o hours of labor for products containing ten hours of our labor. We are tired of living on meagre wages while we pile up millions for the capitalist class.
This is the chief demand of socialism; that workingmen and women cease selling themselves, or their strength, as commodities. We propose to own the commodities we produce ourselves and to exchange commodities containing a certain quantity of necessary social labor, for other commodities representing an equal quantity of necessary social labor.
You and I work for the boss because he owns the factory or mine or railroad or the mill. Ownership of the means of production and distribution (the factories, land, mines, mills–the machinery that produces things) makes masters of capitalists and wage-workers of you and me.
Socialists propose the ownership, in common, of the mines, mills, factories and land, of all the productive industries, by the workers of the world.
When you and I and our comrades own the factory in which we work, we will no longer need to turn over to anybody the commodities we have produced. We shall be joint owners of the things we have made socially. We shall demand labor for labor in the exchange of commodities. This is the kernel of socialism. It proposes to make men and women of us instead of commodities to be bought and sold upon the cheapest market as men buy shoes or cows.
In the illustrations given above, can the mine owner pay the mineworkers the value of their labor-power and still make a profit? Can the mine owners sell coal at its value and pay the mine-workers the value of their labor-power and still make a profit?
Would it be possible for the mine owners to pay the mineworkers MORE than the value of their labor-power and to sell the coal at less than its value, and still make a profit? Explain why this would be possible.
If the wage-workers should become strong enough to demand the value of their products what would happen? Would there be any surplus left for the capitalist class? Explain why not.
What becomes of the difference between the value of your labor-power and the value of the things you produce in the factory or mine? Suppose you are working in a California mine and earning $3.00 a day, which is sufficient to buy food, clothing and shelter IN CALIFORNIA, enough to produce your labor-power. Suppose your employer wants to send you, and some of your California comrades to work in his mines in Alaska. The value of the necessities of life are far more in Alaska than they are in California. It requires $6.00 a day to buy food, clothing and shelter (to produce LABOR-POWER) in Alaska.
Will you be able to save any more money in Alaska at $6.00 a day than you would in California at $3.00 a day? Why not? Who pays the difference in the high prices of the necessities of life? YOU or YOUR BOSS? (We are not speaking of individual cases, but of high prices charged for food, etc., in general.)
Of course, we all know that the working class produce all exchange value. We make all commodities, but as we have sold our labor-power to the boss, our products belong to HIM. So the boss pays for nearly everything, because he has appropriated the things we have made.
When the value of the necessities of life RISE, does the working class or the capitalist CLASS pay the bill? In the case of our mining jobs in Alaska, do WE pay $6.00 for our board, clothes and room, or does the $3.00 increase in OUR cost of living FALL ON THE CAPITALIST?
We know that strength to work, or labor-power, is a commodity. The value of a commodity is determined by the necessary social labor time contained in it.
If it takes three hours of social labor to produce the necessities of life for you one day, the value of your labor-power one day will be three hours of necessary social labor.
Figure A will represent the value of your labor-power, because 3 hours of social labor are contained in the necessities of life which will support you one day.
Let Figure C represent your product for one day. It contains 9 hours of labor time. The capitalist who employs you will need to return to you su