Labor and Other Capital: the Rights of Each Secured and the Wrongs of Both Eradicated: With an Introductory Essay "Edward Kellogg: Father of Greenbackism"

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1849 edition. Excerpt: ...calico at 12 cents per yard. If labor fall to 50 cents per day, and he have full employment, to be as well off as when labor was at $2 per day, he must buy flour at $2 per barrel; wheat at 37 1-2 cents per bushel; potatoes at 10 cents; corn and rye at 20 cents; brown sugar at 2 1-2 cents per pound; coffee at 3 cents; boots at 75 cents per pair; shoes at 25 cents; a-hat at 75 cents; brown sheeting at 2 1-2 cents per yard; good calico at 3 cents; and everything else in proportion. Travelling expenses, rents and taxes, must be diminished three-quarters. All the necessaries of life must be reduced in price three-quarters, or the laborer who is out of debt will not be as well off when labor is at fifty cents per day, as when it is at two dollars per day. But suppose one class of the laborers to buy at these low prices, what will the producers of wheat, rye, corn, &c, receive for their labor? The reason that the laborer can buy as much cotton when labor is at fifty cents per day, as when it is at two dollars, is, that he buys a fellowlaborer's products at a price which will not pay a cent a day for the toil of producing them. So when the prices for labor are reduced in this ratio, laborers, as a body, are unable to provide themselves with the necessaries of life. The reduction of the prices of labor and products, consequent upon a scarcity of money and a rise of interest, forces producers and merchants to suffer great losses, because the diminution of the prices of products does not diminish the amount of their debts, nor their legal obligations to pay them; while capitalists who own these debts will compel laborers and owners of land and products to sell double, treble, and quadruple the quantity of these, to obtain money to satisfy the debts....