The British Socialist writers tell us: "The average price of wage-labour is the minimum wage--_i.e._ that quantum of the means of subsistence which is absolutely requisite to keep the labourer in bare existence."[160] "The labourer cannot as a rule command more than his cost of subsistence in return for his labour. This principle, that the return to labour is determined by the cost of subsistence of the labourer, is generally known as 'The Iron Law of Wages.' But has not this law been discarded even by some Socialists? There have been attempts in some quarters to demonstrate that this law does not actually operate with the rigidity at first claimed for it; but in truth, it stands as firmly to-day as when insisted upon by Lassalle."[161] "Capitalism always keeps the wages down to the lowest standard of subsistence which the people will accept,"[162] for "the basis of wages is the cost of subsistence of the labourer. This is called the 'Iron Law of Wages.'"[163] "By the Iron Law of Wages the recompense of the workers always tends to the minimum on which they are willing to subsist. If they are content with water to drink and cabbage to eat, they may be sure that the means of buying whisky or roast beef will very soon be taken from them. Messrs. Rentmonger, Interestmonger, and Profitmonger will speedily scent additional swag, and they will have it, too."[164] "The 'Iron Law of Wages' reduces the wages to as near the level of the means of subsistence as local circumstances will admit of."[165] If these arguments were correct it would follow that the workers could cause their wages to rise by drinking wine instead of whisky, and by smoking Havana cigars instead of pipe-tobacco. This theory of wages is called the "Iron Law of Wages" because of its absolute and pitiless rigidity. For instance, the Iron Law of Wages will prevent lower prices of food benefiting the workman in any way. "If the working class is enabled to buy cheap bread, the operation of the 'Iron Law of Wages' will secure all the advantage for the capitalists, as it did in the days of the saintly Bright, when the corn laws were repealed. Capital is always the same in its effect on the working-class, whether manipulated by an individual capitalist, joint-stock enterprise, municipality, or government, and with each step in concentration the working-class gets relatively less and the master class gets richer, more corrupt, and more bestial, as recent events in Berlin and elsewhere show."[166] The "Iron Law of Wages" is irrefutable and irresistible. "Economists have come to talk about the 'Iron Law of Wages' with as much assurance as if it were an irreversible law of Nature."[167]