ABSTRACT
The workers of the country, very imperfectly organised by the capitalists in their own interests, do actually produce every year all the wealth that is consumed, including not only necessaries and comforts, but an enormous quantity of luxuries consumed only by the wealthy. All these workers when in full work do earn enough to live on, and many of them to live comfortably, although they are paid less than half, often only a quarter, of the value of their work in the finished article. The ingenious sophistries of modern writers, from the point of view of the competitive and capitalistic system as an absolute fundamental fact, have rendered it difficult for most people to comprehend the reason of the paradox that with an enormous increase of wealth and of power of producing all commodities there should be a corresponding perpetuation or even increase of poverty.
