of these would reach the whole working class. They are, however,
utterly incapable of accomplishing the improvement of the situation of
the working class. This can be shown by three reasons which
essentially, however, form a single one.
(1) The disadvantage under which the working class labors affects it,
as the economic law which I shall adduce under the second head shows,
as producer, not as consumer. It is therefore an entirely false kind
of aid to try to help the workingman as a consumer instead of helping
him in the place where the shoe really pinches him--as producer.
As consumers, we are, in general, all on the same footing; as before
the law, so before the salesman, all men are equal--provided only they
pay.
Just for this reason it is true that for the working class, in
consequence of its limited ability to pay, a special additional evil
has developed which has nothing to do with the general cancer which is
eating into it--the disadvantage of having to supply needs on the
smallest scale, and so of being exposed to the extortion of the
retailer. Against this the consumers' associations give protection;
but, aside from the facts that you will see under No. 3 as to how long
this help can last and when it must cease, this limited help, which
can for the time being make the sad condition of the workingman a
little more endurable, must by no means be mistaken for a means for
that improvement in the situation of the working class at which the
workingmen are aiming.
(2) The relentless economic law which, under present conditions, fixes
the wages by the law of demand and supply of labor is this: The
average wage always remains at the lowest point which will maintain
existence and propagate the race at the standard of living accepted by
the people. This is the point about which the actual wage always
oscillates like a pendulum, without ever rising above or falling below
it for any length of time. It cannot permanently rise above this
average, for then, through the easier situation of the workingman, an
increase of the working population and therefore of the supply of
hands would ensue, which would bring the wage again to a point below
its former scale.
Neither can the wage fall permanently far below what is necessary to
support life, for then arise emigration, celibacy, and avoidance of
child-bearing, and, finally, a reduction of the number of laborers,
which then diminishes still more the supply of hands, and therefore
brings the wage back to its former position again.
The real average wage, therefore, is fixed by a constant movement
about this point of equilibrium, to which it must constantly return,
sometimes rising a little above it (period of prosperity in some or
all industries), sometimes falling a little below it (period of more
or less general distress and industrial crises).
The limitation of the average wage to the amount necessary to exist
and propagate the race under the accepted standard of living in a
community--that, I repeat, is the inexorable and cruel law which
determines the wage under present conditions.
This law can be denied by no one. I could cite as many authorities for
it as there are great and famous names in economic science, and even
from the Liberal school itself, for it is just the Liberal school of
political economy which has discovered this law and proved it. This
inexorable and cruel law, Gentlemen, you must above all things fix
deeply in your minds and base upon it all your thinking.
In this connection I can give you and the whole working class an
infallible means of escaping once for all the many attempts to deceive
and mislead you. To everyone who talks to you about the improvement of
the situation of the working class, you must first put the question:
Does he acknowledge the existence of this law, or not? If he does not,
you must say to yourself at the start that this man is either trying
to deceive you, or has the most pitiable ignorance in the science of
political economy; for, as I said, there is not a single economist of
the Liberal school worthy of mention who denies it--Adam Smith as well
as Say, Ricardo as well as Malthus, Bastiat as well as John Stuart
Mill, are unanimous in recognizing it. There is an agreement on this
point among all men of science. And if he who talks to you about the
condition of workingmen has recognized this law, then ask further: How
does he expect to abolish this law? And, if he can give no answer to
this, then coolly turn your back upon him. He is an idle prattler, who
is trying to deceive you or himself, or dazzle you with empty talk.
Let us consider for a moment the effect and the nature of this law. It
is stated in other words as follows: From the product of industry
there is first withdrawn and divided among the workingmen the amount
which is required to maintain their existence (wage). The whole
remainder of the product (profit) goes to the employer. It is
therefore a consequence of this inexorable and cruel law that you (and
for this reason in my pamphlet on the working class to which you refer
in your letter I have called you the class of the disinherited) are
forever necessarily excluded from the productiveness which increases
in amount through the progress of civilization, i.e., from the
increased product of industry, from the increased earning power of
your own work! For you there remain forever the bare necessities of
life, for the employer everything produced by labor beyond this
amount.
