fficient value to enable you to pay for A (or the cost of living).
Figure B is equal to A because it contains 3 hours of labor. It represents the value returned to you by the boss in the shape of gold or wages.
We know that A is equal to B. And we know that C contains three times the value of a or B. We know also that the capitalist is constantly trying to prolong C into ten or even eleven hours, and that capitalists cut wages whenever and wherever possible. It is only by constant struggle that the
working class has been able to maintain its position, to secure a, perhaps normal, increase in wages, or a shorter workday.
It is self-evident that if you secure more wages (B) there will be less of the value of your product (C) remaining for the capitalist employing you, just as a reduction in wages leaves more surplus value for him.
An increase in the length of your workday (C) to ten hours will leave 7 hours of unpaid labor instead of six. A shorter workday will leave less surplus value for the capitalist.
Reformers believe that if we could decrease the cost of living we would better our condition. They think if A (the cost of living) were lowered, we could save a part of our wages (B). Of course, the value of our labor-power falls with a decrease in the value of the necessities of life, but they imagine we might be able to lower the cost of living without suffering a corresponding decrease in wages.
Personally, you know if your landlord should cut your rent down one-half next month, you would have more money left to spend for other things. Personally, you know if your brother offered to board you at half the regular rate, you could save a still larger sum of money next month. This is true of your individual case.
But we are not talking about individual cases, though we use concrete examples for the sake of making things clear. We are asking if low prices would benefit the wage-working class.
We will suppose an extreme example in order to illustrate our explanation. Suppose the City of Chicago should buy up all the houses, flats and cottages that rent to the working class here, and suppose this city should cut rents down one-half. Suppose that Chicago had municipal ownership and it was possible for the city to reduce the cost of living here 50 per cent. What we want to consider is–would the reduction benefit the working class or that part of capitalist class not directly engaged in producing the necessities of life?
When the cost of living is greatly reduced at any given city, workingmen and women flock to that point to sell their labor-power. They believe that if they can get jobs where it costs less to live, th~y will be able to save money and, perhaps, finally climb into the capitalist class themselves.
But note what happens. There is an immediate influx of workers into the city of low prices. The competition among workers for jobs becomes more keen at once, and it is always keen. Capitalists purchase labor-power at the lowest price. Men and women offer to sell their labor-power at a lower and still lower price till wages again fall to the cost of living. In a very short time these workers will find that they have gained nothing.
Take the examples of A, B and C. When the cost of living (A) is cut in half, the competition, among the, sellers of labor-power, reduces wages (B) accordingly. If your capitalist employer is a steel manufacturer will he be able to appropriate more or less of the value of your product?
Capitalists rarely start industrial enterprises in Alaska because the cost of living (or value of labor-power) is so extremely high in the far north that there is very little surplus value left for them.
The value of a commodity is determined by the average social labor contained in it. The Alaska steel manufacturer would have to compete in a world market just as the Bethlehem and Gary mills compete, and it is necessary social labor only that makes value.
Reports are coming from Guatemala of cotton manufacturers who are locating and establishing cotton mills there. The natives of Central America can live on very lo