08/22/2026
Happy Salmon Day, Sointula! Start your day with the insight from The Aika Pages, on this day 1902.
THE MILLS TO DRY LAND!
The Danger of Working in Capitalism
Without labour, capital is powerless. Even if capitalists possessed huge gold mounts, they would eventually have to desert them, if they could buy no labour to cut the gold into pieces.
The same thing with forests, land and other natural resources. Due to lack of labour they would have to give up their treasures and leave them for common use, that is, for the state. Capital as such doesn’t greatly benefit capitalists or pose a threat to us. It is only when capital is in practice, yielding interest, that it becomes a danger. Because interest and profit comes from labour: from the overwhelming, highly dangerous strains of the worker, from unnaturally
expensive products and from the vices of workers, mainly their inclination to drunkenness.
It is a pity to see for example the present workers in Extension intentionally signing up to fatten the wallets of the capitalists, forcing their way through at the risk of their life, no matter how disgracefully a capitalist would kick them away.
They do not understand they should unite and get land where there’s still some available, and live as a free man in a free country working only for account of themselves.
This is the most simplest economic question and one would think, it would be clear to everyone.
But from our own experience we know, that this still isn’t clear, not even to our own dear citizens, to whom we have tried to explain it time and again. We have had to fight churchly darkness and perverted moral concepts, although the intention of the Kalevan Kansa [People of Kaleva, KK] - or at least my intention - has not been to found a new religion or monastic order. The main goal has been to encourage people to think for themselves and to liberate themselves
from narrow-mindedness. As far as I’m concerned, it makes no difference, what someone wants to believe, as long as they let me believe what I want, or not believe at all. I care just as little about the type of marriage others are in. If it is possible to live either morally or immorally in a marriage blessed by the church, then both ways must be possible outside marriage as well. In the same way I do not see an absolute collective economy as an essential condition to the success of a co-operative endeavour. It is desirable for us to be somewhat unanimous about these issues to begin with, but it is not absolutely necessary. We only have to be enlightened enough, so that we can discuss these issues openly and without prejudice, tolerating and respecting views that differ from ours. The more sincerely and honestly we follow our own conviction, the more reason we have to expect others to follow theirs. And he, who doesn’t profess any authorities, is least entitled to expect, that someone would respect him as their authority.
Our KK has already formed into its own kind of group. But new groups, other kinds of groups can arise, however many and wherever. The only thing keeping this from happening is the unawareness and short-sightedness of workers. There are no appropriate leaders and the workers do not have enough feeling of solidarity. A worker will not move until the whip cracks on his own back. He doesn’t care if it hits others; he is actually secretly happy, because in the capitalist labour market workers are competitors and enemies who envy each other.
But the capitalist’s whip is reaching farther and farther, machines are making more and more workers unemployed - they drive out by force even the workers who don’t understand to leave on their own.
Are we completely safe on our island?
Yes we are, if we avoid escapades.
It is presumable - and there are already clear signs - that capitalists will begin hanging about Malcolm Island after our forests, land and waters. Their calculations are based on the supposition that labour is now available on Malcolm Island, and who knows how cheap.
We, however, have to put an end to these calculations. No one is to go and work for an outsider, neither for a bad nor a good pay. This is the only way to make the capitalists leave their
usurpations sooner or later. But if we were to make the annexations of the capitalists even the least bit profitable with our work, we would just pull them closer towards us and attach them to
us ineffaceably. Only on condition that these possessions will be given up for common usufruct - i.e. for the KK or another similar company - can they be made profitable with our labour.
This is the direction that other congenial spirits, who are scattered around, should take as well. If at all possible, they should avoid work, from which someone else is taking the profit, even in a case where a relatively higher wage would be offered from this compared to what could be made
working for yourself, for the state or for a co-operative company. Because one thing is certain: a capitalist paying high wages is making up for his losses out of the pockets of a worker, either his or someone else’s.
By following this program, more and more workers will escape from being a part of the capitalist mill. When a capitalist can get rid of two thirds of his workers because of a new machine, also the last third has to leave, if the goal is to have the capitalist give up his machines and annexations to the community. An owner can’t make a living and meet his liabilities with a factory that is at
standstill or a mine or a large estate that has been deserted. And in such a young country everyone has liabilities. The only thing he can do is give them away to those that can make them
productive again.
If we are aware of this, we will also understand that those congenial spirits who are still, even now, when they would have a possibility to do their own work, working for capitalists for a few lousy dollars - that they are unintentionally strengthening the power of capitalism and doing their part in postponing the final settlement. Therefore we must avoid work which lets the capitalist
live and get fat. The jobs that cause him apparent damage, jobs that belong to needless luxury or pleasure, those will suit us better, as well as new vehicles, from which capitalists can profit only in the distant future, but which will immediately benefit the large public.
“The mills to dry land”, let that be our slogan. Even if we didn’t recognize each other from our faces, our language or from a whistle, we can all in our place act according to a joint program, sowing the same thought into our surroundings.
Austin McKela
