Manifesto of the Socialist Party of Canada
SAVAGERY TO CIVILIZATION
Written: 1910
So far removed in the dim past is the period of human development previous to the
appearance of slavery that it has left little historic trace beyond the scattered remains of
primitive handiwork that have been unearthed from time to time, and any conception of
that period would be almost impossible were it not for its present day survivals – the
races yet existing in a state of primitive savagery.
By piecing together, the information derived from a study of these races, with what can
be gathered or guessed from the prehistoric remains, such knowledge as we have on the
subject has been attained.
The characteristic that marks the ante-slavery period from ours is the non-existence of
property in the true sense of the word. Personal possessions the primitive savage has,
such as his weapons and his dwelling, but the resources of the earth, being free of access
to all, are the property of none. For property is not so much the assertion of the claim of
the individual as owner as a denial of claim of all others to ownership.
The Economics of Savagery
The economics of this period is as simple and crude as its tools, but is, nevertheless,
worthy of attention, as, owing to that very simplicity, it affords a clearer conception of
the fact that labor is the determining factor in comparing the values of articles – a factor
of supreme importance to the Socialist conception.
Production under savagery differs from that of today in being hand production instead of
machine, and individual instead of social production. That is to say, each article produced
is completed by one individual instead of being, as it is today, the result of the toil of a
whole army of workers, each one doing a little to it. Furthermore, under savagery, articles
are produced for use; under capitalism, for profit.
The elimination of these three factors – social production, machinery, and profit –
reduces economics to its simplest form.
Such exchange, or barter, of articles as would take place under savagery would be carried
on in the first place at the whim and caprice of the parties to the exchange. Thus a savage
wishing to barter, say, ornaments for weapons, would exchange them upon the basis of
the labor it would cost him to produce either. He would know how long it took him to
make the ornaments, and he would have a pretty good idea how many of the weapons he
could make in the same time, and would therefore insist on just so many in exchange for
his ornaments. To accept any less would be foolish, as he would be better off to make
them himself. And, be it noted that this standard of value has endured through all the
succeeding changes in the methods of production and exchange.
The resources of the earth have no value, a fact which is quite clear under savagery, but
obscured under capitalism by the fact that they are bought and sold on the strength of
their potentialities. It is only when the hand of labor is applied to the natural resources to
convert them into articles usable by man, that anything of value is created.
The Passing of Savagery
The primitive savage’s method of life is predatory. He lives by hunting and fishing, and
upon wild fruits and roots. Such a method of life is, at any time, precarious and becomes
more so with the increase of population and the consequent restriction of the tribal
hunting grounds. As time goes on the savage is driven to domesticate animals and to
cultivate the soil in order that his means of life may be more certain. Once this becomes
general, the way to slavery is open.
The primitive savage kills his enemies on the battlefield – perhaps eats them. He has no
incentive to make them captive, as it would only mean so many more mouths to feed. He
cannot even compel them to maintain themselves by sending them to hunt, as obviously,
they would escape.
But with the cultivation of the soil it becomes at length possible for an individual to
produce more than is necessary for his own keep. It then becomes well worth while to
make captives. They can be compelled to toil in the fields and produce for their masters;
their escape can be prevented by armed guards. So property, the slave and the soldier
make their advent upon the scene of events together, never to leave it till they leave it
together – when the slaves shall emancipate themselves.
A Comparison
Be it noted that the slave of old toiled in his master’s fields and the fruits of his toil
belonged to his master, and that the worker of today toils in his master’s factory or farm,
and the fruits of his toil belong to the master. The slave of old received for his toil
enough for his own subsistence, just what the latter today receives at the best. The slave
was bought and sold bodily and, being so much invested wealth, was more or less well
cared for whether he worked or not. The worker of today sells himself from day to day,
and being a “freeman” and nobody’s property, nobody is under any obligation to care for
him or to feed him when there is no work for him to do. The slave was generally an
unwilling slave, but the worker votes for a continuance of his servitude. His freedom lies
in his own hands, but he refuses to be free. Which is the baser slave?
To sum up: the savage came upon the scene endowed with power to labor, which he
applied to the natural resources, and produced for himself wealth – articles of use to him.
The chattel slave was owned by a master, who compelled him to apply his labor power to
the natural resources, and took the wealth he produced. The worker of today sells his
labour-power to an employer, to whom belongs the wealth produced by the application of
that labor-power.
The Slave Empires
It is noticeable that those people among whom slavery of one sort or another does not
exist are not very far advanced in the arts and sciences. This would point to the fact that
slavery is essential to human progress, and such is actually the case.
When man lived by fishing and hunting he had little leisure for the pursuit of knowledge.
All his time was taken up with the economic problem, how to provide for his wants.
When, however, the agricultural stage was reached, and it became possible for an
individual to live upon the fruits of another’s labor, society became divided into two
classes, the slaves and their masters, the working class and the leisured class. This master
class then had leisure to turn its attention to other things besides its immediate
necessities.
Upon this basis the civilizations of the ancient world were built. Upon the labor of slaves
Babylon upraised her temples and gardens, Egypt her pyramids and tombs, Greece her
colonnades and statuary. The armies of Xerxes and Hannibal, the mighty empire of
Rome, were all maintained out of the surplus product of vast armies of chattel slaves.
