could use the lumber somebody had to make the
tools with which he worked.

I think you will understand now why I placed emphasis on the words
"socially necessary." It is not possible for the individual buyer to
ascertain just how much social labor is contained in a coat or a
table, but their values are fixed by the competition and higgling
which is the law of capitalism. "It jest works out so," as an old
negro preacher said to me once.

I have said that competition is the law of capitalism. All political
economists recognize that as true. But we have, as I have explained in
a former letter, come to a point where capitalism has broken away from
competition in many industries. We have a state of affairs under which
the economic laws of competitive society do not apply. Monopoly prices
have always been regarded as exceptions to economic law.

If this technical economic discussion seems a little bit difficult, I
beg you nevertheless to try and master it, Jonathan. It will do you
good to think out these questions. Perhaps I can explain more clearly
what is meant by monopoly conditions being exceptional. All through
the Middle Ages it was the custom for governments to grant monopolies
to favored subjects, or to sell them in order to raise ready money.
Queen Elizabeth, for instance, granted and sold many such monopolies.

A man who had a monopoly of something which nearly everybody had to
use could fix his own price, the only limit being the people's
patience or their ability to pay. The same thing is true of patented
articles and of monopolies granted to public service corporations.
Generally, it is true, in the franchises of these corporations,
nowadays, there is a price limit fixed beyond which they must not go,
but it is still true that the normal competitive economic law has been
set aside by the creation of monopoly.

When a trust is formed, or when there is a price agreement, or what is
politely called "an understanding among gentlemen" to that effect, a
similar thing happens. We have monopoly prices.

This is an important thing for the working class, though it is
sometimes forgotten. How much your wages will secure in the way of
necessities is just as important to you as the amount of wages you
get. In other words, the amount you can get in comforts and
commodities for use is just as important as the amount you can get in
dollars and cents. Sometimes money wages increase while real wages
decrease. I could fill