Quotation from: War of the Classes

Written by: Jack London


Receiving $4.50 per day, because of his proficiency and immense
working power, the American laborer has been known to scab upon
scabs (so called) who took his place and received only $0.90 per day
for a longer day. In this particular instance, five Chinese
coolies, working longer hours, gave less value for the price
received from their employer than did one American laborer.


It is upon his brother laborers overseas that the American laborer
most outrageously scabs. As Mr. Casson has shown, an English nail-
maker gets $3 per week, while an American nail-maker gets $30. But
the English worker turns out 200 pounds of nails per week, while the
American turns out 5500 pounds. If he were as "fair" as his English
brother, other things being equal, he would be receiving, at the
English worker's rate of pay, $82.50. As it is, he is scabbing upon
his English brother to the tune of $79.50 per week. Dr. Schultze-
Gaevernitz has shown that a German weaver produces 466 yards of
cotton a week at a cost of .303 per yard, while an American weaver
produces 1200 yards at a cost of .02 per yard.

PREVIOUS GROUP HOME SITE HOME NEXT
Old Dominion University CS Dept
Designed by Joan A. Smith for the CRATE project
Created: 2007-2-22T12:35:29Z
Part of the CratePreservation Project
Change Tag: ~~ 0 ~~
Part of a series of experiments in web preservation under the direction of Michael L. Nelson, Ph.D.