g class. This can be shown by three reasons which
essentially, however, form a single one.

(1) The disadvantage under which the working class labors affects it,
as the economic law which I shall adduce under the second head shows,
as producer, not as consumer. It is therefore an entirely false kind
of aid to try to help the workingman as a consumer instead of helping
him in the place where the shoe really pinches him--as producer.

As consumers, we are, in general, all on the same footing; as before
the law, so before the salesman, all men are equal--provided only they
pay.

Just for this reason it is true that for the working class, in
consequence of its limited ability to pay, a special additional evil
has developed which has nothing to do with the general cancer which is
eating into it--the disadvantage of having to supply needs on the
smallest scale, and so of being exposed to the extortion of the
retailer. Against this the consumers' associations give protection;
but, aside from the facts that you will see under No. 3 as to how long
this help can last and when it must cease, this limited help, which
can for the time being make the sad condition of the workingman a
little more endurable, must by no means be mistaken for a means for
that improvement in the situation of the working class at which the
workingmen are aiming.

(2) The relentless economic law which, under present conditions, fixes
the wages by the law of demand and supply of labor is this: The
average wage always remains at the lowest point which will maintain
existence and propagate the race at the standard of living accepted by
the people. This is the point about which the actual wage always
oscillates like a pendulum, without ever rising above or falling below
it for any length of time. It cannot permanently rise above this
average, for then, through the easier situation of the workingman, an
increase of the working population and therefore of the supply of
hands would ensue, which would bring the wage again to a point below
its former scale.

Neither can the wage fall permanently far below what is necessary to
support life, for then arise emigration, celibacy, and avoidance of
child-bearing, and, finally, a reduction of the number of laborers,
which then diminishes still more the supply of hands, and therefore
brings the wage back to its former position again.

The real average wage, therefore, is fixed by a constant movement
about this point