For certain reasons it was possible for the needs of the capitalists to be satisfied. On account of the development of the market in the cities the demand for food, and for raw materials of every kind, such as wood, wool, etc., increased, and agricultural production for the purpose of sale increased, so that the peasants began to have money. This latter fact complicated the relation between them and the feudal lords. So long as the rent was paid in kind the lord demanded only as much as he could consume; but from the day that the rent began to be paid in money the landowner began to press the peasant more and more, since money can always be used, and no one ever has enough. From this fact arose so severe an exploitation that many peasants left the country to take refuge in the towns. The second reason why a large number of workmen were obtainable was that the lords themselves began to produce commodities for city markets, especially wool and wood. This took fewer laborers than agriculture, but required more land, so that many peasants were driven from their farms and, like the others, went to swell the population of the cities. Thus there was no further obstacle to wholesale production, and from then on raw materials were purchased, workshops established, and the labor of the proletariat procured. Human labor thus has become a commodity, corresponding exactly to definition: first, it has no use-value for the possessor if he has not the means of production, and, on the other hand, has such a value for the person possessing these means; second, the possessor of labor has the free disposition of it. The contract is made; the proletariat on the one side furnishes the commodity—labor—and the capitalist on the other gives the equivalent of it. Now how much must be given for this commodity? In other words what is the value of the labor delivered? The value of a commodity is determined by the labor-time socially necessary for its production, in this case necessary for the proletarian and his family to live; for the workman being mortal, and capital having need of new forces, the wage must be sufficient to raise a new generation of workers. The standard of the workman’s needs is subject to variation according to time and place (the causes of which variation we need not examine here), but it is fixed for a certain country, time, and category of workers.