gle for a chance to work is keen, and because of
this struggle wages sink to the lowest means ot
subsistence. To be thrifty means for a worker to
spend less than his income in other words, to live
on less. This is equivalent to a lowering of the
standard of living. In the competition for a chance
to work, the man with a lower standard of living
will underbid the man with a higher standard. And
a small group of such thrifty workers in any over
crowded industry will permanently lower the wages
of that industry. And the thrifty ones will no
longer be thrifty, for their income will have been
reduced till it balances their expenditure.

In short, thrift negates thrift. If every worker
in England should heed the preachers of thrift and
cut expenditure in half, the condition of there being
more men to work than there is work to do would
swiftly cut wages in half. And then none of the
workers of England would be thrifty, for they would
be living up to their diminished incomes. The
short-sighted thrift-preachers would naturally be
astounded at the outcome. The measure of their
failure would be precisely the measure of the suc
cess of their propaganda. And, anyway, it is sheer
bosh and nonsense to preach thrift to the 1,800,000
London workers who are divided into families which
have a total income of less than $5.25 per week, one-
quarter to one-half of which must be paid for rent.

[[308]]

p307 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p308w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p309

v?