Labor Power, Not Capital, Is the American System

What History Tells Us 

On the one hand, a policy to recruit highly-skilled foreign artisans to emigrate to America has been a component of the American System of economics from the very beginning.  We should welcome them.  Alexander Hamilton is absolutely explicit on this point in his 1791 Report on Manufactures.  In that Report he proposes to create a National Development Board, which among its several functions will be to encourage “the emigration of artists [i.e., artisans] and manufacturers in particular branches of extraordinary importance.”  We will not argue with Hamilton on this.

On the other hand, we certainly do not need a visa program which imports tens of thousands of temporary foreign workers to take jobs that could or should be performed by American citizens.  This is particularly egregious since most of these H-1B workers are literally no more than indentured servants, with no legal rights in American courts while making sub-standard wages.  This is a vicious labor policy and contrary to the intent of the U.S. Constitution.

The deeper issue involved requires us to ask ourselves the question, “What is it we are actually attempting to accomplish?”  Is it merely to rebuild America as a manufacturing and technological powerhouse?  One that will be “competitive” on the world stage?  Well, that is a laudable goal.  But it is not the primary goal.  The paramount intention is to Uplift the People;  to provide for them a productive and happy future, for themselves and their posterity.  Our aim should be focused on the beacon of a single wage-earner, with an income sufficient to support a family of 4, 5, 6 or more.  This can not be done overnight, but it will never happen if we do not take the right approach to economic and labor policy.

During the recent era of globalization and financialization, we have abandoned this commitment to productive family formation. A key maxim of the current financial elite is that low wages are necessary for a healthy economy.  Compare this to President William McKinley’s mandate that America must be a nation based on high wages!  As of today, Big Capital is in the driver’s seat on labor policy.  If the Republican Party truly desires to become a “working class” party, that dynamic must change.

Abraham Lincoln on the Priority of Labor Over Capital

On September 30, 1859, Abraham Lincoln delivered a speech before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society in Milwaukee.  He said:

“By some it is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital — that nobody labors, unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow, by the use of that capital, induces him to do it.  Having assumed this, they proceed to consider whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent;  or buy them, and drive them to it without their consent.  Having proceeded so far they naturally conclude that all laborers are necessarily either hired laborers, or slaves.  They further assume that whoever is once a hired laborer, is fatally fixed in that condition for life;  and thence again that his condition is as bad as, or worse than that of a slave.  This is the “mud-sill” theory.

“But another class of reasoners hold the opinion that there is no such relation between capital and labor, as assumed;  and that there is no such thing as a freeman being fatally fixed for life, in the condition of a hired laborer, that both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them groundless.  They hold that labor is prior to, and independent of, capital;  that, in fact, capital is the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed — that labor can exist without capital, but that capital could never have existed without labor.  Hence they hold that labor is the superior — greatly the superior — of capital. . . .

“By the “mud-sill” theory it is assumed that labor and education are incompatible;  and any practical combination of them impossible.  According to that theory, a blind horse upon a tread-mill, is a perfect illustration of what a laborer should be — all the better for being blind, that he could not tread out of place, or kick understandingly.  According to that theory, the education of laborers, is not only useless, but pernicious, and dangerous.  In fact, it is, in some sort, deemed a misfortune that laborers should have heads at all.  Those same heads are regarded as explosive materials, only to be safely kept in damp places, as far as possible from that peculiar sort of fire which ignites them.  A Yankee who could invent a strong handed man without a head would receive the everlasting gratitude of the “mud-sill” advocates.

“But Free Labor says “No!”  Free Labor argues that, as the Author of man makes every individual with one head and one pair of hands, it was probably intended that heads and hands should co-operate as friends;  and that that particular head, should direct and control that particular pair of hands.  As each man has one mouth to be fed, and one pair of hands to furnish food, it was probably intended that that particular pair of hands should feed that particular mouth — that each head is the natural guardian, director, and protector of the hands and mouth inseparably connected with it;  and that being so, every head should be cultivated, and improved, by whatever will add to its capacity for performing its charge.  In one word Free Labor insists on universal education. . . .

“In all this, book-learning is available. A capacity, and taste, for reading, gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others.  It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems.  And not only so.  It gives a relish, and facility, for successfully pursuing the [yet] unsolved ones.  The rudiments of science are available, and highly valuable.  Some knowledge of Botany assists in dealing with the vegetable world — with all growing crops.  Chemistry assists in the analysis of soils, selection, and application of manures, and in numerous other ways.  The mechanical branches of Natural Philosophy are ready help in almost everything;  but especially in reference to implements and machinery. . . .