Built thus upon the backs of toiling millions, empire after empire arose, attained its zenith
and crumbled to decay, some of them leaving scarce a trace to mark their place in history.
The course of each one was in many respects similar, for the reason that they were slave
civilizations.
Commencing as an aggregation of rude husbandmen conquering their neighbors until,
becoming great and having overcome all dangerous rivals, the masters degenerated into a
mere horde of parasites living upon the ever-increasing product of their slaves. Wealth
tends ever to accumulate into the hands of the most wealthy, and, as the wealthy become
fewer the slaves become more numerous, until the disproportion becomes so great that
the wealthy few, with all their luxurious extravagance and wastefulness, are no longer
able to consume the volume of wealth, and there are more slaves than employment can be
found for. As the slave thus becomes of little value his condition becomes more and more
precarious and miserable. Society is no longer able to provide for the wants of the useful
portion of it, and, there being no possibility, at the time, of any new form of society to
take its place, the slave civilization perishes, its extinction as a general rule being
hastened by the inroads of some younger and more virile race.
The fall of the decadent Roman empire marked the dawn of a new era. For thousands of
years chattel slavery had been the only form of slavery. In endless rotation civilizations
founded upon that basis had succeeded one another, but now, at last, conditions were ripe
for a change for which these cycles of chattel slavery had been but a preparation.
The drying out of the uplands of Asia displaced the population of that continent, and a
great westward migration commenced. Goth, Frank, Vandal and Hun swept wave on
wave across Europe. Before the inrush of these rude barbarians, Rome, already tottering,
could not stand. Gnawing at her vitals was the old disease common to all slave
civilizations – “where wealth accumulates and men decay”. The wealth of Rome had
concentrated into the hands of a very small percentage of her population; the number of
slaves was greatly out of proportion to the masters; their productivity beyond even the
wasting capacity of the dissolute Roman patricians. Roman society had reached the brink
of destruction. The barbarians had but to push it over.
The Institution of Feudalism
Western Europe, formerly one great forest, had now become populous. The incoming
races amalgamated with the former inhabitants who had, under Roman rule, been reduced
to some semblance of order. Conditions became so settled that it was no longer easy for a
slave to escape. It was no longer necessary to own and guard him. Therefore, gradually, a
new system of slavery evolved. The slave was attached to the land; he became a serf. His
master was now the owner of the land – the lord. The serf toiled on his lord’s land,
producing wealth for him, in return for which he was permitted to toil on his own behalf
upon a piece of land set apart for that purpose. The wealth he thus produced was just
sufficient to meet his necessities so that he might continue to live and produce more
wealth for his lord.
The difference between the chattel slave and the serf is one of form rather than of reality.
Each produced the wealth that maintained both himself and his master. Each received of
that wealth only sufficient, at the best, to maintain him in good working condition. While
the chattel slave, being generally bought, represented so much cash laid out, and was
therefore worth taking a certain amount of care of, the personal welfare of the serf was a
matter of little concern to the lord beyond that it was to the lord’s interest to protect him
from other robbers in order that he himself might get the full benefit of the serf’s labor.
The reason serfdom displaced chattel slavery was that it was a more economical and less
troublesome method of exploiting the workers. The point most worth remembering about
the feudal system is that the serf worked a part of the time for himself and the rest of his
time for his lord, much as the worker today works a part of his working day producing
his own wages and the rest of the time producing profit for his employer.
The Passing of Feudalism
It had taken several thousands of years of chattel slavery to prepare the way for serfdom.
And it took several centuries of feudalism to prepare the way for a new form of society –
capitalism – the kernel of which already existed in the feudal society. While the
agricultural districts were under the sway of the nobility, the towns and cities of the
Middle Ages were, to a certain extent, free from their domination. Here were congregated
the merchants, artisans and handicraftsmen, whose interests were at all times more or less
antagonistic to those of the land-barons, who naturally sought to place restrictions on the
manufacture and marketing of the city products. This antagonism was accentuated by the
discovery of America and of the southwest passage to the Orient, and the consequent
expansion of trade.
As the wealth and power of the townsmen increased, that of the nobility decreased. The
invention of gunpowder sealed the fate of the mail clad knights and their chivalry. The
nobleman became a mere parasite upon society; feudalism ran its course as other forms
of society had done. It was dying when the steam engine gave it its death blow.
That invention threw wide the doors of opportunity to society’s new masters, the
townsmen or bourgeoisie. Heretofore the production of articles of commerce had been
carried on by hand. The town worker was a craftsman who learnt his trade by a long
apprenticeship, who, when he became a journeyman, worked by the side of his master,
and had reasonable hopes of becoming himself a master. The tools of production were yet
so primitive as to be within the purchasing power of the thrifty workman. Land alone was
the sacred property of the ruling class.
