Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/250

236 offers his goods at lower and lower prices, until they no longer pay the expenses of production, and then he is financially wrecked. All the other manufacturers of that same article go down with him, and that branch of production is involved in a national or world-wide financial crisis. But the real victim is the factory employé. As the price of the manufactured article sinks lower and lower, his wages are decreased in proportion until the manufacturer has exhausted his capital. And when the unequal battle between supply and demand ends in the victory of the former and production ceases, then he is left entirely without bread, for a longer or shorter time as the case may be. These are the roles played by the manufacturer and the operative in the great manufacturing industries. The latter makes it possible for the former to accumulate a great capital. This capital seeks profits and believes they can be found in the opening of additional factories. This leads to over-production and increased competition, with their train of depression of prices and reduction of wages, closing with the crisis which deprives the operative of the opportunity of earning anything. Thus the industrial slave makes his master rich, while his own daily bread is reduced in quantity day by day and finally taken away from him entirely. Can there be a more beautiful illustration of the way in which the existing conditions of the economic world conform to truth, justice and propriety!

The first question which arises in our minds as we look upon this picture of the financial and social conditions of life, is: must they necessarily remain as they are? Are we confronting the operations of the