Page:Shop Talks on Economics.djvu/40

 We see how an increase in the value of A means a consequent increase in the value of labor-power. We must not, therefore, berate the grocer, the butcher or landlord when our employers fail to pay us the value of our labor-power. We will be forced to demand higher wages in order to live.

But High Prices do not necessarily mean that food, clothing, etc., have increased in value. It may mean that gold—or the medium of exchange—has decreased in value.

The tendency of almost all commodities is to deerease in value, as modern production lessens the necessary labor contained in them. Gold may decrease in value faster than the value of meat, shoes, bread and clothing has decreased.

A is shrinking, but B (wages) are shrinking faster in value. Since gold (or wages) is out-decreasing the necessities of life, in value, it exchanges for fewer of them. One dollar buys less meat today than it bought five years ago.

Reformers are crying for Low Prices, but revolutionists are demanding Higher Wages (the value of their labor-power) in all the gold standard countries today. They are also working for the abolition of wage-slavery tomorrow. Everywhere we see wages slowly rising to meet the increased cost of living.

We have bewailed the High Prices, while prices are only nominally higher than they were five years ago. Gold (or wages) has decreased in value consider-