⧠15 The dependent position of the proletariat; the reserve army of labour; women's labour and child labour

Under capitalism, the masses of the population are to an increasing extent transformed into wage workers. Ruined artisans, home workers, peasants, traders, minor capitalists - in a word, all who have been thrown overboard, who have been driven down by large-scale capital, fall into the ranks of the proletariat. The more that wealth undergoes concentration and passes into the hands of a small group of capitalists, the more do the masses of the people become the wage slaves of these capitalists.

Owing to the continuous decay of the middle strata and classes, the number of the workers always exceeds the requirements of capital. For this reason, the workers are bound hand and foot by capitalism. The worker must work for the capitalist. If he refuses, the employer can find a hundred others to take his place.

But this dependence upon capital has another cause besides the ruin of new and ever-new strata of the population. The dominion of capital over the workers is further strengthened by the way in which the capitalist is continually turning superfluous workers into the street and making of them a reserve of labour power. How does this come about? As follows. We have already seen that every factory owner endeavours to reduce the cost of production. This is why he is continually installing new machinery. But the machine commonly replaces labour, renders part of the workers superfluous. The introduction of new machinery signifies that some of the workers will be discharged. Among those hitherto employed in the factory, a certain number will be thrown out of work. Since, however, new machinery is perpetually being introduced in one branch of production or another, it is clear that unemployment must always exist under capitalism. For the capitalist is not concerned to provide work for all, or to supply goods to everyone; his aim is to secure increasing profit. Obviously, therefore, he will discharge any workers who are unable to produce for him as much profit as before.

In actual fact, we see in all capitalist countries a huge number of unemployed workers in every large city. Among the ranks of these unemployed we find Chinese and Japanese workers, ruined peasants who have come from the ends of the earth in search of work; we find lads fresh from the country, ex-shopkeepers, and ex-artisans. We find also metal workers, printers, textile workers, and the like, men who have worked in factories for years, and have then been thrown out of employment owing to the introduction of new machinery. They all combine to form a reserve supply of labour power for capital, to form what Marx termed the reserve army of labour. Owing to the existence of this reserve army of labour, owing to perennial unemployment, the dependence and subjection of the working class continually increase. With the aid of new machinery, capital is able to extract more gold from some of the workers, while the others, the superfluous workers, are thrown into the street. But those who have been thrown into the street constitute a scourge in the hands of the capitalist, a whip which he uses to keep in order those who remain in employment.

The industrial reserve army gives examples of complete brutalization, destitution, starvation, death, and even crime. Those who are out of work for years, gradually take to drink, become loafers, tramps, beggars, etc. In great cities - London, New York, Hamburg, Berlin, Paris - there are whole quarters inhabited by these out-of-works. As far as Moscow is concerned, Hitrof Market furnishes a similar example. Here, we no longer find the proletariat, but a new stratum, consisting of those who have forgotten how to work. This product of capitalist society is known as the lumpenproletariat (loafer-proletariat).

The introduction of machinery also led to the employment of women's labour and child labour, which are cheaper, and are therefore more profitable to the capitalist. In earlier days, before the introduction of machinery, special skill was requisite for the work of production, and sometimes a long term of apprenticeship was indispensable. Some machines can be managed by children; all that is necessary is to move the arm or the leg until fatigue becomes overpowering. This is why, after the invention of machinery, the labour of women and children came to be more widely used. Women and children offer less resistance than male workers to capitalist oppression. They are more submissive, more easily intimidated; they are more ready to believe the priest and to accept everything they are told by persons in authority. Hence the factory owner often replaces male workers by females, and compels little children to transmute their blood for him into the golden coins of profit.

In the year 1913, the number of women workers of all kinds (i.e. not manual workers alone) was as follows: France, 6,800,000; Germany,9,400,000; Austria-Hungary, 8,200,000; Italy, 5,700,000; Belgium, 930,000; USA, 8,000,000; England and Wales, 6,000,000. In Russia, the number of women workers continually increased. In 1900, the women workers numbered 25 per cent of all factory workers; in 1908, they numbered 31 per cent; in 1912, 45 per cent. In some branches of production, the women outnumbered the men. For example, in the textile industry, out of 870,000 workers in the year 1912, 453000 were women - more than half, over 52 per cent. During the war, the number of women workers increased enormously.

As regards child labour, this flourishes in many places, despite prohibitions. In countries of advanced capitalist development, as for instance in the USA, child labour is met with at every turn.

This leads to the break-up of the working-class family. If the mothers, and very often the children as well, go to the factory, what becomes of family life?

When a woman enters the factory, when she becomes a wage worker, she is from time to time exposed, just like a man, to all the hardships of unemployment. She, likewise, is shown the door by the capitalist; she, likewise, joins the ranks of the industrial reserve army; she, just like a man, is liable to undergo moral degradation. Associated with this we have prostitution, when a woman sells herself to the first comer in the street. Nothing to eat, no work, hunted from everywhere; and even if she has work, the wages are so low that she may be compelled to supplement her earnings by the sale.of her body. After a time, the new trade becomes habitual. Thus arises the caste of professional prostitutes.

In big towns, prostitutes are found in very large numbers. In such cities as Hamburg and London, these unfortunates are reckoned by tens of thousands. Capital uses them as a source of profit and enrichment, organizing vast brothels on capitalistic lines. There is an extensive international commerce in white slaves. The towns of Argentina used to be the centres of this traffic. Especially repulsive is child prostitution, which flourishes in all European and American towns.

In capitalist society, as better and better machinery is invented, as larger and larger factories are built, and as the quantity of commodities increases, there is a concomitant increase in capitalist oppression, the industrial reserve army becomes more degraded and impoverished, and the working class grows more dependent upon its exploiters.

If private ownership did not exist, if everything were co-operatively owned, a very different state of affairs would prevail. Then people would shorten the working day, would husband their strength, economize toil, enjoy ample leisure. When the capitalist introduces machinery, his concern is for profit; he does not think of reducing the working day, for he would only lose by this. The capitalist does not use machinery to emancipate people, but to enslave them. As capitalism develops, an ever-increasing proportion of capital is devoted to machinery, enormous buildings, huge furnaces, and so on. On the other hand, the proportion of capital expended upon the wages of labour grows continually smaller. In earlier days, when hand labour still prevailed, the expenditure upon looms and other gear was trifling; nearly all the expenditure of capital was upon the wages of labour. Now, conversely, much the larger portion is devoted to buildings and machinery. The result is that the demand for working hands does not keep pace with the increase in the number of proletarians, does not suffice to absorb the influx of those who are ruined by capitalism. The more vigorous the advance of technique under capitalism, the more cruelly does capital oppress the working class; for it grows ever harder to find work, more and more difficult to live.