The Socialism of to-day

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 835096955

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-28834

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Laveleye, Émile de

Title:: The Socialism of to-day

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Field & Tuer

Year of publication:: 1884

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (XLIV, 331 S.)

Collection:: Economics Books

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147 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL. real is it, especially in economic matters, that a purely local occurrence may have far-reaching results in both hemispheres. Germany adopts a gold currency, for example, and immediately the miner in the Rocky Mountains finds the value of his produce diminished ; the English officer, quartered near the Himalayas, can no longer remit his savings to London without suffering an enormous loss ; and the trade of England with India and South America is profoundly disturbed. Again, the spirit of enterprise awakes in America, and instantly, in spite of a bad harvest, European trade revives, prices mount up, factories, which had long stood idle, recommence work, and the crisis, which for five years had paralyzed production, gives place to a new era of activity and prosperity. As different nations tend to become one single family, all forms of social activity must consequently take an international character. The International owed its origin to the following series of facts and inferences. Owing to the cheapness of transport and the lowering of custom-duties, the western countries form only one single market, in which, through the action of competition, prices are maintained nearly on a level. Production takes place on similar conditions : the same processes, the same machines the same raw materials. It is, then, only by reducing the rate of wages that the cost price can be diminished. The manufacturer is naturally led to this, in order to gain a foreign outlet for his goods. But then, other manufacturers, menaced by the impor tation of foreign merchandise, are obliged, in their turn to lower the price of labour, in order to avoid loss of custom Ind having to cease working. In vain the workmen try to resist by coalitions and strikes. The manufacturer can present to them this incontrovertible argument: “If I do not reduce your wages, one of two things will happen : I may either keep up the selling-price of my goods, in which case there will be no sale for them, as my competitors, who pay lower wages, can offer their goods cheaper; or I may lower my prices, and then I shall be selling at a loss, my capital will gradually be eaten up, and I shall be ruined and have to close the factory. Where then will you find work ? I am therefore forced, in spite of ^tiyse , to reduce wages to the rate paid by my competitors.”

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