The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1900-07-27
LABOR MUST SELL ITSELF.
In the Struggle for Existence the Work
err Underbld Each Other In Sell
Ing Themselves.


really takes place when a laborer
hires himself to a capitalist for
wages, Karl Marx says:
1.-The laborer receives in exchange
fo-- his labor the means of subsist-
ence; but the capitalist receives in
exchange for the means of subsist-
ence-labor, the productive energy of
the laborer, the creative force where
by the laborer not only replaces what
he consumes, but also gives to the
stored-up labor greater value than
it had before. The laborer receives
from the capitalist share of the
previously provided means of sub
sistence. To what use does he put
these means of subsistence? He uses
But as soon as / consume my means
of subsistence they disappear and are
irrevocably lost to me; it therefore
becomes necessary that / should en-
ploy the time during which these
means keep me alive in order to pro-
duce new means of subsistence, SO
that during their consumption I may
provide by my labor new value in the
place of that which thus disappears.
But it is just this grand reproductive
power which the 1aborer has to bar
gain away to capital in exchange for
the means of subsistence which he re-
ceives. To him therefore it is entire
ly lost
And Lawrence Gronlund adds:
at is a paltry evasion to say that
the workers are free to consent or
to refuse the terms of the employers.
Tt is as Dickens says in Hard Times,
AN evasion worthy of the man who
asked permission of the virgin to rob
her of her necklace-and then did it,
taking silence for consent The Ia
borers have to consent. If they refuse
the terms capitalists simply stop bus
mess; they can't stand it. Hard
times are really hard only on those
whose subsistence depends on having
work to do. The wives and daughters
of capitalists dc not as a general rule
leave off during hard times attending
operas in their silks, satins and dia-
monds; do not as rule quit their
luxurious brown-stone fronts nor dis
miss their liveried servants"
The awful results of the wage sys-
tenn are set forth by a Chicago cor
Press thusly:
ut gives the man of sentiment n
pang of sorrow to walk down Fifth
avenue any afternoon and realize
what frightful struggle for mere
existence life is. There hundreds of
people gather to get the first
editions of the afternoon papers, not
for the news of the war in Luzon or
Natal, nor even for information of
local events, but to read the wants.
Eagerly buying, perhaps with their
last pennies, copies of papers, they
hurriedly scan the page containg sit
uations offered and dart away up
street or down in seach of a place to
earn something to keep the wolf
from the door, Their haste is born
of the fear that somebody else will
reach the person offering it. And it
frequently happens that 100 men and
boys will apply for single place
within an hour after it is stated in
the public prints that it is open. Thus
the struggle goes on from day to day
until, occasionally at least, jump
from the high bridge at Lincoln park
or revolver shot in South Clark
street violently ends it,
But Bellamy, in Equality, page 1O1,
gives to the dark cloud silver lining,
when he portrays the estimate which
will be placed upon the system, a hun
dred years hence, by citizens of the
coming cooperative commonwealth.
He says:
"'Ah!' said the doctor, it was in
deed the last refinement of indignity
put upon human nature by your
economic system, that it compelled
men to seek the sale of themselves.
OF course the sale was not in a real
sense voluntary; for-want, or the fear
of it, left no choice as to the necessity
of selling themselves to somebody,
but as to the particular transaction
there was choice enough to mike it
shameful. They had to seek those
to whom they offered themselves, and
to actively procure their own pur-
chase. In this respect the submission
of men to other men, through the re-
lation of hire, was more abject than
under n slavery resting directly on
force. In the latter case the slave