THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAPITALISTIC SOCIAL ORDER

fact, we see in all capitalist countries a huge number of unemployed workers in every large city. Among the ranks of these unemployed we find Chinese and Japanese workers, ruined peasants who have come from the ends of the earth in search of work; we find lads fresh from the country, ex-shopkeepers, and ex-artisans. We find also metal workers, printers, textile workers, and the like; men who have worked in factories for years, and have then been thrown out of employment owing to the introduction of new machinery. They all combine to form a reserve supply of labour power for capital, to form what Marx termed the reserve army of labour. Owing to the existence of this reserve army of labour, owing to perennial unemployment, the dependence and subjection of the working class continually increase. With the aid of new machinery, capital is able to extract more gold from some of the workers, while the others, the superfluous workers, are thrown into the street. But those who have been thrown into the street constitute a scourge in the hands of the capitalist, a whip which he uses to keep in order those who remain in employment.