Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1900-03-17
THE LOGIC OF PANICS.

AmerlC4B FaDidn.
The characteristic and great evil Of
the Profit System is that it Is bound
to keep productions down below the
consuming power of the people. The
price charged for a commodity must
depend, among other things, upon the
scarcity of it. 1t is because the peo-
pie want more of a certain article than
is a supply Of, that they are willing to
pay more for it than it is worth. II
there were plenty, enough to go round,
the price of the thing would be just
it's cost (if the supply is excessive the
price will fall below cost, and the pro-
duction of that article will stop.
There ought always to be just enough
of everything to satisfy the peoples
wants. Supply should fit demand as,
under a rational system of production,
it could be made to do. In other
words, everything should be bought
and sold at cost; cost to include, of
tendents, etc. Such an arrangement
precludes profits, and as it is profits
which the capitalists seek, they take
no notice of demand further than to
see that supply falls short of it as far
as they can control matters. At the
same time they reduce wages whenever
possible, and thereby reduce the eff
fective demand or buying power of the
people. Workers are not paid wages
enough to enable them to buy what
they have produced. The less they
buy the less is produced, and the less
that is produced the less they buy.
When this process has gone on long
enough products get punched up in
stacks. Gluts begin. Panics Sc tin.
Buying is less, congestion increases,
and we have what are called hard
times. Mills are shut down. men are
thrown out of employment, human
misery is vastly augmented; and vice,
vagabondage and crime follow in due
course.
Every time these crises occur the
public is as much surprised as though
such a thing had never happened be-
fore. Politicians, editors, preachers
discuss it. 1t is attributed to almost
everything from Adams fall to sun
spots;" but no one seems willing or
able to recognize its true origin in the
profit system and its necessary evils.
Capitalists, least of all, recognize the
hitch. They would willingly pay no
wages at all If they could get men to
work for nothing, apparently never
seeing that of other capitalists should
do the same, there would then be no
one able to buy the goods produced.
Capital is always trying to pay society
as little as it can for making products
which it tries to make society pay as
much as possible to buy back again.
If by chance capital should ever reach
the goal at which it Is striving. our
whole economic system would be
brought to a standstill. The only
thing that saves us is that capitalists
are not as yet fully able to realize the
ideal which they are aiming at A
pretty system that must be which de-
pends for it's existence on never attain
ing what 1t seeks to reach.
1t follows that gluts, or Crises" IL
not relieved in some way, would result
in economic explosion. Small explo-
sions in the shape Of panics, Black
Friday" etc., do occur occasionally;
but a general explosion is prevented
by the escape valve furnished by the
continuous waste Of luxury and the
wastes of competition. Through these
two wastes vast bulks of wealth are
annually thrown away, and the goods
thus wasted having to be replaced,
prevent hard times" from becoming
fatal
Luxury, then, II an economic neces-
sity and cannot be abolished just be-