ct 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 capitalists to arbitrarily raise the prices on commodities. The conditions must be favorable to such a rise or fall in prices. It is the Army of Unemployed men and women that force wages (or the price of labor-power) down when the cost of living falls. We were unable to find where low prices would benefit the working class.
In discussing prices in the last two lessons, we have not said much about wages, or the price of labor-power. Labor-power is a commodity just as 'stoves, coats or flour are commodities. And the value and price of labor-power are determined exactly as the price and value of all other commodities are determined.
Wage-workers are always trying to get higher wages, or a better price for their labor-power.
It is easy to understand that the gold miner who secures a raise in wages from $2.00 to $3.00 a day, leaves less surplus value for the mine-owner. He receives back more of his product. And the aim of Socialists or revolutionary workmen arid women is to become owners of their entire product.
Confused economists have repeatedly claimed that a rise in wages was no benefit to the proletariat. They insisted that the capitalists would raise prices on the necessities of life, so that the workers would be just where they were before.
But in Value, Price and Profit, chapter II., page 17, Marx says: "How could that rise of wages affect the prices of commodities? Only by affecting the actual proportion between the demand for, and the supply of, these commodities."
"It is perfectly true, that, considered as a whole, the working class spends, and must spend, its income upon necessaries. A general rise in the rate of wages would, therefore, produce a rise in the demand for, and consequently (temporarily) in the market prices of, necessaries.
"The capitalists who produce these necessaries would be compensated for the risen wages by the rising market prices of the commodities."
Note, Marx says that temporarily the prices on necessaries would probably rise, owing to the increased demand for food, clothing and better hous