NOTICE: wages will not buy plenty of excellent food. Wages will not buy plenty of good clothing. Wages will not buy plenty of thoroughly good shelter. Wages will not buy plenty of high-grade furniture. Though the wage-earner is abɩe and willing to produce and does produce all these things abundantly, yet his wages will not permit him to consume these things abundantly. Wages will not buy as much value as wage-paid labor produces.

Thus there is a surplus.

If you will think about this a moment (if you will think) you will understand how it is that a glossy, well-fed employer often smilingly asserts that "there is prosperity-times are good -no cause for complaint," and so forth-even tho millions of the poor are in sore want. You see he can smile as gently and fraternally as a hyena―he feels good; he can smile as long as there is that surplus. That's his. It's lovely-for him. Surplus-fascinating surplus.

Surplus-for "our very best people."

". . . . . As soon [in the evolution of human industry] as the amount produced began at all to exceed the immediate requirements of life, the struggle commenced for the possession of the surplus. The methods employed were as varied as the human mind was fertile."*

Not alone chattel slaves and serfs, but wage-slaves also, are used simply, only, always, as domesticated human animals to produce a surplus for their masters.

Slavery was a surplus game.

Serfdom was a surplus game.

Capitalism is also a surplus game.

By pinching, repressing, restricting the wage-earner's life the capitalist employer skims off a surplus. By belittling the wage-earner's life the employer increases his own life-with the surplus legally filched from the life of the wage-earner.

The wage-worker, under capitalism, is forced by the lash of threatening starvation, forced by the fear of the bayonet, forced by the threat of the injunction court-is forced to produce a surplus.

* Lester F. Ward, Dynamic Sociology, Vol. I., p. 582.

Besides producing the equivalent of his wages and all other necessary expenses of production the worker is compelled to toil on for weary hours producing for his capitalist employer THIS SURPLUS. (See Note, end of present Chapter.) This surplus is the sacred wafer of the capitalist. This surplus is the capitalist's heart's desire.

This surplus is the lode-stone, the purpose, the one and only true god of the capitalist class.

With this surplus the capitalist pays the capitalist's "other expenses," and also pays political party campaign expenses, bribes city councils, state and national legislatures, courts, mayors, governors, and presidents and precinct captains. With this surplus the capitalist buys fine wine, beautiful automobiles, yachts, opera boxes, and homes-"and so forth." With this surplus the capitalist pets and protects his parasitic favorites, male and female.

This sacred surplus.

Sweet and juicy surplus, bubbling, bubbling, ever bubbling up from the well-springs of capitalism—that is, from certain "sacred" property rights, the right to own PRIVATELY the industrial FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIETY.

Surplus stolen life by means of the wage-system legally pumped from the veins of the wage-paid toilers. Surplus.

Let that word sink deep into your mind.

Fasten your eye upon that surplus.

Now, notice carefully:

First-Part of this surplus the capitalists at present consume personally;

Second-Part of this surplus the capitalists invest profit

ably;

Third-For a part of this surplus a foreign market must be found. Even tho' millions of honest workers whose

labor produced this surplus, even tho' these and millions of their wives and children starve and shiver for the use of this surplus-still part of this surplus must be shipped out of the country. For the part of the surplus which the capitalist class do not consume personally and cannot invest profitably

-for that part of the surplus a foreign market must be had tho' millions suffer and sicken for higher WAGES WITH WHICH TO BUY that surplus which is being shipped abroad. Because your wages will not permit you to buy and enjoy even that part of the surplus, a foreign market must be found and defended.

And now we come to the bayonet and the Gatling gunwhat they are for.

Commit to memory and discuss with your fellow workers the following:

Capitalists want soldiers, marines, militia, cossacks, Pinkertons, "coal-and-iron police," and so forth-chiefly for THREE general purposes:

If

FIRST: TO HOLD DOWN the wage-earners and force them to consent to produce a surplus, that is, more than their wages will buy;-or, in other words, to force them to consent to produce far more than they are permitted to consume. the employer can't get a palavering, lying prostitute to wheedle the workers to consent-well, there's the bayonet. See that?

SECOND: TO OPEN UP FOREIGN MARKETS for that part of the surplus which the workers are not permitted to consume and the capitalists do not consume personally or invest profitably;

THIRD TO DEFEND THE FOREIGN MARKETS for this part of the surplus; and to DEFEND FOREIGN INVESTMENTS.