When, because of this great advance of productive power (yield of
labor), many manufactured products become extremely cheap, it may
happen that through this cheapness you have a certain indirect
advantage from the increased productiveness of labor--but as
consumers, not as producers. This advantage in no way affects,
however, your activity as producers. It does not affect nor change the
portion of the yield which falls to your share; it affects only your
situation as consumer and also improves the situation as consumer of
the employer, and of all men, whether they take part in the work or
not, and in a much more considerable degree than yours. And this
advantage, which affects you merely as human beings and not as
workingmen, again disappears in consequence of this inexorable and
cruel law, which always forces wages in the long run down to the point
of consumption necessary to maintain life.
Now, however, it may happen that if such an increased yield from labor
(and the extreme cheapness of many products caused thereby), comes
about very suddenly; if, moreover, it coincides with a prolonged
period of increased demand for labor, then these products, which have
become disproportionately cheaper, are taken into the body of products
that are regularly considered in a community as necessities of life.
The fact, then, that workingmen and wages are always dancing on the
extreme verge of what suffices, according to the social standard of
each age, for the maintenance of life, sometimes standing a little
above and sometimes a little below this limit--this never changes. But
this extreme limit itself may at different ages have changed through
the coincidence of the above circumstances, and it may therefore
happen that, if you compare different periods with one another, the
situation of the working class in the later century or generation
(seeing that now the minimum of necessities of life demanded by custom
is somewhat increased) has improved somewhat in comparison with the
situation of the working class in the previous century or generation.
I was obliged to make this slight digression, Gentlemen, even if it is
somewhat remote from my essential purpose, because this slight
improvement in the course of centuries and generations is always the
point to which those go back, who, after Bastiat's example, wish to
throw dust in your eyes by declamation that is as easy as it is
meaningless.
Consider exactly my words, Gentlemen. I say it may, for the above
reasons, occur that the minimum of the necessities of life has risen,
and accordingly the situation of the working class when compared with
that of former generations is somewhat improved. Whether this is
really so, whether the whole situation of the working class has
constantly improved in different centuries is a very difficult and
involved problem--a problem for scholars that cannot be treated at all
by those who incessantly fill your ears with statements of how
expensive cotton was in the last century and how much cotton clothing
is used now, and similar commonplaces which anybody may copy from any
reference book.
It is not my purpose to enter upon a consideration of this problem
here. For at this time I must confine myself to giving you not only
what is absolutely accepted, but what is also easy to prove. Let us
assume, then, that such an improvement of the minimum of the
necessities of life, and therefore of the situation of the working
class, goes on constantly in different generations and different
centuries.
But I must show you, Gentlemen, that with these commonplaces the real
question is taken out of your hands and perverted into a totally
different question.
If you speak of the situation of the workingman and its improvement,
you mean your situation compared with that of your fellow
citizens--that is, compared with contemporary standards of living.
And they amuse you with alleged comparisons of your condition with the
condition of workingmen in previous centuries! But what value has the
question for you, and what satisfaction can it give you, if, in case
the minimum of the accepted standard has risen, you are better off
today than the workingmen of eighty, two hundred, three hundred years
ago? No more than the fully proved fact that you are better off today
than Hottentots and cannibals.
Every satisfaction of human needs depends merely on the relation of
the means of satisfaction to the necessities of life demanded by the
standard of living of the time, or, what amounts to the same thing,
upon the surplus of the means over the minimum amount of such
necessities. An increased minimum of the absolute necessities of life
brings also sufferings and deprivations which former times never
knew. What deprivation is it to the Hottentot that he cannot buy soap?
What deprivation is it to the cannibal if he cannot wear a decent
coat? What deprivation was it to the workingman, if before the
discovery of America, he had no tobacco to smoke, or if, before the
invention of printing, he could not get a useful book? All human
suffering and deprivation depend only on the proportion of the means
of satisfaction to the needs and customs of living at a given time.
All human suffering and deprivation, and all human satisfactions,
accordingly every human condition, is, therefore, to be measured only
by comparison with the situation of other men of the same period and
their customary necessities of life. The condition of any class is,
therefore, to be measured only by its relation to the condition of
other classes at the same period.
If it were ever so well established, then, that the standard of the
necessaries of life has risen through different periods, that
satisfactions previously unknown have become daily necessities, and
for this reason deprivations and sufferings not before known have
appeared, your social situation has remained at these different
periods always the same, always this--that you are standing on the
verge of the usual minimum necessities of life, sometimes a little
above it, sometimes a little below. Your social position, therefore,
has remained the same, for this social position is reckoned not by its
relation to the position of the beast in primeval forests, or negroes
in Africa, or of the serf in the Middle Ages, or the workingmen of
eighty years ago, but only by the relation of this position to the
position of your fellowmen--to the position of other classes in the
same time.
