How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Paragraph) or (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Hence it is self-evident that the worker is nothing other than labour-power for the duration of his whole life, and that therefore all his disposable time is by nature and by right labour-time, to be devoted to the self-valorization of capital. Time for education, for intellectual development, for the fulfillment of social functions, for social intercourse, for the free play of the vital forces of his body and his mind, even the rest time of Sunday (and that in a country of Sabbatarians!)—what foolishness! (10.5.1)
This is Marx getting angry. The fight over the length of the working day in 19th-century Europe convinced him that capitalists try to make workers slave away as much as possible without time for education or rest. The next century, however, saw what could be termed welfare capitalism—business interests investing in the population, such as subsidizing the public school system. He'd simply say they were doing so because it was cheaper to have the government train workers than to have their businesses do it. According to Marx, any tradition or custom boils down to economics.
Quote #8
But in its blind and measureless drive, its insatiable appetite for surplus labour, capital oversteps not only the moral but even the merely physical limits of the working day. It usurps the time for growth, development and healthy maintenance of the body. It steals the time required for the consumption of fresh air and sunlight. It haggles over the meal-times, where possible incorporating them into the production process itself. [...] It reduces the sound sleep needed for the restoration, renewal and refreshment of the vital forces to the exact amount of torpor essential to the revival of an absolutely exhausted organism. (10.5.1)
This is again Marx preaching against the working conditions of the 19th century. Terrible working conditions still exist worldwide, such as in the maquiladoras of Mexico or mines in Africa where children work. What traditions and customs encourage improving the plight of workers, and is Marx right that even these practices ultimately derive from our economic system?
Quote #9
On the other hand, the conversion of a partial task into the life-long destiny of a man corresponds to the tendency shown by earlier societies towards making trades hereditary. The trades either became petrified into castes, or, in cases where definite historical conditions produced a variability in the individual which was incompatible with a caste system, they hardened into guilds. Castes and guilds arise from the action of the same natural law that regulates the differentiation of plants and animals into species and varieties, except that, when a certain degree of development has been reached, the heredity of castes and the exclusiveness of guilds are ordained as a law of society. (14.2.2)
Here Marx argues that the division of labour under capitalism—which he says makes workers too specialized—tends to make trades into traditions passed down by families. If a parent knows a certain trade, his or her children have a learning advantage if they pursue that same type of job. It's another example of life being based on economics.