Marxism Unmasked from Delusion to Destruction.pdf 7471KB

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Lassauc |1»2^1864J had published a pamphlet. Karl Marx and Ferdinand
of wage. And what was more, the term was borrowed, borrowed from the
dicoonary and ftom Goethe.^
The ".ron law of wages" stiU survives in many textbooks, m the minds
of polmcum. and consequendy in many of our laws. According to the
.ron bw of wages." the wage rate is determined by the amount of food
and other necessities required for the preservation and reproduction of hfe
to support the xvorkers' children until they can themselves work in the
factories. If wage rates rise above this, the number of workers would
increase and the increased number of workers would bring wage rates
down again. Wages cannot drop below this point because there would then
develop a shoruge of labor. This law considers the worker to be some kind
of microbe or rodent without free choice or free will.
If you think it is absolutely impossible under the capitalist system for
wages to deviate from this rate, how then can you still talk, as Marx did,
about the progressive impoverishment of the workers as being inevitable?
There is an insoluble contradiction between the Marxian idea of the iron
law of wage rates, according to which wages will remain at a point at
which they are sufficient to support the progeny of workers until they can
themselves become workers, and his philosophy of history which
maintains that the workers will be more and more impoverished until they
are driven to open rebellion, thus bringing about socialism. Of course, both
doctrines are untenable. Even 50 years ago the leading socialist writers
were forced to resort to other elaborate schemes in the attempt to support
their theories. What is amazing is that, during the century since Marx's
writings, no one has pointed out this contradiction. And this contradiction
is not the only contradiction in Marx.
2 (Marx also criticized Lassalle for using the term "Arbeiterstand" (state of work); Marx
said Las&allc was confused, but Marx never explained how Lassalle was confused.—Ed.)
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