The coming of the steam-driven engine changed all this. The hand tool grew step by step
into the gigantic set of machines we know today. Ownership of the tools of production
became more and more an impossibility for the worker. The master workman left the
bench for the office; the foreman took his place. The factory called for more labor –
cheaper labor. The capitalist turned profit-hungry eyes on the brawn of the agricultural
districts. Serfdom stood in the way, so serfdom was abolished. The serf was freed from
his bondage to the land that he might take on a heavier yoke, that of the factory. The
factory needed not brains, but “hands”. The hands of the country yokel, of his wife, and
of his children, would serve equally as well as those of the skilled craftsman. No
apprenticeship was needed, no training. Only “hands” with hungry stomachs attached.
The serf was not only freed from the land, he was driven off it by the closing in of the
commons and by other measures. The freeing of the serfs was no humanitarian measure.
Greed – and greed alone – was its inspiring motive.
The New Slavery
The conditions of the new form of slavery that took the place of serfdom, and now is the
form prevailing throughout the “civilized” world, are somewhat different from the old.
As has been pointed out before, the essence of enslavement is that one man should be
compelled to work for others, and surrender to them the product of his toil. Wage-slavery, the present form of servitude, fulfils this condition exactly as much as did chattel
slavery or serfdom. The workers of today have not an atom of claim upon the wealth they
produce. That is sufficiently self-evident to call for no proof. And while they may not
actually be compelled to work for any given master, they must work for some master.
They are therefore slaves in the proper sense of the word. And, indeed, the conditions of
their servitude are in the main more severe than under previous forms of slavery. They
are exploited for more wealth – that is to say, the masters obtain from their labor greater
returns than did the masters under any other form of slavery. In fact, were it not so, the
other forms would now be in existence. But no feudal serf or chattel slave can compete
with the modern wage slave at slaving. Moreover, while in favored trades and in favored
localities, the modern worker may lead a more or less tolerable existence, the misery and
suffering prevailing in populous centres today are undeniably worse than could have
existed under the old forms of slavery at their worst, for the reason that the masters of old
were, to a certain extent, interested in the welfare of their slaves, having, directly or
indirectly, a property interest in them. The modern master, on the other hand, has no such
interest in his slaves. He neither purchases nor owns them. He merely buys so much
labor-power – physical energy – just as he buys electric power for his plant. The worker
represents to him merely a machine capable of developing a given quantity of labor-power. When he does not need labor-power he simply refrains from buying any.
Wage slavery is the most satisfactory form of slavery that has ever come into existence,
from the point of view of the masters. It gives them all the slaves they require, and
relieves them of all responsibility in the matter of their housing, feeding and clothing.
Bourgeoisie
The capitalist class had humble enough beginnings. Its progenitors were the bourgeois,
literally townsmen, of the Middle Ages. A part of the feudal society, they were yet, in a
way, apart from it. They were neither nobles nor serfs, but a species of lackeys to the
nobility. From them the noble obtained his clothing and the gay trappings of his horse;
they forged his weapons and his armour, built his castles, loaned him money. He stood to
them in the relation of a consumer, and, as a consumer, he legislated, defining their
markets, prohibiting them from enhancing prices, enacting that wages should not exceed
certain figures, insisting that goods should be of such and such a quality and texture, and
be sold at certain fixed prices.
From Serfdom to Wagedom
Naturally these restrictions were little to the taste of the bourgeoisie. As trade and
commerce increased they found these conditions less and less tolerable. As they grew in
wealth and influence they became less and less inclined to tolerate them. In England they
had joined with the nobles to weaken the king, and with the king to weaken the nobles.
Finally they broke the power of both. In the name of freedom they crushed feudalism.
But the freedom they sought was a freedom that would allow them to adulterate goods,
that would allow the workers to leave the land and move where the factories needed
them, their wives, and their children.
While in other lands the course of the bourgeois revolution was somewhat different to
that in England, the result was the same. In France, for instance, the revolution was pent
up for so long a period that when it burst forth it deluged the land in blood, through
which the people waded, bearing banners inscribed “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”, to a
new order wherein Liberty, Equality and Fraternity were the last things possible.
The Mission of Capitalism
Once freed from the fetters of feudalism the onward march of capitalism became a mad,
headlong rush. Everywhere mills, factories, and furnaces sprang up. Their smoke and
fumes turned fields once fertile and populous into desolate, uninhabitable wastes; their
refuse poisoned and polluted the rivers until they stank to Heaven. Earth’s bowels were
riven for her mineral hoards. Green flourishing forests became mere acres of charred and
hideous stumps. Commerce pierced all mountains, fathomed all seas, explored all lands,
disturbing the age-long sleep of hermit peoples that they might buy her wares. Capital
spread its tentacles over all the world. Everywhere its voice was heard, crying “Work,
work, work”, to all the workers; “Buy, buy, buy”, to all the peoples.
The Achievements of Capitalism
Ages of chattel slavery were necessary to break the ground for feudalism, centuries of
feudalism to prepare the way for capitalism. In a dozen decades capitalism has brought us
to the threshold of Socialism.
Capitalism has done a great work, and done it thoroughly. It found the workers, for the
most part, an ignorant, voiceless peasant horde. It leaves them an organized proletarian
army, industrially intelligent, and becoming politically intelligent; it found them working
individually and with little co-ordination; it has made them work collectively and
scientifically. It has abolished their individuality and reduced their labor to a social
average, levelling their differences, until today the humble ploughman is a skilled laborer
by comparison with the mere human automata that weave cloths of intricate pattern and
forge steel of fine temper. In short, it has unified the working class.
