The Labor enquirer., 1888-03-31
Necessary in Order to Drive
the Race Towards
Brotherhood.
TRUSTS" AND LABOR UNIONS
All Floundering Along Towards and
Working for the Same, Final
Result.
For the ENQUIRER.

ETY. is wrong. Many think that
society is sick and needs some
medicine" A greater mistake
could not be made; the present
capitalistic system is necessary to-
build up the future social system.
In fact if there were no competi-
tive system social cooperative
one could not be realized. One
day we hear clergyman say that
it is a wrong ideal of life that
causes .discontent;;' another time
some will say, competition is all
right but it ought not be so bitter"
Now this is impossible, there it no
sentimentality in business, and a
man may as we'll expect water to
run up hill, as to change the pres
ent system before it has run its
full course. To suspend competi-
ton, no matter how sharp or bitter
it is, is putting a stone in the
pathway Of progress.
Some time since one of the
morning papers said: The law of
demand and supply is the only
means of determining the true
value of a commodity, and social
ism is wrong because it would
suspend the operation of this law.
A few days later the same paper
claimed that: Trusts are beginning
to control the market, and are
suspending the operation of the
law of demand and supply, and
to offset this evil workmen must
combine and form strong trades
unions; thus we see how consist
ent(7) they are. The principal
objection they have to socialism
is, that it suspends this law; and
then they turn around and say:
Since capital suspends this law
through trusts, pools, etc., labor
should do the same by forming
unions which would have the effect
of suspendlng the law entirely.
Competition is doomed, and any
thing thatis done to perpetuate it
is Utopian. Before the present
system runs itself out "a certain
amount Of suffering must be un-
dergonei" Bolstering or patching
will not do. Just let free competi-
tion have full sway, it will destroy
itself. Hegel, the great philoso-
pher, says: "A thing carried to
its extreme becomes its opposite"
This rule applies to competition.
The worker produces a certain
amount of wealth yearly and re-
ceives wages as the reward of his
labor. In the year 1880 wages
were about one half of the product,
consequently the laborer was only
able to buy back one half of the
product, the other half had to be
consumed by the employer. I'm
proved labor-saving machinery,
wholesale production, and agreater
subdivision of labor resulting
therefrom, make labor more
efficient, thus the laborer creates
more and more values every year,
and as his wages do not Increase,
ne is every year less and less able
} to buy back what he produces.
AS there are now on an average
) twelve workers to one employer
and the employer does not con-
sumo as much as the twelve men
combined, there results what is
called overproduction, which is in
reality underconsumption. There
S are not more goods produced than
!, can be consumed, but there are
: more produced than the workers
S are able to buy. This condition
e of affairs is growing worse, because
t through wholesale production
q small establishments are being
}! swallowed by larger, and where
h one employer used to have ten
i hands," he now has twelve, and
n the time will come wnen he will
e have sixteen. In this way the
J.. rCycntinuad nm fou v1h r>~e1