The Washington socialist. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1914-1915, 1915-04-24
HUMANITY PLAINLY
OPPOSED TO PROFIT
Destructive Social Effect Of
Competition For Gain.
CAPITALIST A PARASITE.
BY 3. q. CLARK.

taiklnS OF pfOntS, rarely attempts an
analysis OF his position on this ito himl
all important topic.
During the anthracite strike of 1902,
when coal in some American cities was
selling ut 500 per ton. it was not unusu-
al to hear the small business man and
other defenders Of the profit system
characterize as highway robbery the
excessive prices demanded for this i'm
portant commodity.
Little do these advocates of the sys-
tenn realize the contradictions involved
in their position. Little do they seem
to suspect that the 20, 30 or 80 per cent
profit to which they are accustomed,
their right to which they regard as a
principle having all the permanence of
a natural law. is fully as iniquitious as
any other percentage, no matter how
high. For the bourgeois mind does not
hesitate to clothe a mere custom, no.
where uniform in practice, with all the
prestige Of an eternal verify. utterly
unconscious that profits differ only in
degree. and that 1 per cent is In prin-
ciple as criminal as 10000.
Those who defend the profit system
are estopped by the logic Of their po-
sition from assuming that profit. as a
principle is sacred and absolute when
they have commodities to sell and non
existent or subject to exceptions when
they wish to buy. For the buyer Of a
commodity. though ever seeking bar
gains from which all profit has been
squeezed. usually favors a low and
fixed rate of profit. while the seller pre-
fers Il sliding scale. or an "all the traffic
will bear profit. So that here within
the heart of capitalism itself there is
an anarchy of conflicting interests in
dependent Of the warfare which the
profit mongers in common carry on
against the working class. A house d.
vided against itself cannot stand.
The impossibility of capitalism as an
enduring system is here shown by the
never ending effort within it's own
ranks to evade the profit which It is
insisted may be rightfully imposed on
others. but which each endeavors to es-
cape II he can. II 1t is right to levy a
profit on the buyer it is wrong to evade
payment thereof, and the advocates Of
the system are logically bound to con-
cede to others whatever rate of returns
they claim for themselves That the
public is keenly interested in defending
itself against profit is manifest in its
rush to attend bargain and mark down
sales from which it is usually alleged
all profit has been eliminated: also in
the effort which every individual
makes both in private and business life
to buy cheap to avoid all middlemen's
profit by purchasing direct from the
wholesaler or producer, If possible.
Profit. though not decreed by statute
law. has frequently been sanctioned
by judicial decision in the interest of
corporations. A law protecting the
profits of corporations. which must be
the outcome of government regulation
as advocated by Gary Of the steel trust
and others, may reasonably be follow
ed by demand from the workers that
profit on labor beyond the subsist-
ence point be also assured them. AL
ready the agitation for q minimum
wage would seem to be a recognition
Of the fact that the state in behalf of
a higher standard of living for it's citi-
zens may properly interfere with the
destructive social effect of competition
for profit.
AS the power to labor is the only
capital possessed by the workers, their
labor is officially entitled to profit
or returns above the mere cost Of liv-
ing, just as money capital demands q
return above the cost Of reproducing
itself. 1t is profit or returns beyond
the subsistence point that make pos
sible the accumulation Of money capt.
tai and ultimately enable the capital
Isl to become Il parasite by withdraw
ing his labor power from productive
work. while the labor power Of the
proletarian. rarely compensated be-
yond the point Of reproducing itself,
making the accumulation of money
capital impossible, forces him into pro-
ductive work to escape starvation.
In this view money capital func-
tons in two ways. both vicious In
their effect. TO pay returns on in
veStments 1t extracts to the point of
impoverishment the surplus value from
the product of those who labor produc-
lively and creates a class whose labor
If they labor at all. is without social
value.
Condemned not only by Moses and
the prophets, not only by Christ and
the Christian fathers and implicitly
not only by its advocates when they
resist paying to others the tribute
which they claim for themselves. prof
it. the excess of real value. rs its very
name implies. is yet condemned by the
race I'm that the human individual. in
stinctively sensing the iniquity OF an
unfair exchange. evades where possi-
BILE on all occasions the exactions OF
an unholy system.