There Is one over-riding problem in capitalist production for the capitalists, the problem of profit production. Any attention to the intrinsic nature of the particular goods one processes or manufactures must be secondary. To Illustrate: a canner of fish may be proud of the high quality of his product, might even be able to envision the cans in his warehouse as containing food. But the records in his book-keeping department show that he does not become too involved with such an Image. Here one finds machines, ledgers and working people whose lives are largely dedicated to determining if their employer's enterprise is profitable and how much of his gross must go to the various governments for taxes, how much for labor, for plant and machinery replacement. This is the real stuff of life in capitalist society. He is in business, primarily, to produce profits, not canned fish.
True enough he must maintain certain standards of purity and cleanliness and be subject to occasional government inspection. There is always the chance that food poisoning might be traced to his product forcing him to recall and eventually even destroy hundreds and perhaps thousands of cases of his potential profits. And to this extent he certainly must see, in his mind's eye, food in those cans. But even in this case it is secondary. His prime concern is that those thousands of hermetically sealed cans contain profits, for if they don't the food value, even the high or less-than-high quality, which is most often the case, counts for nothing.
Now it goes without saying that he doesn't sell his commodity by labeling It “canned profits." The purchaser is not interested in that aspect. So he has an attractive label to show that it is fish and that it is appetizing, succulent and healthful. He may even attach a separate brochure that gives a tale, born in the imagination of a writer of advertising copy, that is calculated to tempt a hesitant soul into buying the item. And it is also quite likely that he sponsors advertising in the media that is aimed at causing one’s salivary glands to work. But here, too, the prime motive is profit because our processer is not interested in stirring the palates of any but those who have the money in their budgets to buy the product. Let conditions become such that processing costs become prohibitive and the product begins to disappear from the grocery shelves. There may be plenty of fish in the sea and a multitude of people who would like to eat it but the trick of getting them together, under capitalism, is not that simple.
Now how would socialists go about correcting this problem? The answer is that there is nothing that can be done about it under capitalism. The argument one hears so frequently from reformers of all sorts is that everybody has a right to eat but there is not one shred of truth to it. Certainly everybody has a need to eat but right, under capitalism, is a different matter. Just try to take some cans of fish or anything else from the grocery shelves and leave without paying! The fact that one has the need to eat cuts no ice. Have you got the cash? If so then it follows that you have the right to eat. And this is true in every area of life, under capitalism. With food, clothing, with housing, with all the things that make up a standard of living. There is no right without money.
But just what ls wrong with this? The trouble is that the majority of the population must live from wages or salaries and the money paid for labor power can never equal more, on the average, than the cost of the items one needs to continue to work, raise families, etc. And the problem becomes apparent when we realize that to maintain averages working people are always compelled to struggle against unemployment, inflation and unusual occurrences for which they are ill prepared. The nub of the problem ls the wages system, itself. Socialists advocate abolishing it and replacing it with a new. higher and human way of life, world socialism.
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