In this session of Yale instructor Paul North's chapter by chapter study of Marx's Capital, Volume 1, the course examines Chapter 8's account of the working day and how historical struggles over its length shaped the capitalist system. North explains Marx's concept of absolute surplus value, the surplus generated simply by extending the hours of labor rather than by changing how labor is organized. The lecture connects this economic concept to the real historical conflicts over working hours that Marx documents, showing how legislative and labor battles fed back into the theoretical argument. It continues the course's close, chapter by chapter engagement with the 1872 text.