Page:Shop Talks on Economics.djvu/44

 on these necessities for one season. The cost of living in Alaska rises to $10.00 a day.

The employer of the miners will be obliged to double their wages if the miners are to receive the value of their labor-power as formerly. He will need to pay $10.00 a day if he expects to have them to work for him tomorrow. If the mine owner finds $10.00 in wages will leave no profits for him, he will refuse the increase and shut down the mine; the miners will return South and the Monopolist will find himself without a market. The possibility of such a contin-



gency has always to be reckoned with by every "monopolist." There is always the danger of killing the Goose That Lays the Golden Egg.

You see how if the price of A is doubled, wages will need to follow, and as B (wages) are increased there remains less surplus value for the employer to appropriate.

The monopolist, in this case, who has been able to double the price on the necessities of life and cause our wages to be doubled will have forced our mine