Workers and Capitalism

The letters in the April 26 issue impel me to write. Each writer hit out at Martin and Kathleen Feldstein’s column against increasing the minimum wages. History shows from the birth of capitalism it did not work for people.

Adam Smith’s book “Wealth of Nations,” published in 1776, showed that labor was “the source of all value” but he could not figure why, the more wealth the workers produced “the poorer the workers become.”

It was Karl Marx who discovered in 1844 the reason why the workers become poorer, the more they produce. Marx looked at Smith’s discovery and said it was great. Marx discovered that “the source of all surplus value was produced by labor too, that goes to the capitalists.” This discovery showed the contradiction in capitalism.

The history of capitalism is the history of the struggle of workers to free themselves from a system where their own production is used to destroy them, the producers. Wages high or low are not the answer to the crimes of capitalism-- only a complete uprooting, and replacing with a new system controlled by the people themselves will work.

In the Business Section of the same issue, is an example why capitalism can’t work for workers, by Harry Bernstein (“All Sides Lose if Feuds Continue in the Carpenters Union”). His article shows how non-union workers are pitted against union workers. This reveals the history of capitalism-- the pitting of workers against workers, mental labor against manual, black against white, men against women and all against youth.

ISAAC WOODS

Whittier