“Let us hope, rather, that by the best cultivation of the physical world, beneath and around us;  and the intellectual and moral world within us, we shall secure an individual, social, and political prosperity and happiness, whose course shall be onward and upward, and which, while the earth endures, shall not pass away.”

Two years later, in his December 3, 1861 State of the Union Address, Lincoln elaborated further on these topics.  Some of his remarks are almost verbatim from his 1859 utterances:

“There is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention.  It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government.  It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital;  that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. this assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves.  And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.

“Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer.  Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.  

“Labor is prior to and independent of capital.  Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. . . .

“Again, as has already been said, there is not of necessity any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life. Many independent men everywhere in these States a few years back in their lives were hired laborers. The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him.  No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty;  none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned.  Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which if surrendered will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them till all of liberty shall be lost.”

During his 1860 presidential campaign, Lincoln delivered a speech in Hartford, Connecticut, where he went so far as to back labor actions against unfair practices.  He said:

“I'm glad to know that there is a system of labor where the laborer can strike if he wants to!  I would to God that such a system prevailed all over the world.” 

The Kernel to Grasp: People First!

Consider Lincoln’s above-quoted remarks on Labor and Education.  This concept of an upwardly mobile, skilled and educated citizenry is a bedrock principle in American history.  It was at the heart of Benjamin Franklin’s creation of his Junto and the American Philosophical Society.  It was the primary subject of Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures.  It was the motivation for the creation of both the American Lyceum and the Mechanics Institutes.  And it was the goal in Lincoln’s creation of the Land Grant Colleges.

Constitutionally, the American Republic is committed to the People.  Not in the form of a “Welfare State,” but rather in pursuing a course for the upward progress of the people.  As Lyndon LaRouche always insisted, “People Come First.”  Thus, a “low wage” policy enforced by the Federal Reserve or amoral corporations is, in essence, both unconstitutional and a betrayal of the Principles of 1776.  American citizens are not statistics on a monetarist’s actuarial bookkeeping table.  As Lincoln repeatedly insisted, there is, in the American Republic, the “Right to Rise,” to better one’s self, to become more productive and to create a happier future.  This is the yardstick by which all policy should be measured.

Hints of a Proper Approach

The first necessity is that we must destigmatize blue-collar or related productive labor as somehow inferior to white-collar employment.  Today the laboring employees of most corporations are woefully underpaid, while the managers, consultants, business advisors and the like are massively overpaid.  We do not honor, nor pay a living wage to the people who actually Work.  

We are also not educating youth and young adults in the technological, industrial and scientific skills necessary for productive employment in the 21^st century.  We graduate millions of young adults from our universities with liberal arts degrees, which qualify them for nothing useful or productive.  The entirety of our educational system is topsy-turvy.  We have succeeded in producing a workforce of a largely parasitical managerial class and a larger body of unskilled or semi-skilled low wage worker drones.

In this regard, it would prove useful to study the 20^th century educational system of Germany.  The German system of technical high schools, vocational education and apprenticeships has consistently, over decades, produced the most skilled workforce in the world.  We are not speaking here of “tracking” working-class students into blue-collar employment.  Rather, through their “Dual Education” system, Germany has been able to graduate millions of students with advanced skills in engineering, technology, science and related fields.  We could not, and probably should not, attempt to imitate the German model in all specifics.  In particular, some of their apprenticeship obligations would probably be rejected by many American youth.  Nevertheless, this is the direction in which we must begin to think.  In the past, American Trade Unions bore the brunt of training their recruits to become “Journeymen” in their skills.  It is time the government—and the corporations who reap the benefits of a skilled workforce—jump in to help.

Whatever the details, the Goal should be kept foremost in our minds:  to begin to educate the youth of America in the skills of a 21^st century productive economy;  to also encourage and support the new inventors and discoverers who will make America even Greater.

At the same time, as heretical as this might seem to devotees of a libertarian free-market model, we must start from the assertion of Abraham Lincoln that “Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”  Suppression of wages, importing low-wage virtual slaves while tossing American workers out on the street and treating our manufacturing concerns as just one more source for speculative monetary profit must end.  We must rebuild America’s productive economy, and we must have a prosperous American people fully and happily engaged in that task.

In Search of America’s Revolutionary Culture - by Robert Ingraham

Between 1775 and 1800, poets, dramatists, novelists and musicians fought to create a new literary culture in the United States that reflected the principles and intention of the American Revolution, to free America from the oligarchical cultural axioms of Europe. This book presents that story.

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