The
Anarchist Congress of 1869 at Marseilles stated very truly: "La
cooperation demoralise les ouvriers en faisant des bourgeois."[846]

Now let us take note of the "scientific" arguments with which British
Socialists oppose providence, thrift, and sobriety among the workers.

"Under present circumstances, the more frugal, thrifty, and abstemious
working people as a class become, the more cheaply they have to live,
the more cheaply they have to sell their labour power to the
capitalist class, wages being determined by the cost of
subsistence."[847] "Temperance, thrift, industry only serve to make
labour an easier or more valuable prey to capital. If they reduce the
cost of living in any particular, they but reduce the cost of labour
to the capitalist."[848] "If _all_ the workers were very thrifty,
sober, industrious, and abstemious they would be worse off in the
matter of wages than they are now."[849] "The mere cheapening of the
cost of living only tends to reduce wages, and thus cannot advantage
the worker."[850] "If _all_ workers were to become teetotalers and
vegetarians, wages would inevitably fall to the wretched level,
perchance, of Oriental countries like India and China, where thrift in
every form is carried to incredible lengths."[851] "Is it not proved
that the Hindoos and the Chinese, who are the most temperate and the
most thrifty people in the world, are always the worst paid? And don't
you see that if the Lancashire workers would live upon rice and water,
the masters would soon have their wages down to rice and water
point?"[852]

The foregoing arguments, which are based on the "Iron Law of Wages,"
of which a refutation has been given in Chapter IV.,[853] may sound
plausible to the unthinking workman. They may infuriate him and
therefore serve the ends of the Socialist agitator, but they are
utterly false and dishonest, as all Socialist leaders know. Wages
depend partly on the supply and demand for labour, partly on the
productiveness of labour. In machineless countries, such as China and
India, the average worker produces very little, and the supply of
workers is unlimited. Hence their wages are low. If the Socialistic
arguments were right, Chinese and Hindoos could double or treble
their wages by becoming drunkards, and English navvies could earn
_5l._ a week by agreeing among themselves to drink champagne instead
of beer. If the cost of subsistence determined the rate of wages, the
wages for all wo