Capitalism and labor

“ We live to-day under the régime of capitalist production, under which a large and steadily growing class of the population can live only on the condition that it work for the owners of the means of production—tools, machines, raw materials, and means of subsistence—in return for wages. ”

“ They are his property, his is the might. What right has capital to rob the workingclass of part of the fruit of their industry and labor? Are the wages-laborers, the mechanics, the farmhands property of the capitalist? ”

“ Capitalists—the dead may bury their dead. This consolation seems to be intended more for the comfort of the capitalists themselves than of their laborers. If the whole class of the wage-laborers were to be annihilated by machinery, how terrible that would be for capital, which, without wage-labor, ceases to be capital! ”

“ His entire product belongs to the capitalist, and out of this resource he pays the wages [Pg 166] for the commodity labor, also for other commodities such as raw materials, and appropriates all of the balance and converts it into capital with which he not only continues but increases the exploitation of his workers. ”

“ Now, if it requires six hours to produce these goods, [180] the laborer is producing surplus value if he labors more than that time. This the capitalist requires him to do, as he has hired his entire labor power. Under these circumstances, the laborer who works twelve hours a day for his employer is paid for six hours’ work, while he is robbed of the product of the other six hours’ labor. The capitalist is able to do this because he possesses the means of production. ”

“ As an extractor of unpaid labor, which, by means of the increasing surplus-value whose source it is, accumulates every day, more and more, in the hands of the proprietary class the instruments of its dominion, the capitalist regime surpasses in power all the antecedent regimes founded on compulsory labor. ”

“ The capitalist class buys the use of the social labor power of the working class, and in the process of wealth production extracts a surplus value from the product of labor. That is to say, the workers on an average produce not only the equivalent of their wages, but also the value of the raw materials, the value of the wear and tear of machinery, and surplus value besides, which accumulates in the hands of the capitalist class in ever greater volume as the system develops. ”

“ When by the customs of the country, or by its laws, the line dividing labor and capital is so clearly defined, that the laborer, by a life-time of toil, can accumulate nothing, while the capitalist employing him realizes from ten to one hundred per cent per annum upon the amount invested, the one is but coining the life-blood of the other, and the laborer is but little better than a bond-servant. From time immemorial, those who obtain their support by manual labor have received less attention from government than any other class. ”

“ In what wiser way could our wealthy manufacturers use a portion of the money won for them by the labor which has exhausted its own interest in its task?
Such personal interest on the part of employers in their employees leads up to a clue to that other branch of the uninterestedness of labor—its lack of identification with the welfare of capital—its lack of any feeling of loyalty toward the capitalist. ”

“ The flow to this industry, therefore, of both capital and labor, inevitably reduces not only wages by the direct competition between workingmen, but also the profit out of which high wages were originally paid.
Employer, therefore, and employee are both slaves of the market; the employer cannot get more than the market price for his goods, and out of this he has to pay for his raw material, the cost of running the factory, and the wages of his men. He cannot reduce the price of raw material nor the cost of running the factory—rent, fuel, etc. ”

“ One of the least questioned assumptions of the capitalist system is, that production ought to be increased in amount by every possible means: by new kinds of machinery, by employment of women and boys, by making hours of labor as long as is compatible with efficiency. ”

“ In virtue of the individual ownership of the social instruments of production, one capitalist may exploit the labor of a million workingmen and become a billionaire, while the million workers struggle through life in penury and want, to a bleak and barren old age, to find rest at last in the pauper asylum, the morgue and the potter’s field. ”

“ A part of the people become distinguished from the rest by reason of the fact that that part own and control the land and the machinery of wealth production. But "labor creates all wealth." Consequently that division of the people who possess nothing but their labor power are compelled to sell that labor power to the owning class in order to get access to the means of life. Thus capitalist society becomes divided into economic classes—the capitalist and the working class. ”

“ But this continuously accelerated rash of inventions and discoveries, this unprecedented daily growth of the productivity of human labor, will in the long run cause a conflict, by which our present capitalist economy must perish. On the one side unfathomable wealth and a superabundance of products which the purchasers cannot find use for. On the other side, the great mass of society, proletarized, turned into wage-workers, and thereby made unable to acquire that superabundance of products. ”

“ This quasi partnership between the capitalist and laborer, by which the latter is made sure of his subsistence while laboring, and by which the capitalist is made to risk his capital on the final success of the enterprise, without any claim upon the debtor in case of failure, is the true relation between capital and labor, (or, what is the same thing, between the lender and borrower.) ”

“ In the capitalist system the whole working class sells its labor power to the employing class. The workers build factories, make machinery and tools, and produce goods. The employers keep the factories, the machinery, tools and goods for themselves as their profit. The workers get only wages. ”

“ Whoever works to make a living, has the same interest, that the wages-laborer has, and should assist the latter in his struggle for the right of labor against the encroachments of capital.
On the other hand, are the wages-laborers to be blamed, if they do, what all other people do, if they sell the only article they have for sale, their working power, as dear as they can? Occasionally they may raise a good price, and there may be instances, in which the petty manufacturer suffers. ”