It found the means and methods of production crude, scattered and ill-ordered, the private
property of individuals, very often of individuals who themselves took part in production;
it leaves them practically one gigantic machine of wealth production, orderly, highly
productive, economical of labor, closely inter-related – the collective property of a class,
and of a class wholly unnecessary to production, a class whose sudden extinction would
not affect the speed of one wheel or the heat of one furnace.
It found the earth large, with communications difficult, divided into nations knowing
little or nothing of one another, with prairies unpopulated, forests untrod, mountains
unscaled; it has brought the ends of the earth within speaking distances of one another,
has ploughed the prairies, hewed down the forests, tunnelled the mountains, explored all
regions, developed all resources; it has largely broken down all boundaries, except on
maps; it has given us an international capitalist class with interests in all lands on the one
hand, and, on the other, an international working class with a common interest the world
over.
The Passing of Capitalism
Aristotle, with something akin to prophetic vision, laid down the axiom that slavery was
necessary until the forces of Nature were harnessed to the uses of man. This has now
been accomplished and the necessity for slavery is past. Armed with the modern
machinery of production, with steam, electricity, and water power at their command, the
workers, a fraction of society, can produce more than all society can use or waste – so
much more, that periodically the very wheels of production are clogged with the super-abundance of wealth, and industrial stagnation prevails.
At the very heyday of prosperity, industry suddenly becomes disjointed. The wheels of
production come to a standstill. Furnaces cool off; smoke ceases to belch forth to the
skies; the belts stay their eternal round over the pulleys. The workers, from being worked
to the limit of their endurance, find themselves unexpectedly without work at all, and
soon without means of subsistence.
Not here and there alone, but everywhere where capitalism rules, from all quarters comes
the same tale. Famine-stricken where food is plenty; ill clad where clothing lacks not;
shelterless among empty houses; shivering by mountains of fuel; tramping where
carwheels rust. And ever the tale grows! There is no promise of alleviation, but rather
portents of worse to come.
Society can no longer feed itself. When the societies of old could no longer feed
themselves they perished. And capitalist society is about to perish. A revolution is at
hand! Another leap in the process of evolution! Society has grown too big for its shell. It
must burst that shell and step forth a new society.
The means of wealth production are the collective property of the capitalist class. The
operation of these means of wealth production is the collective function of the working
class. The working class, working together, produces all wealth. The capitalists, owning
the means of production, own all the product. They allow the working class, when
working, sufficient, on the average, for their subsistence – just what the slave owner
allowed his slaves; what the feudal lord allowed his serfs. But when the worker of today
is not working he is allowed nothing except freedom to starve. He is the worst kind of a
slave.
What stands between him and his emancipation is the collective ownership of the means
of production by the capitalist class. If the means of production were collectively
administered by the working class that now collectively operates them, the product would
also belong collectively to that class, and the workers would be able to individually
consume the wealth they collectively produced. They would not need to be hungry,
homeless, ragged, shivering outcasts. The world is theirs for the taking. Presently they
will be compelled to take it. Man cannot be equalled in endurance by any animal, but
even his endurance has a limit. When that limit is reached capitalism will be at an end; its
mission will have been accomplished to the final touch.
The economic problem, whose solution lay in the advent of slavery, will have been
solved. Labor will step forth free at last from its aeons of bondage. Man shall be the
master of his own destiny, able with little effort to produce all that his mind desires, with
ample leisure to enjoy the fruits of his handiwork, and the legacies of time. The earth
shall be his and the fullness thereof. The forces of Nature his to command; the giant
machine his tireless servitor. Speed the day!
WEALTH AND WAGES
Various erroneous ideas prevail regarding what wealth is. We read and hear such
expressions as “natural wealth”, “mineral wealth”, “forest wealth”, etc. But to the mass
of humanity the term wealth carries a suggestion of money. In reality, however, wealth is
none of these things.
The sum total of all that is produced by human labor is the wealth of the world. Natural
resources cannot be regarded as wealth, for it would be impossible to conceive of the
natural resources of an undiscovered, uninhabited island having any value whatever. It is
only when natural resources are, by the hand of Labor, worked up into things useful to
man, that wealth comes into being.
Two factors, then, enter into the production of wealth. Taking the first commodity that
comes to hand, it can be perceived at a glance that it is made by labor out of raw material.
Raw materials, in the final analysis, are the natural resources, the forests, ores, etc. Given
these raw materials, man, by the exercise of his physical energy, his power to labor,
produces wealth. This power to labor is called for short, labor power. It should not be
confused with labor, though this is frequently done. Labor is a condition of labor power.
It is the act of applying labour power to raw material in order to produce wealth. When
labor power is applied to raw material, labor is performed and wealth produced. The
wealth thus produced is the embodiment of the labor performed. Its existence is the
evidence that a certain quantity of labor has been performed. The sum total of the world’s
wealth, therefore, represents the sum total of the labor performed in its production.
The Value of Wealth
We say that wealth has value – that it is worth something. But what is it that gives it that
value? We have seen that it is composed of natural resources and labor. But raw material,
we have also seen, is valueless. Therefore, it must be labor.
