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 workers in London ought to be approximately the same. In reality, however, we find that wages range in London from _3l. 10s._ to _18s._ per week. The most skilled workers receive the highest, the least skilled the lowest, wages. It is therefore evident that wages are determined by the cost of subsistence only in the case of the least skilled workers, provided an unlimited supply of such workers and unrestricted competition among them for work drive down their wages to the bare existence level.