The profit machine

But lo! What is this I have before me? Why, the report of the impending ruin of J. Lyons & Co., Ltd.! It is contained in the following record of their business :

“During the last six years the profits have expanded by 100 per cent., and since the war the aggregate profits have amounted to £3,881,279, while the dividends on the ordinary shares have totalled 370 per cent., allowing for the 100 per cent. share bonus distributed two years ago.”—(Daily News, June 7th, 1923.)

You thriftless worker! If you had only saved a paltry £1,000 out of your enormous wages, and invested it in Lyons’ shares six years ago, you need not have lost a bead of sweat working, and yet you would have drawn £3,700 out of the company and still have your £1,000 invested in Lyons’ shares. Marvellous! isn’t it? And you are the dupe who produces the marvel.

(From “Why Work”, SOCIALIST STANDARD, July 1923)