It may be objected that, as natural resources, such as coal-beds, mineral veins and timber
limits, are bought and sold, they must have a value. However, natural resources with
which human labor has entered into the slightest relations cannot be regarded as properly
being raw materials. And, furthermore, such natural resources are bought and sold on the
strength of their potential value, that is, the value it is expected they will have when
converted to human use by labor. Without labor no value can be possible.
Use Value
The use value of wealth is in its utility to man, that is, the measure of the want it will
fulfil. Thus the use value of a sack of flour is the length of time it will keep a man alive.
It is only mentioned here because capitalist economists have attempted to show that the
use value of an article had some influence on its price, on the ground that a man, when
starving, would be willing to pay more for a loaf of bread than he would if he were full,
the fallacy of which can easily be seen when it is considered that a loaf will keep a man
alive just so long, whatever the price he pays for it, its utility being determined not by the
strength of his desire, but by the length of time it will keep him alive. No matter how the
price of a commodity varies, its use value remains about the same.
Exchange Value
Exchange value is necessarily comparative. It cannot be used except in comparing the
relative values of two or more articles. An article by itself can have no exchange value.
Thus a loaf of bread cannot be said to have any exchange value until it is compared with
something with which it is proposed to exchange it. Furthermore, that with which it is
proposed to exchange must be something else than a loaf of bread, it being self-evident
that there would be no advantage in exchanging loaves for similar loaves.
We find, therefore, that exchange value comes into play only when it is proposed to
exchange two or more dissimilar commodities.
The two commodities being thus dissimilar, their concrete components are necessarily
also dissimilar. While the one may be made of flour, the other may be of steel, wood or
wool. There arises, therefore, the difficulty of comparing them, as there appears to be
nothing contained in either by which may be ascertained how much of the one should be
given in exchange for a certain quantity of the other. Nor will weights and measures
serve for the purpose of this comparison. The one may be measured by the pound, the
other by the yard or gallon.
We have seen however, that there is one factor that is embodied in all commodities –
labor. And it is the only factor common to all commodities, however dissimilar may be
the materials of which they are composed, or the means by which they are weighed or
measured. Therefore it stands to reason that dissimilar commodities can be compared one
with another only on the basis of the labor contained in each. It is on that basis, then, that
commodities must be exchanged.
However, be it noted that the labor contained in exactly similar shoes may be produced in
two different factories, but in the one factory, owing to improved methods and
machinery, less labor is involved in the production of a pair of shoes than in the other
factory under less efficient methods. While the labor contained in these shoes would be
different, their exchange value in the open market would be the same. No more could be
obtained for the shoes in which more labor is embodied than for the pair in which there is
less, because no more labor is actually necessary to the production of shoes of that
quality. This brings us a step further in our examination into exchange value. We now
have the axiom that commodities exchange one with another according to the necessary
labor involved in the production of each.
Another aspect of exchange value has yet to be considered. The labor involved in the
production of a pair of shoes is no longer the labor of one individual, but of many.
Primitive man made things, for his own use himself. From the materials to hand, he
laboriously and painstakingly fashioned all the things he required. Not only did he
complete each article himself, but he made the crude tools wherewith he worked. This
was individual production in its purest form. today, however, things are different.
Individual production has disappeared; social production has taken its place. No
individual produces any article in its entirety. It takes a multitude to make a box of
matches. Not only are the leather, nails, thread, etc., of which shoes are made the
products of many hands, but in the factory itself the shoe passes through the hands of a
large number of operatives, each of whom does a little to it until it is finished. Then it has
yet to be transported and handled by the labor of others again before it reaches the
consumer. So that, from the ox to the consumer, there is embodied in each pair of shoes a
fraction of the labor of each of many individuals. All these transmigrations are a part of
the process of production. The production of a commodity ends only where its
consumption begins. Its exchange value is therefore incomplete until it reaches the
consumer. The labor that is embodied in any commodity is not individual but social labor
– the collective labor of a large number of individuals. This completes our definition of
exchange value. Thus: the exchange value of a commodity is determined by the socially
necessary labor embodied therein.
This socially necessary labor is the cost of production of each commodity. Each
commodity being the embodiment of a certain amount of labor, it costs just that much
labor to produce it. Commodities, therefore, exchange one with another at cost. Which
brings us face to face with the following problem: If everything is sold at cost, where
does profit come in? For buying and selling, be it observed, is, in the final analysis,
nothing more than the exchange of one commodity for another with money as the
medium through which that exchange is made.
The generally accepted idea of profit is that it is made by buying cheap and selling dear.
But, unless our reasoning up to this point can be proved fallacious, buying cheap and
selling dear are out of the question, as the relative values of commodities are
predetermined by the socially necessary labor involved in their production.
It is true, that a certain amount of fluctuation in the price of commodities, above and
below their exchange value, actually takes place according to the supply and demand for
them in the market. But these fluctuations are almost negligible, as will be seen later, and
cancel one another in the average. Moreover, they offer no solution of our problem as to
the source of profit.
Surplus Value
The solution to this mystery is that buying and selling have nothing whatever to do with
the making of profit. It is not in the process of exchange, but in that of production that
profit comes in. Profit is acquired, not by paying less for a commodity than it is worth,
nor by selling it for more than it is worth, but simply by not paying for it at all.
