VIII.
Shorter Hours of Labor.
In Lesson VII we discussed a general increase in wages, and how and why they would benefit the working class. We discovered that a general increase in wages would ultimately result in a fall in the average rate of profit, but would not affect prices in general.
But now that we have seen the desirability of higher wages, how may we secure them?
It is true that the working class, as a class, has never been sufficiently well organized to demand a universally higher price for its labor-power—a larger portion of the value of its product from the capitalist class.
It is equally true that when they shall have become sufficiently organized and class conscious to do so, they will not stop with asking higher wages, but will abolish the whole wage system itself.
But Capital makes continual war upon the workers. It reduces wages to the bare cost of living and lowers the standard of living whenever and wherever possible. It prolongs the hours of labor as far as the physical endurance of the workers themselves will allow. And the workers find themselves forced constantly to fight in order to hold the little they already have. So that, on every side, we see little groups of workers in conflict with their employers, fighting to maintain work-
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