Page:Shop Talks on Economics.djvu/29

 labor-power and the value of the things you produce in the factory or mine?

Suppose you are working in a California mine and earning $3.00 a day, which is sufficient to buy food, clothing and shelter IN CALIFORNIA, enough to produce your labor-power. Suppose your employer wants to send you, and 200 of your California comrades to work in his mines in Alaska. The value of the necessities of life is far more in Alaska than it is in California. It requires $6.00 a day to buy food, clothing and shelter (to produce LABOR-POWER) in Alaska.

Will you be able to save any more money in Alaska at $6.00 a day than you would in California at $3.00 a day? Why not? Who pays the difference in the high prices of the necessities of life? YOU or YOUR BOSS? (We are not speaking of individual cases, but of high prices charged for food, etc., in general.)

Of course, we all know that the working class produce all exchange value. We make all commodities, but as we have sold our labor-power to the boss, our products belong to HIM. So the boss pays for nearly everything, because he has appropriated the things we have made.

When the value of the necessities of life RISE, does the working class or the capitalist CLASS pay the bill? In the case of our mining jobs in Alaska, do WE pay $6.00 for our board, clothes and room, or does the $3.00 increase in OUR cost of living FALL ON THD CAPITALIST?