Marx on refication Capital employs labour. Even this relation in its simplicity is a personification of things and a reification of persons. But the relation becomes still more complex -and apparently more mysterious-in that, with the development of the specifically capitalist mode of production, not only do these things-these products of labour both as use values and as exchange values-stand on their hind legs vis-a-vis the worker and confront him as"capital"but also the social forms of labour appear as forms of the development of capital, and therefore the productive powers of social labour, thus developed, appear as productive powers of capital. As such social forces they are"capitalised"vis-a-vis labour In fact, communal unity in cooperatic combination in the division of labour, the application of the forces of nature and science, as well as the products of labour in the shape of machinery, are all things which confront the individual workers as alien, objective and present in advance without their assistance, and often against them, independent of them, as mere forms of existence of the means of labour which are independent of them and rule over them, in so far as they are objective; while the intelligence and volition of the total workshop, incarnated in the capitalist or his understrappers (representatives), in so far as the workshop is formed by the combination of the means of labour, confront the workers as functions of capital, which lives in the person of the capitalistMarx on Refication • Capital employs labour. Even this relation in its simplicity is a personification of things and a reification of persons. But the relation becomes still more complex—and apparently more mysterious—in that, with the development of the specifically capitalist mode of production, not only do these things—these products of labour, both as use values and as exchange values—stand on their hind legs vis-à-vis the worker and confront him as "capital"—but also the social forms of labour appear as forms of the development of capital, and therefore the productive powers of social labour, thus developed, appear as productive powers of capital. As such social forces they are "capitalised" vis-à-vis labour. In fact, communal unity in cooperation, combination in the division of labour, the application of the forces of nature and science, as well as the products of labour in the shape of machinery, are all things which confront the individual workers as alien, objective, and present in advance, without their assistance, and often against them, independent of them, as mere forms of existence of the means of labour which are independent of them and rule over them, in so far as they are objective; while the intelligence and volition of the total workshop, incarnated in the capitalist or his understrappers (representatives), in so far as the workshop is formed by the combination of the means of labour, confront the workers as functions of capital, which lives in the person of the capitalist