Page:Ferdinand Lassalle - Lassalle's Open Letter to the National Labor Association of Germany - tr. John Ehmann and Fred Bader (1879).djvu/13

 is but one of a series of advantages of cheapness which inheres in industries conducted on a large scale.

But even between the master who carries on business with the help of the Raw Material Association and the one who conducts his work on his own capital, the advantages are very nearly balanced.

The latter has no interest to lane upon, and can at all times place him elf in connection with the best markets in the purchase of needed articles, giving him business chances the Raw Material Association cannot develope; particularly the knowledge which enables him to select minor articles.

The association spoken of can only lengthen out the unavoidable death struggle of the business life of the small tradesman; he is doomed to make way for the large concerns; the products of our increasing and changing culture. To seek to perpetuate the struggles of the smaller traders is but uselessly to obstruct the inevitable, while leaving the great body of the working class, employed in the larger works, entirely unreached by assistance.

We shall now look at the Consumers Associations.

The whole body of the working class would be embraced by the consumer's association, But even these associtionsassociations [sic] are powerless in any degree to better the condition of the worker.

Three reasons will be ample to prove this.

The disadvantages which lie upon the working class, (as the two following sub-divisions of the economical law will show,) strikes him as a producer and not as a consumer. It is surely a false step to assist the working class as consumers, when it is apparent that we ought to help them as producers; for it is as producers the shoe pinches. As consumers, we stand to day, in general, quite equal. As before the gens d'armes all citizens stand alike, so, in presence of the shop-keeper, the customer has no superior claims; all paying equally as well.

It is true that from this small paying ability on the part of the poor, certain special minor evils follow to the injury of the working class; the disadvantages forcing him to become a prey to the usury of shop-keepers. Against this economic feature the Consumers Association is a great protection. But without mentioning how long this Association can last and where it must stop, I contend that this assistance only makes the sad condition of the working class for the moment more endurable