique of Political Economy]]'' (1867)<ref>{{cite book |last= Marx|first= Karl|author-link= Karl Marx|date= 1976|title= Capital: A Critique of Political Economy|location= London|publisher= Penguin|page= 799|volume=1}}</ref>}}
Marx argued that, in accordance with the labour theory of value, capitalist competition would necessitate the gradual replacement of workers with machines, allowing an increase in productivity, but with less overall value for each product produced, as more products can be made in a given amount of time. This process forms part of the ''general law of [[Capital accumulation|capitalist accumulation]]'', in which the proportion of "[[constant capital]]" increases relative to "[[variable capital]]" (i.e. workers) in the production process over time. Marx also noted that this movement is not merely an abstract relation, but that it is a result of class struggle, and it could be temporarily stopped should wages dip below an amount that the proletariat deem acceptable.{{Citation needed}}
== Diverging views ==
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