The chattel slaves, we have seen, produced wealth, which belonged, of course, to their
masters. In this wealth was embodied the labor of the slaves. That was its value. A certain
amount of this wealth went to feed, clothe and house the slaves, the surplus accrued to
the masters at no cost to themselves. The value of the surplus wealth would be surplus
value.
The modern worker – the wage slave – is in much the same position. The wealth of the
world is produced by the workers of the world. Its value is determined by the labor they
have put into it. It belongs to their masters, the owners of the means of wealth
production, the natural resources, mines, mills, factories, etc. A portion of this wealth
goes to feed, clothe and house the workers through the medium of wages. The remainder
accrues to the masters, the capitalist class. Its value is surplus value. It costs them
absolutely nothing. The workers have received all that is coming to them. Having
produced all the wealth, they have actually paid their own wages. The capitalists have
done nothing except own the means of production. The wealth they thus obtain by virtue
of ownership is clear gain – profit.
Wealth being a social product, the individual produces nothing, but only fractions of
things. The collective labor of the workers is necessary to produce wealth. The individual
is a mere cog in the social machine of production. Being thus unable to produce things
for himself, he can procure them only by buying them – unless he begs or steals them. To
buy them he must first sell something. In other words, in order to procure the things we
need we must give something in exchange for them.
The capitalists can very well do this because to them belongs all the wealth that is
produced, by virtue of their ownership of the means of production. The workers,
however, have no property in the means of production, and therefore own none of that
wealth. The vast majority of them have absolutely nothing to give in exchange for their
necessities – that is nothing tangible. They have, however, the power to labor. In order to
procure food, clothing and shelter they must, then, sell their labor power. This is what
working for wages amounts to. The worker is not paid for what he does. He is paid for so
much labor power, just as he in turn pays the grocer for so much flour and potatoes. He is
paid, not for the wealth he produces, but merely for the exertion of producing it. To the
wealth he produces, therefore, he has not a vestige or right or title. It belongs by right to
those who bought his labor power, by means of which it was produced. Movements,
therefore, that aim at “a greater share of the product for the producer” are illogical in the
extreme, because when a man sells his labor power he is entitled only to the price of that
labor power, and by no means to any share of the wealth produced by the exertion of that
labor power. The labor power is not his, for he has sold it. It belongs to whosoever
bought it, to whom also belongs all the wealth this produced. To admit the capitalists’
claim to the ownership of the means of production is to admit their right to the whole of
the product of labor.
Labor Power as a Commodity
Labor power, being bought and sold, ranks, therefore, as a commodity, and is subject to
the law governing the exchange of commodities.
The law governing the exchange of commodities is that they shall exchange, on the
average, at their cost of production, as has been shown. The cost of production of any
commodity is the social labor necessary for its production. Labor power is the physical
energy of the individual. The labor necessary to produce this is the labor that is involved
in producing the individual’s living. The exchange value of labor power then, is
determined by the socially necessary labor involved in the production of those things that
go to make up the laborer’s living from day to day. And that is exactly what the workers
get on average – their living according to the prevailing standard. It is true that some of
them get a little more than is actually necessary for them to exist on, but, on the other
hand, millions get less and are actually dying of slow starvation at their work.
Wages
Wages are generally regarded as so much money. Two dollars a day or sixty a month. A
closer examination shows two other aspects before which the mere money wage dwindles
into insignificance. These are the “relative wage”, and the “real wage”.
The relative wage is that which the worker receives in comparison with what he
produces. Owing to the improvements in the machinery of production, the relative wage
has fallen greatly during the last century, and is continually becoming less. Under
handicraft production the worker could not produce very much more than he consumed.
Under modern machine production the worker produces far more than he consumes, even
if the standard of living has risen. Statistics show that the workers of the United States
produce five times as much as they receive in wages on the average. That is to say that
their relative wage is only 20 per cent of their product, which means that the surplus
value, the profits of the master class, are now 80 per cent of the wealth produced.
The Real Wage
The real wage is what is bought with the money wage, the food, clothing, housing, etc., of
the worker. It is what the workers actually receive in exchange for their labor power.
While the money wage, the price of labor power may rise, the real wage may at the same
time be falling. Thus during the last decade, United States statistics show a rise in wages
of some 20 per cent, and a rise in the cost of living of some 30 per cent. Here the money
wage would be raised 20 per cent, but the real wage would have fallen 10 per cent, so
that in place of receiving 20 per cent more, the workers are actually receiving 10 per cent
less in exchange for their labor power. A rise in prices, therefore, means to the worker,
not so much a rise in his cost of living as a fall in his real wage, that is, a reduction in his
standard of living.
Price
As the money wage has been referred to as the price of labour power, a consideration of
price itself would not be out of place. Price is the approximate monetary expression of
the exchange value of a commodity. Money itself arises out of the inconveniences
attendant upon the direct exchange, or barter, of one commodity for another. To
overcome these inconveniences one commodity is employed to which all other
commodities are compared, and their exchange values are expressed in terms of this
commodity.
