ably and ridiculously
false, the Doctrine of Increasing Misery is considered to be a useful
and effective part of the Socialist agitator's stock-in-trade.

The next doctrine to be considered is

THE SURPLUS-VALUE DOCTRINE

The Socialists argue that the position of the worker cannot improve
because the capitalist, possessing the monopoly of property, pockets
all that the worker produces except the mere cost of his subsistence,
which, owing to the "Iron Law of Wages," is given to the workman in
the form of wages. "The amount of wealth which the labourer produces
in the time for which he has sold his labour-force is out of all
proportion to what it costs to produce and maintain his labour-force
for that time. This, the difference between what he produces and his
own cost of production, is surplus-value, and is taken and divided up
by the capitalist into rent, interest, profit. This surplus-value,
then, this profit, is so much robbery effected by taking advantage of
the necessity of the proletarian--the naked propertyless
labourer."[182] "All that the worker produces beyond what is
absolutely necessary to keep himself and his offspring in life, this
surplus beyond subsistence--this difference between the recompense of
labour and its products--this unrighteous subtrahend, this swag, is
the booty alike of slavelord, serflord, and drudgelord, or
capitalist."[183] The question now arises: "How does the capitalist
secure this surplus-value of labour without paying for it? If the
workman is free, why cannot he insist on receiving, not the mere
exchange-value of his commodity--'labour-power'--but the full value of
the labour he expends for the capitalist? The capitalist obtains this
surplus-value owing to his monopoly of the means of production. The
labourer cannot, as a rule, command more than his cost of subsistence
in return for his labour--although his wages, like the prices of all
commodities, sometimes rise above this and sometimes fall
below--because, although apparently free, he is really not free. He
must sell his labour-power in order to live; he has no other commodity
to dispose of. Consequently he must accept the terms that the
purchaser will offer, subject only to two conditions--his own cost of
subsistence and the fluctuations of the market."[184] "Owing to the
monopoly of the means of production in the past, industrial inventions
and the transformation of surplus income into capital have mainly
enriched the pr