The daily Nome industrial worker., 1918-02-02
HIGH COST OF LIVING.


 pclated to inquire into the high costs of ligInJ mas reported It finds :hGt since the commencement Of the war prices have been raIs, d o1 accoun1 of the Ter supply of gold; price control of exchanges. abuse of cold storage to lelp to corner maracts; decreased later on farms; excessive profits to middle men due to many small shops; too much handling between prod:cer and consumer, too Fl !rh purchas- ing on credit at advanced prices. and growing luxuriousness of the people. Just now we needn't both CT with the remedies proposed for it is certain that such will not be enforced But it certainly will repay us to examine the reasons given for the higher prices now prevailing.
 We will consider the first reason
 
 most important. Prices control of exchanges hardly seem to be suffi- cicnt reason. In isolated cases it might be responsible for an en- largcd price of certain stuffs, but supply and demand will genrally break all agreements when the pro- fits in the satisfaction of a certain demand exceed normality. Abuse of cold storage to help to corner markets undoubtedly has in cer- tain familiar cases been respons- ible for an outrageous imitation of the prices of meat But sooner or later those will meet with compe- ti-i2r, end cannot wholly keep the prices soaring cleft all the time. Neither of these are responsible for the steady general upward .rend of all articles necessary to human existence.
 Decreased labor on farms is 70 reason for a rise in the prices of necessary articles. On the contrary, if things can be produced st less expense due to the el;m.2c ton of human labor power by the substi- 1utior of machine production, arti- tclcs will be cheaper. Excessive pro- fits to middlemen, due to mary small shops is a most eXtraordina- ry rc:son, fnr it is obviously not in accordance With the actual facts. Articles now reach to cc2sumcT much more directly 5lan ever be- fore, and the number of middle 'ncn who are making money is few a1d far betwo con. In fact nowadays the manufacturer is himself often the man who caters to the consumcds wants, and the middleman is now nothing else than a salaried employee of the manufacturer paid to supervise the distribution of the marufac- tured commodity. The growing luxuriousness of the people is tommy rot. In those countries where the standard of living is 100 per cent lower than in Amer ica, there the same unprecedent- ed&rise in the costs of living, and no fool story like luxurious liv- ing can impose itself for an in- stant upon thinking men. We come finally to the increased sup ply of gold.
 The value of an article is the amount of socially necessary labor used up in its production. It will exchange With any other article in which similar amount of labor socially necessary has been used in it's manufacture, expressed in terms of medium of exchange called money
 To be sure one article may be badly needed and the other not at all, the one short in supply and ex- cessive in demand will have it's price raised by the competition of the buyers, the other will have it's price lowered on account of the poor demand, and the anxiety of the seller to realize upon it. But the value of the two articles is identical even when the price varies, which cun be seen i1, the fact that two articles having cost the some amount of socially neces- sary Ia broamount of socially ne- cessary labor power to produce,