Your pay envelope

by John Richard Meader

You have heard this kind of talk. You may have thought that there was some truth in it. You—like all the rest of us—are confronted with the problem of the cost of living, and—like most of us—you wish that you could earn more money. “Is it possible,” you ask, “that I am earning four times as much as I get, and that I am being ‘robbed’ of the greater part of it?”

If you listen to the Socialists you will come to believe that this is just what is happening. A Socialist paper published in Kansas has spent a lot of money to advertise the fact that, when Socialism triumphs and you get what you actually earn, you will be paid $2,000 a year for six hours a day.

This is a very conservative estimate—for a Socialist. As you may have learned by this time, the writers and speakers who undertake to tell the worker what is to happen to him under Socialism do not agree about the amount of money he will get and the length of time he will have to work in the Co-operative Commonwealth, any more than they do when they try to estimate the extent of the “robbery” from which he is suffering.

Usually, the rate of payment is fixed at $2,500 for four hours’ work a day. A writer in a popular magazine fixes the sum the worker will be paid at $5,000. Suthers, the English Socialist, promises the equivalent of $10,000 a year, and there is a band of “comrades” on the Pacific Coast who can demonstrate “scientifically” that a 3-hour day affords sufficient time in which to earn a decent living and even the luxuries of life.

Well, do you believe any of these statements? I hope you are not such a simpleton as to be fooled by the bald assertion of any speaker or writer when you have, within your reach, the facts from which you can learn the truth for yourself.

Let us pursue this more rational method. Certainly, the Socialists cannot object if we check off their calculations and find out if they have made any mistakes in their figuring.

According to the last United States Census report—and that ought to be good enough authority for anybody—the total value of all the goods manufactured in this country during the year 1909 was $20,672,052,000 and the number of persons employed in making these goods was 7,405,513. If we divide one by the other, we find an earning capacity of more than $2,700 per man; but, unfortunately, that is not the way things work out. There are certain expenses of manufacture that have to be deducted from the “gross value” before we can even begin to calculate the earning capacity of the worker. One little item we mustn’t forget is called “Cost of Materials.” Another item is known as “Miscellaneous Expenses.” After you have received your wages, you are perfectly willing that your employer shall deduct these “expenses” before figuring his own profits, are you not?

In 1909, the “cost of materials” alone represented the tremendous sum of $12,141,291,000 and the “cost of miscellaneous expenses” was $1,945,676,000. When we subtract these two charges from the “gross value,” we have $6,585,085,000 left, and if we divide this sum by the number of workers, we find that the average product of the worker was but $889.23.

What did the worker actually get? The “cost of labor and salaries,” in 1909, was $4,365,613,000, and, if we divide this by the number of workers, we learn that the average is $589.52.

This is quite different from the story the Socialists tell us. Had all the industries in America been owned and operated collectively, in 1909, the worker, at the best, could have received but $299.71 more than he did, for, as you must admit, such factors as “cost of materials” and “miscellaneous expenses” must needs be considered, even under the collective system of industry. Certainly, the worker in the textile mills could not produce the cotton and wool and silk, and the shoe-worker could not raise the animals and prepare the leather, even were Socialism to bring about all the marvelous changes it has promised.