POLITICAL ECONOMY

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 151, 26 June 1912, Page 10

POLITICAL ECONOMY

TO Tin! 35D1TOK. ..Sir.— Mr. Hornsby, ia his reply to "Individualist" in to-night's Post, makes the assertion that he, at the Brotherhood meeting on Sunday afternoon, said: "The Marxian theory that labour produpes everything has been exploded." Might I point out to Mr. Hornsby that Marx advances no such theory. Marx's theory is "that labour creates all values" (exchange value). In your report of Mr. Hornsby's address you credit him with eaying "he opposed the Marxian theory of wealth and labour, which had been exploded." I think Mr. Hornsby would have a hard task in showing that this theory hae been exploded. To credit Marx -with any such theory that "labour produces everything" would seemingly show that Mr. Hornsby has not read Marx. — I am, etc., STUDENT. 22nd June. xo zhx xdiiox. Sir, — When asking Mr. Hornsby to produce authorities re Marxian teaching being exploded, be repeats the same fallacies, and consequently J am led to be dogmatic. In no published work of Marx is the assertion "Labour produces everything, and that, therefore, everything belongs to Labour," to be found, and if any leading Socialists haveabaudoned this theory, well, Marx waß never the author. Many people think we arc going to take something from the idle rich and give it to the working poor. Socialism will do no such thing. The rich have nothing worth taking which they have not previously taken from their poorer brethren. They do not create the wealth; that is doile by the workers. We are not going to take anything from the rich and share it with the poor ; they haven't anything to take. We are going to prevent the rich taking from the poor the result of the labour power of the poor themselves ; not to rob the rich, but to stop the rich from robbing the poor; not to start stealing, but to Blop the stealing. Old Cobbett has said, What is a slave? A slave is a man who has no property. Now, I should like to know how many of the working men in New Zealand have property? Most them have not enough savings to last them three months if thrown out of work. Consequently, if Cobbett's definition was correct when we are denounced for using the word "wage-slavery," we cay no other word will apply, inasmuch as the man who has no property must necessarily be at the command of another man, or, what ib worse than a man, of another class. For. whereas a man may have some feeling, a dominant class, like a company, has neither a soul to be damned nor a body to be kicked. It is one great whole that works together for its own emolument and benefit solely. | Given the possession by the proletariat of the whole earth what will you do with them? It is shown by the facts and calculations of experts, that the labour of a properly assorted population, for four hours daily, will, when in full working (say__after the first year), produce all the necessaries of life ia abundance. This to cover the cost of skilled BU£ervieion and for the maintenance

and schooling of the children, and for the support of the aged and sick as they arise. How use them? For each branch of industry a management committee will be elected, so that, by ascertaining the real, wants of the commuuity the output may be proportionate to the consumption. In the pities and the fieldß industrial armies will manoeuvre under the leadership of chiefs, whom they will have elected, and obey regulations which they will have voted. Stay ! Thanks to the improvement of machinery and inventive genius, we may still further reduce the hours. No more slums, no more poverty. Each one thus finds himself classed "utilised," according to his .degree of intelligence, by which means public functions are equitably distributed in accordance with the indications of Nature herself. — I am, etc., INDUSTKIALIST. 24th June.