Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/229

Rh speculation is based, is a lie.

The third source of great wealth is manufacturing on a large scale. In this case the owner or borrower of capital plunders his employés who sell him their daily labor. The difference between the actual value of this daily labor, as expressed in the price of the articles it produces and the wages paid for it, forms the profit of the manufacturer, allowing of course, for raw material and other running expenses. In most cases this difference is out of all proportion and usuriously exorbitant compared with the wages. It is often spoken of as the reward of the manufacturer's mental exertions. But the reply can be made to this assertion that the mental labor required to manage the technical and mercantile interests of a large factory, bears no comparison to that necessary in scientific investigations or literary productions and at the highest can only be ranked with that required in a public office or the executorship of an estate. And yet the results of the mental exertions of these latter are by no means so remunerative as the annual income of the great manufacture! The profits of manufacturers can not be looked upon as mere interest on the capital employed, because no manufacturer is content to sell his goods at a price which would bring him in a net income of four to six per cent, after all the expenses and the pay for his mental exertion had been deducted. This per cent is obtained by anyone on investments without risk, even by the man of leisure. The price at which the manufacturer sells his goods is regulated on the one hand by the amount of competition with other manufacturers with which he has to contend, and on the other hand, by the larger or smaller supply of labor. His first care is to pay his employés as little as possible, his next, to sell to the purchaser as dear as possible. When the supply of laborers allows him to