The absolute-to-relative surplus value shift explains mid-century English capitalism’s transformations.

Evidence

We would have to try, instead, to understand, for example, as Marx does, the shift from the extraction of absolute to the extraction of relative surplus value as one of the key dynamics of the developing capitalist mode of production; as not merely a theoretical distinction but one which can be made concrete and historically specific in, say, the capitalist mode in England after the factory legislation of the mid-century. We can then see this shift as providing the baseline of solutions to the contradictions to which capitalism, as a fully established mode of production, is progressively exposed. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 516

Categorization

• DEFINE: Concrete definition of the absolute/relative surplus value distinction with a historical anchor in factory legislation.