And instead of taking account of this, instead of considering how this
position can be improved, and how this cruel law, which constantly
keeps you at the lowest verge of the necessities of life, can be
changed, these people amuse themselves by changing the question under
your nose without your perceiving it, and by entertaining you with
very dubious historical retrospects as to the situation of the working
class in previous periods--retrospects which are all the more
questionable because manufactured products, becoming constantly
cheaper, are far less consumed by the working class than the food
products which are their chief articles of consumption, and are in no
way subject to any similar tendency of constantly increasing
cheapness! These are retrospects, finally, which could have value only
if they undertook investigations from every point of view into the
general position of workingmen at different ages--investigations of
the most difficult nature and to be carried on only with the utmost
circumspection, investigations for which those who talk to you about
them have not even the material at hand, and which they, therefore,
should all the more leave to special scholars.
(3) Let us now come back from this necessary digression to the
question: What influence can the consumers' leagues have upon the
situation of the working class according to the law of wages discussed
under No. 2? The answer will be a very easy one.
As long as only particular groups of workingmen unite in consumers'
leagues, general wages will not be affected thereby, and the
consumers' leagues will accordingly furnish, through lower prices, to
the workingmen who belong to them--as long as this condition
lasts--that minor relief for the oppressed condition discussed and
admitted under No. 1; but as soon as the consumers' leagues begin to
take in more and more the whole working class, then, in consequence of
the above-considered law, the inevitable result will follow that the
wage, because sustenance has become cheaper through the consumers'
leagues, will drop to just that extent.
The consumers' leagues can never, even in the slightest degree, help
the whole working class, and they can furnish to the single groups of
workingmen who compose them the above-considered aid only as long as
the example of these workingmen has not been generally followed.
Every day that the consumers' leagues extend and take in larger
numbers of the working class, even this slight relief is lost more and
more even for the workingmen who belong to them, until it drops to
zero at the time when the consumers' leagues have been joined by the
majority of the whole working class. Can anybody talk seriously of the
working class turning its attention to a means which gives it no aid
whatever as a class, and furnishes its individual members this
inconsequential relief only until the time when the class as such has
completely, or to a large extent, made use of it? If the German
working class is willing to enter upon such a treadmill round, the
time before the real improvement of its position will be long indeed.
I have now analyzed all the Schulze-Delitzsch organizations and shown
that they do not and can not help you.
What then? Can not the principle of free individual associations of
workingmen effect the improvement of the position of the workingmen?
Certainly it can, but only by its application and extension to the
field of factory production. To make the working class their own
employers--that is the means, the only means, by which, as you can see
for yourself, this inexorable and cruel law which determines wages can
be abolished. When the working class is its own employer, the
distinction between wages and profits will disappear, and the total
yield of the industry will take the place, as the reward of labor, of
the bare living wage.
The abolition by this only possible means of that law which under
present conditions assigns to the workingman his wages--that part of
the product which is necessary for bare existence--and the whole
remainder to the employer--this is the only real, non-visionary, just
improvement in the position of the working class.
But how? Look at the railroads, machine shops, ship yards, cotton and
woolen mills, etc., etc., and the millions required for these
establishments; then look into your own empty pockets and ask
yourself where you will ever get the enormous capital necessary for
these establishments, and how therefore you can ever make possible the
carrying on of wholesale production on your own account!
And surely there is no fact more true, more thoroughly established,
than that you would never accomplish this if you were reduced
exclusively and essentially to your own isolated efforts as
individuals alone.
Just for this reason it is the business and the duty of the State to
make it possible for you to take in hand the great cause of the free,
individual association of the working class in such a way as to help
its development, and make it its solemn duty to offer you the means
and the opportunity for this association.
Now, do not allow yourselves to be deceived and misled by the cry of
those who will tell you that any such intervention by the State
destroys social incentive. It is not true that I hinder anybody from
climbing a tower by his own strength if I hand him a ladder or a rope.
It is not true that the State prevents children from educating
themselves by their own powers if it provides them with teachers,
schools and libraries. It is not true that I hinder anybody from
plowing a field by his own strength if I give him a plow. It is not
true that I hinder anyone from defeating a hostile enemy by his own
strength if I put a weapon into his hand for the purpose.
