The daily worker., 1933-08-14

for higher wages.
= Wages are not fixed thing, auto
matically determined by objective
forces alone, by economic conditions.
Marx wrote, Value, Price and Pro-
fit to prove that workers can and
must raise their wages to be kept
n being driven to the level of
slaves, buU mat tnis struggle should
not be the aim and end of the work
ers; it should lead to and be con-
nected with the struggle for the over
throw of capitalism.
At the present time, $4,000 coal
miners, and tens of thousands of
other workers are struggling for an
increase in wages; and in dozens OF
plants the workers have won wage
increases. In life and, practice the
working class is proving in the crisis
that it can force wage increases.
During the crisis, many of the re.
negades and especially the socialists
politicalized the view that the work
ers cannot raise wages by saying the
workers will not strike during the
crisis. The crisis is not over by any
means, and initiation is just another
means of cutting wages. Yet we sec
developing the greatest strike strug-
giles, affecting the entire working
class.
1t is true that the capitalists try
by every means to lower the living
standards of the workers in order to
increase their surplus value, profit.
ic o1c f,t,n S,.A
of capitalism, especially as it enters
its general crisis-from which it can
never emerge = the tendency is to
shalve wages far below its value and
to hold it there. But the final an
swer is given not by economic forces,
or by the will of the capitalists. 1t
is given by the maturity, the firm
ness of the struggle of the working
class. ee-a4
In Value, Price and Profit" Marx
says:
"Fhe slave receives permanent
and fixed amount Of maintenance;
the wage laborer does not. He
must try to get a rise of wages in
the one instance, If only to COM
pensate for a fall Of wages in the
other. If he resigned himself to
accept the will, the dictates of the
capitalist as a permanent economic
law, he would share in all the
miseries of the slave, without the
security of the slave.'
In short, the answer Is given In
the every day struggle of the work.
ers, and this is the point the editorial
in the Daily Worker on How Wages
Can Be Raised" stressed, pointing
out correctly that the workers can
and must increase their wages.
In discussing the length Of the
working day, which is inseparably
connected with the struggle around
wages, Marx said the following:
'When two rights come into con-
flict, force decides the issue. That
is why, in the history of capital
list production, the decision as to
what is a normal working day pre-
sents itself in the form of a strug-
gle as to the defining of the limits
of the working day--a struggle be-
tween the aggregate of capitalists,
the capitalist class, and the aggre-
gate of workers, the working class"
The same can be said of wages.
The points the writer gives sup.
porting a struggle of the workers,
though not holding out the possibil-
ity of success in the day to day
struggle, in way contradicts the rest
of the letter. For instance, he puts
the cart before the horse when he
says: ITO raise our wages we must
obtain more of the good things Of
life" Any worker can tell you that
in order to obtain more Of the good
things of life," it is necessary first
to raise wages, and to raise wages
the only way is to organize in mil
liant trade unions that will lead
struggles for wage increases.