Page:Alexander Jonas - Reporter and Socialist (1885).djvu/51

 This seems to be plain enough, but nevertheless I must object. You make the lowest limit $20.00—you might have just as well said $50.00. But the question is: will society, even if organized as you propose, be able to pay as much as that?

You mean to ask whether society would be able to produce as much as is necessary to make everybody comfortable and happy? We have answered that question already in the affirmative, basing our assertions upon the figures of the census. Of course the amount of wages, i. e. the money under the new state of society, would be nothing but an order for goods produced, and it is perfectly immaterial whether such order bears upon its face as many cents as we have figured in dollars, if only the cents buy as much of the products as the dollars would. The wages we have assumed in our table above are only to designate the proportionate share of the goods produced to which all human beings, according to their ability and the time they spent in assisting in the production are entitled. From this you see that by the introduction of such a system of wages the injustice of all accidents and incidents of fortune and misfortune would be obviated for one or the other branch of industry. Suppose, for instance, that during a certain length of time the mines would yield too little to afford the payment of the wages for the workers engaged in mining, the consequence would be that all other branches would have to bear that loss, and by redistributing it upon the whole, nobody would feel it as a burden. Is that plain enough for you?

I understand it now. But there are many other objections I have yet to make. For instance, I would like to know how dangerous and disagreeable labor is to be classified? It may be simple and easy enough to place a knob upon a tower four hundred feet high, or to sweep a dirty, unwholesome sewer, but I don't think that anybody could be induced to perform such work if the pay for it were not more than other similar unskilled labor.

You are right. The present injustice of paying the lowest wages to those who perform the most dangerous