Professor T. N. Carver (Department of Political Economy, Harvard University) states the case perfectly:*

"WHILE COMPETITION IS ABSENT, COMMERCE IS INDEED A

BOND OF PEACE AND GOOD WILL BETWEEN THOSE WHO SELL IN RETURN. BUT THE MOMENT THAT TWO NATIONS EMBARK EXTENSIVELY IN THE SAME LINE OF INDUSTRY, THAT MOMENT COMMERCE BECOMES A SWORD, DIVIDING AND SETTING AT ENMITY THOSE WHO ARE RIVALS FOR THE SAME MARKETS. . . . THE PROSPERITY OF ONE IS THE OTHER'S DESTRUCTION.

* Sociology and Social Progress, p. 170. Emphasis mine.—

G. R. K.

SUCH NATIONS STAND TO EACH OTHER AS TWO INDIAN TRIBES WHERE THERE IS BUT GAME ENOUGH FOR ONE."

Thus commerce develops into militarism.

A PROTECTIVE TARIFF WALL IS EVIDENCE AND CONFESSION OF THE EXISTENCE OF EMBARRASSING NATIONAL SURPLUSES OF PRODUCTS.

The capitalist employer does not wish the wage-earners to get such things into their minds.

"Don't say a word," caution the capitalists,—"the workers can't see the point at all. Ha, ha,-all they want is a job. How meek they are. How lamblike. . . . Just suppose they should wake up. . . . Here! you flunkies, you bribed lecturers, orators and editors, keep busy. Keep right on talking to the working people. Tell the working class to be satisfied and humble and contented; preach to them that it will be all right in the 'sweet bye and bye.' Oh, ha, ha, ha-all right for the workers in the end. Don't tell them which end. Tell the workers that something will turn up, sometimesure. Tell them to be 'patient. and hopeful,' to 'hope for a home over there.' (See Chapter Eleven.)

"It is a 'cinch.'

"If the workers go on strike to get a small thin slice of the surplus-why, we CAPITALISTS have the militia, we capitalists have police, we capitalists have the cossacks, we capitalists have the mounted State guards, we capitalists have the regular troops and marines, and we capitalists also have the injunction courts and jails and 'bull-pens,'-we capitalists have all this armed, bribed outfit to help us starve the workers back to their jobs.

"We have a 'sure thing.'

"Lie low. Keep quiet.

"Let no one speak to the workers about this matter of the surplus. The worker who sees that beautiful thing called surplus, ceases to be a tame, blind thing, a humble lump, contented with only part of the product of his labor. . . . But whatever happens-we business men control the powers of government and that gives us the use of all the judges in gowns and all the armed men in khaki we need to defend our surplus

...

game. A meek, satisfied, contented wage-earner is such a useful animal-just as satisfactory as a chattel slave. Like the slave, he's willing to produce a surplus. When he objects we have him whipped and kicked—with a policeman's club or a bayonet."

Discuss with your fellow workers this also:—

Armed men, MORE AND MORE ARMED MEN, must be had at once for a new and special reason. A new danger is now growing vast and dark,-like an increasing storm. The army of the unemployed-hungry, insulted and angry, not permitted to work, not permitted to produce, not permitted to enjoy, not even permitted to beg,—this army of eager, disgusted, angry men and women are looking through the masters' palace windows, where the masters and their pets feast on good things and sneer at the unemployed. With modern machinery, modern methods, modern knowledge, and modern skill the workers can produce vast surpluses so rapidly that the capitalists can't dispose of it all promptly either in home markets or foreign markets; and thus cannot-dare not -employ all the workers all the time all the workers are willing to work. Thus some factories are run part time, some are run reduced force, and thus millions of willing workers are snubbed at the mill, snubbed at the mine, and snubbed at the factory door where they coax for permission to serve society by producing useful things. Millions in danger of losing their jobs, millions working part time, millions with wages reduced, millions out of work-millions-these millions are growing restless, fretful, thoughtful; the capitalist fears this meek fretfulness and thoughtfulness will GROW into a vast, loud, BOLD ROAR OF PROTEST-AND-DEMAND BY THE WORK

ING CLASS.

Therefore,

Capitalists want more military legislation-and get it.

Capitalists want the strongest, healthiest jobless men to join the militia and the army and be ready to crush the other jobless men, ready to thrust bayonets into the rag-covered breasts of their weaker brothers if they should become loudly desperate with hunger.