med the world's dictatorship.
John D. Rockefeller may be able to raise the price on oil in certain communities but he cannot force men to buy at this price. So-called monopolists are subject to economic laws just as are wageworkers. No monopolist was ever so great a philanthropist that he did not charge all the traffic would bear at all times. We see, therefore, that they cannot raise prices at their own sweet will.
No man ever held a near monopoly but what other capitalists with money to invest turned ever longing eyes upon the Golden Goose ready to produce a substitute that will relegate his rival's product to the Past.
But there are some very near monopolies in the United States. Some of these doubtless are able to sell–or exchange–their commodities above their value. A few of these are engaged in the production of food, clothing or houses.
Now it does not mean because a monopolist holds temporary control of a commodity that he will raise the price of that commodity. He will surely seek to lower its value by closing down unnecessary factories and installing improved machinery that will lessen the labor contained in his product. Many "monopoly" owned commodities sell at a lower price than they did before they were monopoly produced.
If a monopoly produced commodity exchanges at its value, under the new method of production, its prices would be lower. Many friends assure me that oil is much cheaper today than it was twenty or thirty years ago, before John D. began to build the Octopus. If a monopolist continues to sell a commodity at the same price it exchanged for formerly, he will be able to appropriate greatly increased profits, for its value will have decreased–perhaps 50 per cent.
But we will take an extreme case to illustrate who pays the increased price where an imaginary Octopus doubles the price of the necessities of life.
Let us suppose that 500 miners are receiving $5 a day working a copper mine in Alaska. Five dollars just affords them a comfortable or tolerable living in Alaska. The man who owns the food and clothing supply in Alaska at this time has a temporary monopoly–an absolute, temporary monopoly of these necessities.
This man finds he actually can double the prices on these necessities for one season. The cost of living in Alaska rises to $10.00 a day.
The employer of the miners will be obliged to double their wages if the miners are to receive the value of their labor-power as formerly. He will need to pay $10.00 a day if he expects to have them to work for him tomorrow. If the mine owner finds $10.00 in wages will leave no profits for him, he will refuse the increase and shut down the mine; the miners will return South and the Monopolist will find himself without a market. The possibility of such a contingency has always to be reckoned with by every "monopolist." There is always the danger of killing the Goose that Lays the Golden Egg.
You see how if the price of A is doubled, wages will need to follow, and as B (wages) are increased there remains less surplus value for the employer to appropriate.
The monopolist, in this case, who has been able to double the price on the necessities of life and cause our wages to be doubled will have forced our mine-owning employer to divide this surplus value with him.
Note figure C. If the portion returned to us in wages is doubled, there will be just that much less unpaid labor for our employers to keep. The extra portion paid to us will be paid over to the monopolist.
Monopoly generally means that the monopolist is strong enough to force other employers to divide with him a portion of the value of our products formerly appropriated by them.
The real fight is between the monopolist and the mine-owning employer who will do all in his power to "smash the Trusts."
The mine owner in this instance may offer us $9.00 a day and we may try to live on $9.00 for a few weeks. We will be unable to do it because we will be receiving less than the value of our labor-power.
Do the Trusts rob the wage-workers when selling them Trust made products?
Can a monopoly sell its produ