“ Socialists call all kind of property in this respect "capital," this expression comprising all means for production, and because one class of the people possess, by their wealth, these means, the capital—, another, and by far the larger class, have only their physical or mental strength and skill for labor, hence the capital becomes a means for enslaving workers, forcing them to give up a part of what they have produced to him, who owns the capital. ”

“ Every advance in the producing capacity of machinery gives organized capital a better hold on labor, because capital owns the machinery, and, in homely phrase, labor "is the under dog in the fight" all of the time. It makes no practical difference to it whether the laborer becomes capitalist or no, for the moment he becomes so he is engaged in the same crusade. ”

“ The wage workers cannot be freed from exploitation without conquering the political power and substituting collective for private ownership of the land and means of production used for exploitation.
The basis for such transformation is rapidly developing within present capitalist society. The factory system, with its complex machinery and minute division of labor, is rapidly destroying all vestiges of individual production in manufacture. Modern production is already very largely a collective and social process. ”

“ As we have stated before there is no gain-saying that Labor produces all wealth. Captalism is based on the robbery of the workers. Those who own industries but do not work in them, pay wages to the workers and keep profits to themselves. But both, profit and wages, are only the product of Labor. ”

“ The one great cause of all the ruin of society and States is this, that labor never receives the full proceeds of its product; but must, because it is disinherited, create capital for a minority—the owners of means of labor, of land, buildings, machines, money, etc., by creating surplus value, furnishing surplus labor, more labor than is paid for, working surplus time, more time than is required to defray the expenses of its own sustenance. ”

“ The reforms promised to labor on these occasions are seldom realized, and the laborer, without asserting his rights as a freeman, is too apt to continue in the old, beaten track, sometimes complainingly, it is true, but willing and ready to be directed by his party or employer, whenever his help is needed. All of which is calculated to widen the line dividing capital and labor, and to increase the wealth and power of the capitalist.
Let us illustrate: The capitalist is engaged in manufacturing, and wishes protection from the government. ”

“ The capitalist buys from the laborer his labor-power at its full value as a commodity. But the laborer, in embodying that labor-power in some concrete form, creates more value than his wages represents. For the commodity he sells, his power to labor, he has been paid its full value, namely, the social labor-cost of its production ”

“ It creates capital, i. e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labor, and which cannot increase except upon condition of getting a new supply of wage-labor for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage-labor. Let us examine both sides of this antagonism.
To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social status in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion. ”

“ Uneducated labor, brute force without skill, is wholly at the mercy of capital. The capitalist can control the market for labor, which is all the poor man has to part with. The poor cannot combine as the rich. True, a mistake is sometimes made, and the demand for labor is greater than the supply, and the poor man's wages are increased. ”

“ It will be objected, for one thing, that the laborer by thrift and industry can save money and graduate into the capitalist class. This is true, but only to a very small degree. And if everybody could become rich and retire to live on his profits, the whole capitalistic structure would collapse when the last worker laid down his tools. Why is this? Because as stated, only labor can create wealth, and enough labor must be in operation all the time to create the wealth—the goods—needed by all the people.
Production and Consumption. ”

“ If, now, by a greater division of labor, by the application and improvement of new machines, by a more advantageous exploitation of the forces of nature on a larger scale, a capitalist has found the means of producing with the same amount of labor (whether it be direct or accumulated labor) a larger amount of products, of commodities, than his competitors—if, for instance, he can produce a whole yard of linen in the same labor-time in which his competitors weave half a yard—how will this capitalist act? ”

“ Now what takes place after the worker has sold his labor-power, i.e., after he has placed his labor-power at the disposal of the capitalist for stipulated wages— whether time-wages or piece-wages? The capitalist takes the laborer into his workshop or factory, where all the articles required for the work can be found—raw materials, auxiliary materials (coal, dyestuffs, etc.) , tools and machines. Here the worker begins to toil. ”

“ If only capitalism could be abolished the workman would no longer see his employer and other capitalists appropriating, in the shape of rent and interest and profits, all the value of the product which the labourer is said to create over and above the amount of his wages. ”

“ It explains why interest and wages are higher in new than in older communities, though the average, as well as the aggregate, production of wealth is less. It explains why improvements which increase the productive power of labor and capital increase the reward of neither. It explains what is commonly called the conflict between labor and capital, while proving the real harmony of interest between them. It cuts the last inch of ground from under the fallacies of protection, while showing why free trade fails to benefit permanently the working classes. ”

“ In the present society the means of work are the monopoly of the class of capitalists. The class of workingmen thus become dependent on them, and consequently are given over to all degrees of misery and servitude.
In order to emancipate labor it is requisite that the means of work be transformed into the common property of society, that all production be regulated by associations, and that the entire product of labor be turned over to society and justly distributed for the benefit of all. ”

“ The worker leaves the capitalist, to whom he has sold himself, as often as he chooses, and the capitalist discharges him as often as he sees fit, as soon as he no longer gets any use, or not the required use, out of him. But the worker, whose only source of income is the sale of his labor-power, cannot leave the whole class of buyers, i. ”