BEGIN june28th
The dead rat bit me.
The rat bit me dead.
My fear is only of death. I do not fear death. Your shortcut will never get you there. Please do not walk on my back. I want pu$$y and cars. This new empire is dawning now. The light is getting brighter until you cannot see. There are a lot of robots there to enforce. There are no birds left to come save us. All the frog are hopping sideways because they have 3 legs. God is an American. ? The polish jokes are only sold in polish bookstores these days to tourists. The Draft version was the same as the published copy except for the grammer and spell check. The moral of the story is that rubber burns more quickly than stone. The moral of the story is that
I wrote a song about the supreme and mighty one. He was this famous guy with big lips. His balls were as big small dogs. It ain't bragging if it's true. Did Dan Bern really go down on Madonna? Happiness is a warm gun. It is fun to kill bad guys. Didn't you read the press release? Don't you read any books or play video games? What kind of recluse are you? a shut in without violent video games?
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DIALOGUE 3THE BEST TOOL OF PRODUCTION. BROTHER JONATHAN--I listened the other day to a
Socialist speaker and I chuckled
UNCLE SAM--Weren't you convinced?
B.J.--Nay, nay! I chuckled at the way the man con-
tradicted himself, and he did not even seem to know it.
U.S.--How? What? In what way?
B.J.--It was worth listening to him: he confirmed me
in the belief that Socialists talk through their hats.
U.S.--Oh, ho!
B.J.--(With a cocksure wink)--Yes, siree. Here is
what he said: "The solution of the social, or labor, pro-
em, is the ownership by labor of the land on and the tools
with which to work. Once master of the two, labor will be
master of all the wealth it produces."
U.S.--That's, pretty sound doctrine, and it will take
more than any pot-bellied wiseacre like you to refute it,
B.J.--(With increased cocksurcness)--Pot-belIied or
not, I'll refute it with his own words.
U.S.--Let 'er rip!
B.J.--In the course of his address, before and after
making that statement I just quoted, he referred to the
farmers.
U.S.--The small farmers?
B.J.--Small or big matters not.
U.S.--Eh!
B.J.--And he showed very accurately that the farmer
was being driven to the wall, and was growing poorer and
poorer despite his industry.
U.S.--And that is perfectly true of the small farmer.
U.J.--You drive me out of all patience by talking
"small fanner," "small farmer." What's the odds?
U.S.--All the odds in the world-
B.J.--Then you, too, contradict yourself.
U.S.--You will have to be more explicit
B.J.--I shall. The farmer, small or big, owns his
land and his tools of production Now, then, if the owner-
ship of these assures to a man the property in the products
of his labor, then must the farmer, whether small or large,
he well off. We know he is not, That is the contradiction
in your theory, and there it goes. (B.J. sinks his hands
deep into his trouser pockets, and puts on a now-ou-get-
out-of-that-if-you-can look.)
U.S.--Was that it?
B.J.--That was it.
U S.--Now, Jonathan, the trouble lay with you, and
not with the Socialist speaker. You went to that meeting as
you go to your prayer-meeting, to take a snooze, and you
heard only one part of what he said.
B.J.--Which part did I not hear?
U.S.-You did not hear his explanation of the word
"capital"--the modern tool of prodution.
B.J.--Are not all tools capital? Is not an old style
plow capital, as well as a steam plow?
U.S.--No, sir. The value of Corn depends upon the
labor necessary to produce it, the same as all other goods.
B.J.--Very well.
U.S.--If you and I produce corn with an old style
plow, we must both put the same amount of labor into every
bushel of corn that we produce.
B.J.---Very well.
U.S.--Then you can't undersell me, and 'can't under-
sell you
B.J.--That's so.
U.S.--But now suppose that some farmer starts to
work with a steam plow and such other large means of
production How are we affected?
B.J.--How?
U.S.--With the steam plow and steam harvester work
can be done quickly; larger tracts of land are necessary to
employ the machine on. Without the machine you and I
can't cover large acres. With the machine, thousands of
acres can be covered with less labor than without it. The
production of corn becomes more plentiful, the amount of
labor that is then put into each bushel is less. You admit
that the value of the bushel depends upon the labor re-
quired in its production. Consequently, the farmer with the
steam appliances can undersell us. If before we got $1
per bushel, we can now get only fifty cents. Am I right?
B.J.--Hem!
U.S.--Where are we then?
B.J.'s brow puckers
U. S.~Now, gct back a moment. When you and I
plowed our land with old style plows upon the little patches
which we would cover with the old style tool, didn't we
have the bulge on somebody?
