Page:Onward Sweep of the Machine Process (ca 1917).pdf/13

Rh in the new product, and, therefore, in the long run, costs the capitalist nothing.)

Now if, by "scientific management" or other schemes for increasing the intensity of labor, the total values produced are increased to 250, we have still the same result, so far as the material position of the worker is concerned, only the rate of surplus-value, or, to put it more boldly, the rate at which he is robbed, has increased by 50 per cent.

The capitalist plea for Industrial Efficiency therefore, at best, merely amounts to saying to the worker: "The more you allow me to rob you, the more of the proceeds of the robbery I will be enabled to pay you." If, however, values equal to 200 are only needed to supply the solvent demand, we have the same result as that pointed out by the "Herald" scribe in the case of the Bethlehem Steel Works. Hand in hand with the increase in the intensity of labor goes unemployment, with the starvation and misery which follows in its train. And yet we have "economists" who pretend that the education of the working class is their first desire, and politicians of every stripe, informing us that the salvation of the workers lies in increased efficiency!

It may be contended that, as in the case of the Bethlehem Steel Works, the workers actually employed benefit by increased wages. Even assuming this to be the case, what of it? The position of the working class as a whole, is more insecure, more unstable, more parlous than ever. Competition for jobs grows more keen, unemployment becomes intensified in all spheres of industry, and wages ultimately fall, in consequence, to their former level.

The capitalist system of production is conditioned upon three essentials: First, the value of the raw materials, wear and tear of machinery, etc., must be incorporated in the new product; in the second place, the laborer must reproduce the value of his own wages, and,