Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/575

 class. This can be shown by three reasons which essentially, however, form a single one.

(1) The disadvantage under which the working class labors affects it, as the economic law which I shall adduce under the second head shows, as producer, not as consumer. It is therefore an entirely false kind of aid to try to help the workingman as a consumer instead of helping him in the place where the shoe really pinches him—as producer.

As consumers, we are, in general, all on the same footing; as before the law, so before the salesman, all men are equal—provided only they pay.

Just for this reason it is true that for the working class, in consequence of its limited ability to pay, a special additional evil has developed which has nothing to do with the general cancer which is eating into it—the disadvantage of having to supply needs on the smallest scale, and so of being exposed to the extortion of the retailer. Against this the consumers' associations give protection; but, aside from the facts that you will see under No. 3 as to how long this help can last and when it must cease, this limited help, which can for the time being make the sad condition of the workingman a little more endurable, must by no means be mistaken for a means for that improvement in the situation of the working class at which the workingmen are aiming.

(2) The relentless economic law which, under present conditions, fixes the wages by the law of demand and supply of labor is this: The average wage always remains at the lowest point which will maintain existence and propagate the race at the standard of living accepted by the people. This is the point about which the actual wage always oscillates like a pendulum, without ever rising above or falling below it for any length of time. It cannot permanently rise above this average, for then, through the easier situation of the workingman, an increase of the working population and therefore of the supply of hands would ensue,