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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CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS. 123 Evidently upon the rate of his wages. And upon what does the rate of wages depend? Upon the law of supply and demand, replies the prelate with the Economists, that is upon the iron law, the eherne Lohngezetz, as Lassalle expresses it. Formerly, says the bishop, the future of the labourer was guaranteed by the trade guilds. Labour constituted a pro perty which the regulations of the guild preserved from the fluctuations of the market and the strife of competition. To day this is no longer so ; labour is now treated as a com modity in the market {DU Arbeit ist eine Waare), and, as such, it is subject to the laws which govern other commodities. The price of commodities rises and falls according as they are in greater or less demand ; but it tends to approach the level of the cost of production. In order to get ahead of his competitors, the manufacturer is therefore obliged to reduce this cost as much as possible so as to be able to offer his wares cheaper than others do. The cost of production of this labour-commodity is the food and maintenance of the labourer. There would consequently be a universal and necessary tendency to reduce to the minimum the cost of the labourer’s maintenance. The employer who can obtain from his workmen the largest amount of useful exertion at the least expense will carry the day. In the present state of things this is a mathematical or mechanical law which destroys at once the good intentions of masters and the resist ance of men. Hence, concludes the Bishop of Mayence, it cannot be denied that the whole existence of the labouring population—who constitute the greater part of humanity—the daily bread of the father and his family is subject to the fluctuations of a market, disturbed by endless crises. “ This IS the slave market open all over modem Europe, fashioned according to the model sketched by our enlightened and anti-Christian liberalism, and our humanist freemasonry.” Is it not curious to And at the head of Monseigneur von ^tteler’s book the theory of “ the labour-commodity,” Arbeit •^aare, which, expanded with a vast display of seien tiñe analyses and algebraic formulas, is the very basis of Karl Marxs nious book. Das Kapital., the Gospel of German Socialism ?

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