The commodity employed becomes in time segregated from all others and is looked upon
as having a fixed value. Nevertheless it should be remembered that in reality it remains a
commodity, and is subject to such fluctuations in exchange value as are other
commodities.
At present, gold is the chosen commodity. In terms of gold the exchange value of other
commodities are expressed. Actually this is equivalent to comparing the exchange values
of other commodities with that of gold. Thus if we say a pair of shoes is worth five
dollars, we assert that the same quantity of necessary social labor is embodied in a pair of
shoes as in five dollars of gold. The coinage of gold merely signifies that the government
certifies the coin to contain so much gold of such and such a fineness. The gold itself
being the product of labor, its exchange value is determined by the labor it embodies.
Fluctuations in Value and Price
Fluctuations in the exchange value of a commodity can only take place when changes
take place in the quantity of labor involved in its production. Thus, with the development
of labor-saving machinery, the production of commodities involves less labor, and their
exchange value decreases. Price, being the approximate monetary expression of exchange
value, necessarily follows these fluctuations. It is, however, subject to fluctuations from
other causes, one of the most important being the fluctuations in the exchange value of
gold itself. So enormous has been the recent production of gold, and so great has been the
saving of labor recently in the production of gold, that its exchange value has decreased
more than has been the case in other commodities, which accounts largely for the so-called rise in prices of recent years.
The minor fluctuations in prices that are continually taking place are due mainly to
supply and demand. In a stable market, wherein the supply of, and demand for, all
commodities exactly balanced one another, prices and exchange values would be
equivalent. But, as such is not the case, as supply and demand do not balance, prices of
commodities continually fluctuate above and below their exchange values. When the
demand for a commodity is greater than the supply, its price rises. When the supply is
greater than the demand, the price falls. But, whenever prices rise anywhere, a flow of
commodities takes place in that direction and the price is brought down to its normal
level, and wherever the price falls, production is retarded until the normal level is
resumed. So that these fluctuations in process of time cancel one another, and
commodities exchange, on the average, at their cost of production, that is, according to
the socially necessary labor involved in their production.
Fluctuations in Wages
The money wage, being the price of the commodity labor power, is subject to the same
fluctuations as in the price of any other commodity. That the supply of labor power
exceeds the demand at most times, and often to such an extent as to produce a veritable
glut, is so patent that it may be taken as proved. This excess of supply over demand
naturally gives the price of labor power a constantly downward trend.
Apparently, however, wages have risen. This apparent rise is due to the decrease in the
value of gold. As has been shown, the real wage has fallen 10 per cent, even in a period
of capitalist prosperity. And now that that period is over and the industrial depression
following it has immeasurably swelled the ranks of the unemployed, thus increasing the
disproportion between supply and demand in the labor market, the money wage has come
tumbling down.
In the case of a fall in the prices of other commodities this would be remedied by a
restriction of production, but no such restriction of the production of labour power is
possible. The worker’s labor power being his physical energy, his very life force, he must
continue producing it while he lives, and he will not continue to live very long if he does
not find a buyer for it.
The inevitable result of the downward trend of wages is an ever-increasing portion of
misery and privation for the workers, in spite of the constant struggle which they are
compelled to carry on in the industrial field to obtain a better price for their labor power,
etc. Strikes have been fought with the greatest determination; privation and suffering
have been endured with a heroism of which the working class alone is capable; millions
of dollars have been spent; the unions were never so strong as during the last decade, and
yet, in spite of it all, the wage has fallen. Here and there, in favored trades, they have
attained some success but it is but a passing success. Capitalism is the great leveller of
the working class, the great abolisher of individuality. All trades are being reduced to a
common level. In one line after another the skilled worker has been replaced by a
machine and a “hand”. And locality after locality is being brought more and more within
the full dominance of Capitalism.
It should be evident to the workers that they are fighting a losing fight – attempting the
impossible. At one time, when they fought against individual capitalists with no great
capital, some measure of success was possible. But now the odds are against them.
Monster Capitalism sits enthroned! Their employers are now grown to giant corporations,
with millions at their command. Out of the very rise and fall in stocks consequent upon
strikes and lockouts, the masters may reap a richer harvest than what they lose by
stoppage of industries. And all the powers of government are theirs to do their bidding,
the policeman with his club, the thug with his revolver, the soldier with his rifle, the court
with its injunctions, and the legislature with its law. Weapon after weapon has been
wrested from the hands of the workers until today, in the words of a Western labor union
official, “the only remaining usefulness of the labor unions is in resisting the petty
tyrannies of the masters”.
It is indeed a losing fight for they are fighting not only against the man-made laws of
Capitalism, but also against all the laws of economics. So long as their labour power
remains a commodity they cannot essentially better their condition. So long as they allow
the capitalists’ claim to the resources of the earth and the machinery of production, slaves
they must remain, and as slaves they must expect to be treated. Their only hope lies in
their emancipation from slavery – and they alone can achieve that emancipation.
THE CLASS STRUGGLE
While, on the industrial field, the workers have been steadily losing ground, a new
alignment of the forces has been taking place. The battle is shifting from the industrial
field to the political field. Here it becomes a class struggle. No longer a struggle between
sellers and buyers of the commodity labor power, but between slaves and their masters,
between those who produce wealth and those who own the means of production.
