Page:Karl Marx - The Poverty of Philosophy - (tr. Harry Quelch) - 1913.djvu/224

 APPENDIX 217

fore, Free Trade must be advantageous to the working- man. There is only one little difficulty in this, namely, that the workman, before he exchanges his franc for other commodities, has first exchanged his labor for the money of the capitalist. If in this exchange he always received the said franc while the price of all other com- modities fell he would always be the gainer by such a bargain. The difficulty does not lie in proving that, the price of all commodities falling, more commodities can be bought for the same sum of money.

Economists always take the price of labor at the moment of its exchange with other commodities, and altogether ignore the moment at which labor accom- plishes its own exchange with capital. When it costs less to set in motion the machinery which produces commodities, then the things necessary for the main- tenance of this machine, called workman, will also cost less. If all commodities are cheaper, labor, which is a commodity too, will also fall in price, and we shall see later that this commodity, labor, will fall far lower in proportion than all other commodities. If the working- man still pins his faith to the arguments of the econo- mists, he will find, one fine morning, that the franc has dwindled in his pocket, and that he has only five sous left.

Thereupon the economists will tell you,—

“We admit that competition among the workers will certainly not be lessened under Free Trade, and will very soon bring wages into harmony with the low price of commodities. But, on the other hand, the low price of commodities will increase consumption, the larger consumption will increase production, which will in turn necessitate a larger demand for labor, and this larger demand will be followed by a rise in wages.