208We have seen that the labourer, during one portion of the
 labour-process, produces only the value of his labour-power, that is, the
 value of his means of subsistence. Now since his work forms part of a system,
 based on the social division of labour, he does not directly produce the
 actual necessaries which he himself consumes; he produces instead a particular
 commodity, yarn for example, whose value is equal to the value of those
 necessaries or of the money with which they can be bought. The portion
 of his day’s labour devoted to this purpose, will be greater or less, in
 proportion to the value of the necessaries that he daily requires on an
 average, or, what amounts to the same thing, in proportion to the labour-time
 required on an average to produce them. If the value of those necessaries
 represent on an average the expenditure of six hours’ labour, the workman
 must on an average work for six hours to produce that value. If instead
 of working for the capitalist, he worked independently on his own account,
 he would, other things being equal, still be obliged to labour for the
 same number of hours, in order to produce the value of his labour-power,
 and thereby to gain the means of subsistence necessary for his conservation
 or continued reproduction. But as we have seen, during that portion of
 his day’s labour in which he produces the value of his labour-power, say
 three shillings, he produces only an equivalent for the value of his labour-power
 already advanced [4] by the capitalist; the new value
 created only replaces the variable capital advanced. It is owing to this
 fact, that the production of the new value of three shillings takes the
 semblance of a mere reproduction. That portion of the working-day, then,
 during which this reproduction takes place, I call “necessary” labour time,
 and the labour expended during that time I call “necessary” labour.
 [5] Necessary, as regards the labourer, because independent of the particular social form of his labour; necessary, as regards capital, and the world of capitalists, because on the continued existence
 of the labourer depends their existence also.