Before we can begin to look at what the capitalist mode of production is like – its nature and form, etc. – we must first look at how this mode of production came into being. In the first part of this book, we will therefore look at the historical development of this mode of production and especially at the question, in Chapter 4, of the ‘primitive’, or non-capitalist, accumulation of wealth that Marx says was a necessary prerequisite before the development of the capitalist mode of production proper (CMP) could take place. We will also look at the development of machinery and modern industry, the transition from handicraft production in the Middle Ages through the period of manufacture (production by ‘hands’) up until about the 1750s and then onto the production of things by machines – or machinofacture as this is sometimes called – in Chapter 3. In Chapter 2, we will look at the development of cooperation and the division of labour in industry and society. We begin, however, in Chapter 1, by looking at the very important distinction that Marx makes between an increase in surplus value produced by an absolute lengthening of the working day, or ‘absolute surplus value’ as Marx calls this, and the parallel process of increasing surplus value by an increase in the intensification of labour – by causing the labourer to produce more in a shorter period of time – or ‘relative surplus value’ as Marx calls this.