Wages (1960)

From the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

The wages of work is cash.

The wages of cash is want more cash.

The wages of want more cash is vicious competition.

The wages of vicious competition is—the world we live in. 

The work—cash—want circle is the viciousest circle 

that ever turned men into fiends. 

Earning a wage is a prison occupation 

and a wage-earner is a sort of gaol-bird.

Earning a salary is a prison overseer’s job. 

a gaoler instead of a gaol-bird. 

Living on your income is strolling grandly outside the prison 

in terror lest you have to go in. And since 

the work-prison covers almost every scrap of the living 

earth, you stroll up and down on a narrow beat, about the same as a prisoner taking his exercise. 

This is called universal freedom.

From “Pansies” (1929) by D. H. Lawrence

(Published by Marlin Seeker)