Nevertheless, even in this case, the increased production of surplus-value
 arises from the curtailment of the necessary labour-time, and from the
 corresponding prolongation of the surplus-labour. [4]
 Let the necessary labour-time amount to 10 hours, the value of a day’s
 labour-power to five shillings, the surplus labour-time to 2 hours, and
 the daily surplus-value to one shilling. But the capitalist now produces
 24 articles, which he sells at tenpence a-piece, making twenty shillings
 in all. Since the value of the means of production is twelve shillings,
 14 2/5 of these articles merely replace the constant capital advanced.
 The labour of the 12 hours’ working day is represented by the remaining
 9 3/5 articles.302 Since the price of the labour-power is five shillings,
 6 articles represent the necessary labour-time, and 3 3/5 articles the
 surplus-labour. The ratio of the necessary labour to the surplus-labour,
 which under average social conditions was 5:1, is now only 5:3. The same
 result may be arrived at in the following way. The value of the product
 of the working day of 12 hours is twenty shillings. Of this sum, twelve
 shillings belong to the value of the means of production, a value that
 merely re-appears. There remain eight shillings, which are the expression
 in money, of the value newly created during the working day. This sum is
 greater than the sum in which average social labour of the same kind is
 expressed: twelve hours of the latter labour are expressed by six shillings
 only. The exceptionally productive labour operates as intensified labour;
 it creates in equal periods of time greater values than average social
 labour of the same kind. (See Ch.
 I. Sect 2. p. 44.) But our capitalist still continues to pay as before
 only five shillings as the value of a day’s labour-power. Hence, instead
 of 10 hours, the labourer need now work only 7½ hours, in order
 to reproduce this value. His surplus-labour is, therefore, increased by
 2½ hours, and the surplus-value he produces grows from one, into
 three shillings. Hence, the capitalist who applies the improved method
 of production, appropriates to surplus-labour a greater portion of the
 working day, than the other capitalists in the same trade. He does individually,
 what the whole body of capitalists engaged in producing relative surplus-value,
 do collectively. On the other hand, however, this extra surplus-value vanishes,
 so soon as the new method of production has become general, and has consequently
 caused the difference between the individual value of the cheapened commodity
 and its social value to vanish. The law of the determination of value by
 labour-time, a law which brings under its sway the individual capitalist
 who applies the new method of production, by compelling him to sell his
 goods under their social value, this same law, acting as a coercive law
 of competition, forces his competitors to adopt the new method. [5] The general rate of surplus-value is, therefore, ultimately affected by
 the whole process, only when the increase in the productiveness of labour,
 has seized upon those branches of production that are303 connected with,
 and has cheapened those commodities that form part of, the necessary means
 of subsistence, and are therefore elements of the value of labour-power.