Marcy speaking directly to working class readers on the material basis of their exploitation, explaining where the profits of the bosses come from.

‘The Goose and the Golden Egg’ by Mary E. Marcy from International Socialist Review. Vol. 16 No. 8. February, 1916.

THE working class is the goose that lays the golden egg of profits for the factory owner and the mill owner today. Do you think the mine owners would ever be able to declare any dividends for themselves if it were not for the work of the miners who get out the copper, the coal and the silver? Do you imagine the profits of the railroad magnates come from the shippers or from the railroad men?

Profits are not made out of the people who buy the coal from the mine owners; nor are they made out of the “consumers” who buy meat from the packing house corporations.

As a rule, commodities sell at their values. Meat generally sells at its actual value, that is for the amount of necessary human labor which it represents, be it two hours of social labor, or one hour or three hours of necessary human labor. The packing companies rarely charge the consumers more than the value of the beef or pork or eggs and butter which they sell.

The railroad magnates do not make their profit out of the shippers, because nine times out of ten the freight rates they charge or the passenger rates they demand represent actual hours of service on the part of the railroad workers. They charge the shippers the value of the service rendered by the railroad men who make the haul.

It is not the “consumer,” the buying public, that lays the golden egg of profits for the big capitalists, but the working class.

You are the goose and your labor power is the golden egg from which dividends are made. It is a fairly good illustration to say that the “consumer,” the buying public, merely cashes that check of profits for your employer. The consumer gets what he pays for–he gets your product at its value and in this way your boss cashes the profits made from your products.

For example, say the railroad men put in twelve hours of work or service a day; the railroad magnates charge the shippers for this twelve hours of service, but the railroad magnates don’t pay the railroad men the value of twelve hours of labor. Workingmen rarely receive the value of half their product or half their service. The railroad owners make their dividends out of the hours of labor for which you are not paid. You may receive forty cents an hour when the value of your product or your service, is two dollars an hour.

The shippers and travellers usually receive the full value of the service they buy. The “consumer” nearly always receives the value of the meat he pays for. It is the working class that is exploited. The railroad man receives the value of three or four hours of labor; the packing house employes receive one-fourth or one-fifth the value of their products.

Garment workers get $4.00 or $10.00 and $20.00 a week for making things which have a value of from $20.00 to $100.00. Miners get $2.50 a day for getting out coal valued at $10.00 a day.

And all the value–the difference between the value of your product or your service, and your wages goes to the capitalist class in one form or another.

All the lawyers, the judges, the soldiers, the police and bankers, the highly paid advertising men, the advertising itself, the mayors and governors, aldermen and congressmen, senators and presidents–all these are paid from the unpaid labor of the working class.

These high salaried men are not paid out of your pockets, because the money never goes into your pockets. But out of the money your employer makes from your unpaid labor.

Not from your pockets, but from the wealth made by you, and not paid for, will the war debts be paid.

You are the goose that lays the golden egg of profits, you are the men and women who make all the wheels go around. The proudest railroad president is drawing his huge salary from your unpaid labor.

Will you never wake up and cease to lay this golden egg for those who toil not? You have only to fold your arms and the whole world must stand still; you have only to organize with all working men and women over the whole world to be able to shake off these parasites who are riding on your back and to seize the industries and run them for your own benefit–the benefit of the working class.

“You have nothing to lose but your chains.”

M.E.M.

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v16n08-feb-1916-ISR-riaz-Holt-ocr.pdf