which will be employed in the future. Capital is ephemeral; but labor is always creative. The total estimated wealth of Australasia, in 1882, was £590,000,000; and income was £133,000,000, or nearly 1/4 of the capital. In other words, the workers produced in one year a quarter of the wealth that was around them. So that had it been possible for production to cease, and for everything to be consumable, in 4 years, not a shred would have been left to show that capital, or product, had ever existed. It is the laborer alone who carries on civilization, satisfied all human wants, and keeps the race alive.
And what about the capitalist—the good, kind, benevolent employer, to whom the expropriated and exploited laborer goes hat in hand, cringing for the privilege of being permitted to work? What is his place in our social system? It is to extort another huge slice out of the worker, by buying his services as much beneath their true value as he can possibly procure them, and selling them as much above their worth as the circumstances will permit him to extort. The more extensive his trade, the greater will be his power over his employees. The wealth he has accumulated from his laborers gives him the power to regulate commerce. He can make trade dull or brisk as he desires. He has so much wealth stored by him that he can rest on his oars when he wants to do so, living on the reserves. This the laborer cannot do, for his earnings have nearly all gone to others, and he only retains for himself enough to sustain him for the day. If the capitalist wants to swell his profits, he can form a ring with other capitalists and raise the prices charged to consumers, or he can combine with them to make a corner on the market by buying up an article of necessity and charging an unusually exorbitant price for it. If the laborer wants to better his condition under the existing conditions he cannot do it. His wages—that is a small fraction of his product which is returned to him by his so-called employer—are kept down to the lowest level on which he can subsist, and he is worse off than a chattel slave. As John Adams said, when drawing up the Constitution of the United States of America, “What mattes whether you give the food and clothes to the slave direct, or whether you just give him enough in wages to purchase the same?” The laborer need not hope for a reasonable wage. The capitalist has but to dismiss some of his hands, or fill their places with labor-saving machinery which other laborers have invented and constructed, and those thrown out of employment will immediately underbid those employed in order to be reinstated. If the latter do not accede to a reduction of wage, he will be dismissed to make room for the one who offers his services cheaper. If the workers form a union, and strike for