Into the industrial field the workers cannot enter as a class. Being all sellers of the one
commodity, labor power, they are rivals, rather than allies. As with the sellers of any
commodity, competition forces combination to a certain extent, so with the workers. As
sellers of labor power they combine in trades unions, making an effort to support one
another in enhancing the price of their commodity. Were they all welded into one
organization there would yet remain the unemployed to whom hunger would dictate the
necessity of competing with, rather than aiding, the employed workers in their struggle.
To form the workers, employed and unemployed, all into one union would be but to
transfer the competition from without to within the organization. And were such an
organization ever to achieve success it could achieve nothing but failure, for the rise in
wages would be counterbalanced by the consequent rise in prices. The money wage
might be increased but the real wage would remain the same.
In the industrial field defeat is inevitable. The workers are crushed, not only in spite of
their numbers, but because of them. They must compete as job-hunters – sellers seeking a
buyer. They are not a class thus apart from their employers, for they, too, are sellers of
wares. They, too, must war with one another as well as with the workers.
The class line can only be drawn between the possessors and the dispossessed. Here the
interests of all the members of each class are identical. It is to the interest of all the
dispossessed to regain possession; of all the possessors to retain it. Between them alone is
the class struggle, and political power is the weapon. The class that has not that weapon
is absolutely at the mercy of the class that has. By means of the state they are held in
subjection, and by means of the state they can alone be emancipated. The state it is that
guarantees to the master class ownership in the means of production. Not a title deed but
is issued under the aegis of the government, and it is the government that must protect
and defend the owners in the enjoyment and possession of their property. The
government it is also that can revoke all these titles. The state is the sword of the master
class. It lives by the sword and by this sword it shall perish. The class struggle must,
therefore, be a political struggle. A struggle on the part of the workers to wrest from the
hands of their masters that sword – the state – and use it against them. To such a struggle
there can eventually be but one outcome. The very numbers of the workers which, on the
industrial field spelled defeat, on the political field make victory certain.
The Two Classes
The two classes between which this struggle is to be fought have existed in one form or
another since the beginning of slavery, and ever the antagonism between them has
increased. As each slave system has drawn to a close the antagonism has been brought to
a head in despairing revolts on the part of the slaves and bloody reprisals on the part of
the masters. In these conflicts the workers have attained nothing, as conditions were not
yet ripe. To perfect the economic organization of society capitalism was necessary. This
organization perfected, the working class organized into a disciplined army of
production, the utility of slavery is past. The time for freedom is ripe! The final struggle
is at hand.
Today the classification of society is clearer than ever before. On the one hand the
capitalist class, on the other the working class; between them, nothing. The individuals of
each class have become completely merged into the class. The individual master no
longer exploits individual workers by means of his private property in the means of
production. The capitalist class collectively exploits the working class by means of its
collective property in the means of production. To speak of Socialism seeking to abolish
such private property is truly ridiculous, for capitalism has already abolished it. Not even
the small capitalist can say today, “This factory is my private property”. His landlord or
his bankers may have more real claim upon it than he has, though his name may be over
the door. Capitalist property is collective and international, just as is the process of
production. As a class the workers produce the world’s wealth by their collective labor.
As a class the capitalists own collectively the means of production and collectively
exploit the workers of the wealth they produce. Profits, the proceeds of that exploitation,
flow into the hands of the capitalist class to be divided among its members according to
the extent of their holdings. The two classes alone stand out supreme. In the one, all the
workers, in the other, all the capitalists; the international proletariat against international
capitalism, massing their forces for the final conflict.
A War of Restitution
The coming struggle is not one so much of expropriation as of restitution. All the wealth
the capitalist class possess has been produced by the working class. In taking it the
working class would but be taking it back. Wealth is not a fixed and indestructible
quantity. It is being constantly destroyed and renewed. Even the most stable portions are
being constantly worn out and replaced. The workers of one generation may be said to
produce with their own hands practically all the wealth in existence at the end of their
generation, so that in taking it they would actually be taking the very things they
themselves produced, things taken from them without any compensation. They would
therefore owe compensation for them to none. And, indeed, there can be no question of
compensating the capitalists. The class struggle is not an affair of purchase and sale. We
do not propose to buy our freedom, but to take it.
The outcome of this struggle between the capitalist class and the working class will be
the Social Revolution. By political force the working class must wrest from the capitalist
class the reins of government and must use the powers of the state to legislate in its own
interests. The means of wealth production, now the collective property of the capitalist
class, will be made the collective property of the whole people. By that stroke classes
will be abolished and all shall be workers; wage slavery will be overthrown and labor
power cease to be a commodity; production will be for use and not for profit; government
of persons will die out and be replaced by an administration of things. The workers, being
the owners of the means of production, will also be the owners of the wealth produced,
individually enjoying what they collectively produce.
The Socialist Party of Canada
Out of these conditions has arisen the Socialist Party of Canada, the nucleus of the revolt
of the slaves of Canada against capitalism. Its policy is to educate the slaves of Canada to
an understanding of their position and organize them for concerted political action, to the
end that they may wrest the powers of State from the hands of capital, and use them to
strip the master class of its property rights in the means of production and to make these
the collective property of the producers.