Page:Industrial Unionism (Ettor).pdf/25

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

The Road to Freedom


As we have stated before there is no gain-saying that Labor produces all wealth. Captalism is based on the robbery of the workers. Those who own industries but do not work in them, pay wages to the workers and keep profits to themselves. But both, profit and wages, are only the product of Labor. Wages are part of the total product paid to labor. Profit, generally the biggest part, capitalists appropriate to themselves and call it their "legal share."

Industrial Unionists know nothing of "legal share" nor of "reasonable profits," as all wealth, however little, acquired without labor is robbery. Industrial Unionists know no bargain to life. To talk of a "fair day's work" is to talk of the pack horse with a fair load on his back; to talk of a "fair day's wage" is to talk of a reasonably filled nose bag for the horse that has done the packing.

"Fair day's work and fair day's wages" imply a question of right and wrong. However, this is a class society composed and divided in robbers and robbed and each class has its own notion of right and wrong, fair

23