 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 product at the same price as the independent concern and make a bigger per cent of profit? Why?
What are three causes for a rise in Prices? Explain.
There are more factories producing barrels this year than last year. All these owners are competing with each other to sell hoops and staves. But the prices of hoops and staves have risen everywhere, Why? Has the value increased? Precisely the same methods of production prevail in the hoop and stave industry as formerly.
Also the wages of men and women working in the hundreds of small factories all over the United States have risen during the past year or two. There are many men and women out of employment, but they have not reduced wages at these points by competing for jobs, although they are always in the market offering to sell their labor-power. Even men out of work are asking MORE for their labor-power than they asked a few years ago.
Why are wages rising at these points and everywhere in general? Why are men who are out of work asking more for their labor-power?
There are no Trusts in China–yet. Prices of the necessities of life are extremely low, Do "low prices" in a country necessarily mean the working class is any better off than where "high prices" prevail?
Suppose one landlord owned all the ground and cottages rented to workingmen in one city. Suppose all these men worked in a factory at this point. Suppose the landlord raised the rent on cottages from $10 to $30. If the workmen had been receiving just about the value of their labor-power before, what would happen when rents were raised? Who would actually pay the increase?
There are several ways whereby wage-workers may try to improve their condition today. In Lesson V, we discussed Low Prices and their effect upon the condition of working class life. We discovered that as the prices on the necessities of life fall, wages fall proportionately because of the competition among wage-workers for jobs.
It would be impossible for an employer of labor to arbitrarily lower wages, just as it is impossible for capitali