Part 6 is another small section that mostly focuses on wage, as that term has been the centerpiece due to its relation to surplus value and necessary labor time. I recommend that you read parts 5 and 6 together. Find part 5 here.
Chapter 19: The Transformation Of The Value Of Labor Power Into Wages
As we showed in the last section, wage is meant to appear that we've been paid for everything we produce, when we've only actually been paid for the commodity of labor power. Supply and demand is used to explain the changes in prices of things, a tactic we all saw in 2022 in America with the skyrocketing of gas prices despite oil companies seeing record profits. This also fails to explain why some commodities are given a higher value than others, despite the necessary labor time not being any different, which is the true measurement of value. Wage is used to hide the surplus value concept, and as I've said, it truly works on many Americans. Workers who contribute so much to the profit of their masters still struggle to get by.
Marx compares this mode of production to previous modes. First, he observes how slave society did the same thing, in that it appears that the slave only produces for his master, but his work also contributes to the means of his ability to live. Does that suddenly mean this slave has freedom? No. He's given the bare needs for survival and reproduction (which is gone over in Part 7), all of which were work needed for this own survival, and every other bit of his existence goes to the enrichment of his master. Feudal society is like a slightly lesser version of this, where a peasant works part of the year for himself, and part for the lord who's land he works on. With capitalism being the next mode of production, this same relationship between worker and master is represented in wage. Since you're paid by the hour, week, or year, the relation between master and worker appears invisible.
Chapter 20: Time Wages
Time wages are exactly what they sound like; a wage based on certain hours of work instead of a day or week. This irregularity allows for capital to dominate the time of the worker. Figure a bartender that closes for eight hours and then opens the next day, or a store clerk's hours getting cut to save money. It appears that you get paid based on your work, but now the capitalist is controlling the specific parts of the day that you work and when they can extract the most value from your labor power. Overtime comes in play as the worker getting a slight portion of the surplus value that was previously extracted, another small concession won by labor movements.
Essentially, this structures workers to be "on call," more figuratively in these senses but more literally in fields like medical and HVAC or maintenance. A worker's free time is often used to rest and prepare for the next working day, while also juggling taking care of your needs, or possibly kids. In a way, capital colonizes the time of the worker, while the capitalist has all the free time in the world.
Chapter 21: Piece Wages
Again, fairly straightforward, but also worth breaking down the "why" behind it. Instead of being paid by the time, you're paid by the piece of what you produce. This allows for a bit of self-discipline, as producing more commodities will give you more money, and if you can do that in a lesser amount of time by increasing the intensity, you will. It can also lead to competition between workers, and all of this decreases the value of your labor, yet sees higher profit for the capitalist due to more being produced in less time.
The drawback for the capitalist here is that it becomes far more apparent to the worker that the capitalist is taking more from the value of his labor. It's easy to see what the product sells for vs. what you're paid for making it. If you're screen-printing T-shirts, and get paid $5 per shirt, but they sell for $25 per shirt, it doesn't take a mathematician to see what's going on. Or think again to the gig workers, and how much an Uber driver gets to give you a ride vs. how much you pay for the ride. Faster, sloppy work can be an outcome as well, which makes for garbage commodities that break easily.
Chapter 22: National Differences Of Wage
Marx closes this section off by acknowledging the labor power value varying from country to country, and how it plays a role. Material conditions, the state of class struggle, attitude, availability, labor laws (or lack thereof), technology, and many other things can be a reason for these differences. Thus, the same goods will have different values from country to country or region to region. If the average wage in one country is far lower than another, that doesn't always equate to meaning impoverished, if the state of the nation allows for free education, housing, healthcare, etc. To the opposing point, if wages in a nation are higher, that doesn't equate to a high standard of living if those essential things are not provided, and you must go into debt to attain any of them and risk losing them at any time.
This is all why capitalists will push for free trade amongst countries, as outsourcing work to nations where the wages are low means higher profits. This inevitable need is what lead to colonialism and eventually imperialism, something else that Lenin breaks down further in the 20th Century. It's also one of the many reasons why capitalist powers, specifically America, don't like when other nations go socialist (think about Cuba and why they're sanctioned) or at minimum, nationalize their resources (think about the Iraq War). Even China creates a lot of output for America with its current state of private sectors under an overall public sector controlled by the Communist Party of China. Their labor force is cheap, but much of their social needs are met by the planning of the state. Subsidizing lower wages for foreign capital has all sorts of benefits to exchange for.
Conclusion
As Part 5 basically revealed how capitalism is the command of capital over unpaid labor, Part 6 brings forth wages and how that plays the biggest role in masking this core factor. There are different ways wage is used to cover it up; the capitalist's interests are only to meet needs to reproduce labor and labor power, and I truly think these two short parts are the most important section of the entire book.
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