Daylight robbery. (1911)

 From the March 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are frequently told by our more outspoken enemies that the workers are not robbed, and, there are members of the working class who actually believe it. But the following extract from a recent issue of the “Daily Telegraph” not only completely refutes the former, but may also enlighten the latter.

Under the heading “Census of Production” was given a list of industries concerned mainly with food, drink, and tobacco, and it was stated that the Board of Trade preliminary tables summarising the returns received in respect of those trades give the following results for twelve months:

Gross output from 13 divisions £257,215,000

Net                               „ „ „          £84,325,000

Persons employed                             407,830

The “Daily Telegraph” commented thus, upon the figures:

“The first column represents the gross output, that is the selling value or value of work done. The second shows the net sums realised after deducting the cost of the materials used. The figures denoting the net output express completely, and without duplication, the total amount by which the value of the products of the industries exceeded the value of the materials purchased from the outside, that is they represent the value added to the raw materials in the course of manufacture. This sum constitutes for any industry the fund from which wages, salaries, rents, royalties, rates, taxes, depreciation, advertisement and sales expenses, and all other similar charges, as well as profits, have to be defrayed.”

Now rents, profits, etc., are not paid to the working class, who benefit only under the item wages. On the other hand, no value can be added to raw material except by labour. It follows therefore that while the workers produce the whole of the £84,325,000 worth of wealth which figures as the net output, they are robbed of all that is not included in the term wages.

Now let us do a little sum in simple division. 

The net output, £84,000,000, divided among the 407,830 persons employed, gives over £275 per annum to each. The difference between this sum and the average wage of the workers in those trades shows the extent of the robbery as far as those particular industries are concerned. And if the average rate of wages in these industries is that of the whole country, then these workers are rolled of over three-fourths of their produce.

Criticus

As Good As His Masters. (1910)

From the May 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

“An officer of the Church Army tells a story of a famous pickpocket who became a convert at a mission meeting, and decided to live straight in the future. He resolved to make a start by contributing to the collection, and being broke, solved the difficulty by picking the pocket of the individual next to him, putting the results in the plate. The logic of the proceeding is a little curious, but in no way affected his desire to live an honest life.”

What an example of the current morality and logic of the capitalist regime as a whole—with the difference that it is by no means due solely to simple mindedness, but mostly from cunning and class interest that the master class so act. Take, for instance, the charitable donations that the master so generously (!) bestows upon hungry and shivering members of the working class. Where does he get them from if not from the workers themselves? In the factories and workshops he grinds us and drives us, keeping us, by the aid of the unemployed (who constitute an evil he dares not if he could remove) down to a wretched subsistence, enfeebling us in body and mind, while he waxes fat on our product. Then, having assured his comfortable economic future, he decides to reform, to be and do good in a way that he feels he ought to according to the station of life to which it has pleased his almighty and merciful God to call him. So with flourish of trumpets and many words, he donates a few thousand pounds to a society for rescuing fallen women maybe, ignoring the fact that he got his millions at the cost of these women becoming what they are. Perhaps it is to the "waifs and strays” he will turn with his cursed charity: the same thing applies. It is the present system of producing for profit on a basis of private ownership of the means of life, with proletarian (propertyless) labour that causes our streets to swarm with waifs and strays. All attempts by various organisations to cope with the evil have not lessened it one atom.

The narrator of the incident describes the logic as a little curious. This is a peculiarity logic has when it becomes mixed up with religion. In fact it is frequently so curious as to be better described as irrational. But its peculiarities sometimes have a good effect, arousing a curiosity that to the persistent enquirer will be of great value, as it will assuredly lead him to a recognition of the fallacy of believing anything that has no rational sanction, and as a logical sequence he will find himself in the course of time in the ranks of the S.P.G.B., striving to realise our motto: “The World for the Workers.”

Criticus.