Although it is true that now and then someone may have climbed a tower
without a rope or a ladder; that individuals have acquired an
education without teachers, schools, or public libraries; that the
peasants in the Vendée in the wars of the Revolution now and then
defeated an enemy even without weapons; yet all these exceptions do
not vitiate the rule--they only prove it; and therefore, although it
is true that under certain special conditions single groups of
workingmen in England have been able to improve their condition, to a
certain limited extent, in certain minor branches of wholesale
production, by an association based chiefly upon their own
exertions, nevertheless the law stands that the real improvement of
the situation of the workingman, which he has a just right to demand,
and to demand for the whole working class as such, can be accomplished
only by this aid of the State. No more should you allow yourselves to
be misled and deceived by the cry of those who talk about Socialism or
Communism and try to oppose this demand of yours by such cheap
phrases; but be firmly convinced regarding such people that they are
only trying to deceive you, or else they themselves do not know what
they are talking about. Nothing is further from so-called Socialism
and Communism than this demand according to which, if realized, the
working classes, just as they do today, would maintain their
individual liberty, individual manner of living, and individual
compensation for work, and would stand in no different relation to the
State, except that the necessary capital, or credit, for their
association would be provided for them by it. But that is exactly the
office and the destiny of the State--to make easy and provide means
for the great cultural progress of humanity. This is its ultimate
purpose. For this it exists. It has always served this purpose and
always must.
I will give you a single example among hundreds--the canals, highways,
postoffices, steamboat lines, telegraph lines, banking institutions,
agricultural improvements, the introduction of new branches of
industry, etc., in all of which the intervention of the State was
necessary--a single example, but one which is worth a hundred others,
and one which is especially near at hand. When railroads were to be
built, in all German as well as in all foreign states except in some
few isolated lines, the State had to intervene in one way or
another--chiefly by undertaking to guarantee at least the dividends on
the stock, in many countries going much further than this.
The guarantee of dividends constitutes a one-sided contract of the
rich stockholder with the State--namely, if the new enterprises are
unprofitable, then the loss falls upon the State, and consequently
upon all taxpayers, and, consequently again, especially upon you,
Gentlemen, upon the great class of the propertyless. If, on the other
hand, the new enterprises are profitable, then the profit, the large
dividends, come to us, the rich stockholders, and this is not obviated
by the fact that in many countries--for instance in Prussia--certain
very uncertain advantages for the State in a very distant future are
stipulated, advantages which would result much sooner and much more
abundantly from an association of the working class.
Without this intervention of the State, of which, as I have said, the
guarantee of dividends was the weakest form, we should perhaps have no
railroads on the whole continent today.
The fact is also unquestionable that the State was obliged to take
this step; that the guarantee of dividends was a most pronounced
intervention of the State, that, furthermore, this intervention took
place in favor of the rich and well-to-do class, which also controls
all capital and all credit, and which therefore could dispense with
the intervention of the State far more easily than you; and that this
intervention was called for by the whole capitalist class.
Why then did not a cry arise at that time against the guarantee of
dividends as an inadmissible intervention of the State? Why was it not
then discovered that by this guarantee the social incentive of the
rich managers of those stock companies was threatened? Why was this
guarantee of the State not decried as Socialism and Communism?
But forsooth, this intervention of the State was in the interests of
the rich and well-to-do classes of society, and in that case it is
entirely admissible and always has been! It is only when there is any
question of intervention in favor of the poverty-stricken classes, in
favor of the infinite majority, then it is "pure Socialism and
Communism."
Give this answer, therefore, to those who wish to raise a howl about
the inadmissibility of State intervention and the social
independence endangered by it, and the Socialism and Communism
concealed in a demand which does not give the slightest occasion for
such a howl; and add that since we have, after all, been living in a
state of Socialism and Communism, as those guarantees of dividends on
railroads and all the other above-mentioned examples show, we will
continue right on in that state.
A further consideration is that, however great was the advance in
civilization accomplished by the railroads, it drops to the vanishing
point in contrast with that mighty advance which would be accomplished
by the association of the working class. Of what avail are all the
hoarded wealth and all the fruits of civilization if they exist for
only a few, and if the majority of the human race always remains the
Tantalus who reaches in vain for these fruits! Worse than
Tantalus--for he at least had not produced the fruits for which his
parched lips were condemned to pant in vain! This, the mightiest
advance of culture which history could know, would justify the helpful
intervention of the State if anything would. The State furthermore can
furnish this possibility in the easiest manner through the banking
institutions (a matter into which I cannot go at length here) without
assuming any greater responsibility than it did by the guarantee of
dividends to the railroads.