B.J.--Not that I know 0f
U.S.--You don't? What about our farm hands! the
fellows who had neither land nor plow?
B.J.--Why, we hired them.
U.S.--Yes, we "hired" them. Was their hire equal
to what they produced?
B.J.--'Course not. The idea of giving a hired man as
much as he produces! Of what benefit would he be to us?
U.S.--Right you are. No employer hires a man un-
less that man will produce more than he receives. Do you
imagine a man likes to produce two dollars' worth of corn,
and only receive in payment one dollar?
B.J.--(Shaking his bead from right to left)--Rekon
not.
U.S.--Now, what is it that induced such a man to
take a position under which he was skinned? What gave
us the bulge on him?
B.J. Contemplates a man on the other end of the
street who is whipping his horse.
U.S.--What drove him to that?
B.J.--Hunger, I guess.
U.S.--The long and short of it is that the farm hand,
then as now, had not and has not the necessities of produc-
tion.
B.J.--But land was cheap, he could get that.
U.S.--Yes, but land alone, without the tools of pro-
duction, is valueless.
B.J. (With a nod expressive of esperience)--True
enough.
U, S-There is where we had the bulge on him. Now
just consider this: Our old style plows were much simpler
than the steam plow. A man might, if he could keep him-
self alive in the meantime, make an old style plow himself
In a few months Even in those olden days, when the tool
in general use was so much simpler, the man who didn't
have it had to hire himself to be plucked for the sake of
a living. That being the case, what chance have small fry
farmers, such as you and I, today, when we hare to com-
pete with the steam plow?
B.J. Looks decidedly despondent.
U.S.--The steam plow and other such appliances re-
duce the amount of labor that there is in each bushel, and
thereby reduce the amount of wealth we can get. Former-
ly even when the plow and harvester, etc., were so much
simpler, the man without them could not make them for
himself, and had to become a wage slave and put up with
wages less than what he produced. Today when the tool
is the stean plow, etc., which none of us can think of pro'
ducing in a lifetirne, where are we?
B.J.--Busted!
U.S.--Yes, there is where the large farmer got the
bulge on us. Do you now understand what 'capital" means?
That steam plow, that modern machinery of production, is
"capital" The simpler plow was "capital" in years gone
by only to the man who had no plow; now "capital"
has grown, and the modern plow, harvester, etc., is "capi-
tal" not only to the man who has none, but to us who
have the former "capital"--the old style plow. "Capi-
tal" is originally that machinery of production which dis-
able those who have none at all from working for them-
selves; presently, "capital" the tool, becomes more power-
ful, and it not only disables more completely those who
have none from working for themselves--
B.J.--(Taking sudden alarm)~By Jericho. It also
disables those who have smaller tools from competing with
it!
U.S.--It breaks them--
B.J.--Rips them wide open--
U.S.--Throws them into bankruptcy-
B.J.--Makes wage slaves out of them.
U.S.--Yes, yes. Of what use to us are such tools as
we farmers have?
B.J.--They are not worth a tinker's dam!
U.S.--Do you see he difrerence between the small
farmer and the big one?
B.J.--Why, of course!
U S-And don't you see that to talk of us as having
"capital" is empty mockery or stupidity?
B.J.--So it is!
U.S.--And that to say, as you said before, that "we
have tools" is folly?
B.J.--Well, I must have been asleep
U.S.--Indeed, you must have been, Our tools are no
longer "capital" they are not even "property" worth the
name. They are a delusion of "property" We are sink-
ing, together with the small industrialists! because we do
not possess *the* tool of production that is now capital.
Hence, the little wealth we produce shrivels in our hands.
If that little wealth shrivels in our hands, how much more
must not the wealth shrivel in the hands of the unfortunate
man who hires himself out because he has no tools what-
ever--the workingman?
B.J.--The first time I meet that Socialist lecturer
again, I am gong to tender him my apologies. I see it all.
He was right. Without the tool of production man is not
master of the wealth he creates.
U.S.--And the tool of production needed to secure
such masterhood--
B.J.-Is *capital*--that is, the best tool in operation;
none other deserves consideration.
U.S.-You've got it now. Don't let it go, and impart
the knowledge to others.
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SOCIALIST ECONOMICS IN DIALOGUE
BY
DANIEL DE LEON
From the 1935 hardback edition published by New York Labor News
Originally published in the Weekly People in 1900 --Transcribed by redflag on 3/14/98
http://www.slp.org
