Workmen's advocate., 1889-06-01


 and hat ten hours of aggregate labor of equal skill, despatch, industry and facilities, five chairs will exchange for three hats, According 10 this, in ex- changing the labor of the wOrkinlrmau for the wages paid him by the capital- jst th" amount of labor is to he deter mined hy which each of these two ob- IcCts of exchange are produced. The labor offered by the workingman uhe energy expended by him in the process Of prodnctionl k produced by the con sumption of so many pounds of meat, so many pounds of bread, so much fuel, etc. Now, the value of the bread, meat, fuel, etc. is determined by the quantity of human energy which these products represent. If, therefore, the l cost of q days living of the workman contains six hours of aggregate labor | ot the farmer, baker, butcher, miner, etc.. who combine to supply lis wants, he will, under the existing Circum-tan- ces, receive for hls day work in cx- | change money, which will buy food, fuel, etc., embodymT six hours of hu. pended energy which will enable him tU work again.
 If the capitalist employed him only six hours he would gain nothing. 1t Is | because he can manage to work ten, ! twelve, or even fourteen hours day after having consumed only six hours of human labor in the shape of meat, bread, fuel, etc., that the capitalist finds it profitable to employ him. Every minute which he works over and above the six hours, which quantity of labor is contained in the wages he receives and which represent the neCessaries of life he | consumes, Is so much unpaid labor aCCru. ing to the purchaser of his labor force. The longer. therefore, the working day, the greater is the amount of labor ex- torted by the employer from the em- ployee, On the other hand, the lower the cost of living the shorter is the time which 1t takes the wOrkingman to pro duce the necessaries of hte and conse- quently the greater Is the surplus prod net appropriated by the wage payer. Every step in the direction of cheapen. ing the workers cost of living thus ben ehts the capitalist.
 Neither would it avail if the entire na- ton were split up into a multitude of cooperative concerns, for, though in in this case human labor would tempo rarily cease to be a commodity, the competition between the various pri- Yate cooperative concerns would neCes- sarlly end in the same state of affairs under which humanity is languishing today.
 After what has been said of the nat ure of free competition and wages it would be superhuous to dwell much upon the remedies offered by the other gentlemen of the clustering fraternity. Let us imagine all banks and stock ex- | changes thing of the past; that the tleecing of the people which is now eff | fected through a control over the money market is done away with; that the in come of the manufacturer is shared neither by the mOney-lender nor by the stock gambler; or suppose that every landlord Is OstraClzed, that every one is | furnished with a free dwelling and with as much vacant land as he knows what to do with (which, by the way, no sin | gle-land-ta scheme will bring about, nay, combine all the mentioned reme- dies together: no bankers, no liquor dealers, no landlords, plenty of charity. Will the laborer, as such, be benefited Will no machinery be invented Will no workingmen be thrown out of em- ployment? Will peace reign among the employers? Why, that would mean the death of industry, of civiliza- ton, and of progress, wouldn't it?
 Well, then, so long as competition that prime mover of the advancement of the nineteenth century-tlourishes the evils connected with it cannot help thriving alongside of it: first, the ruges of the employed must rest on the mlni- mum iereI of the accessories of Hfe; and second, the number of the unemployed must increase. You can no more re- move these evils without interfering with free competition than you can wipe away the shadow of a tree with out hewing down the tree itself
 And so while the tree of the right to pursue ones own happiness, which was planted by the fathers of this great republic, has grown to sublime dimen- sions and given us the fruit of a mighty civilization, 1t casts as it grows longer and longer shadow of penury, Hitter acy, vice and degradation. Strange as it may appear, the present pursuit of happiness is incompatible with life and liberty but for few chosen favorites of fortune.
 What, then, is to be done? Shall the right to pursue happiness be taken away from the people? Shall we return to the days of the never-to-be-forgotten George III;
 Nothing of the kind. On the con- trary. let us rationalize and intensity our pursuit of happiness. Let us waste as little energy us possible. Instead of fighting each other, let itS join hands in our ,car upon the rest of nature. Let ats turn ont in c body # re desire to be ric- :OriOuS.