In the medium category, the absolute level of income is low, representing about 72 roubles per family worker – much less than the wages of a factory worker. But, compared to the income of most handicraft producers, this amount was relatively high.
“It appears that even this meagre “sufficiency” is only secured at the expense of others: the majority of the handicraftsmen in this category employ wage-workers (roughly about 85% of the masters employ wage-labourers, and the average for the 2,016 establishments is over one wage-worker per establishment). Hence, in order to fight their way out of the mass of poverty-stricken handicraftsmen, this category, under the existing commodity-capitalist relations, have to win a “sufficiency” for themselves from others, have to engage in economic struggle, to squeeze out the mass of the small producers still further and become petty bourgeois.” (p 419)
In other words, we see the same phenomenon as described by Marx, Engels and Lenin elsewhere. That is that the workers, here, suffer both from capitalism and from the insufficient development of capitalism.
Only 3.8% of families came under the category of well-to-do handicraft producers, with an average income of 100 roubles per family worker. That is about double the wages of a wage worker, and is based on considerable employment of wage labour. On average, 2 wage workers were employed per enterprise.
The affluent handicraft families constituted only 1.9% of the total. They had average incomes of 820 roubles. In fact, included in this category are enterprises with 5 family members, and some with none, the workers then comprising a larger number of wage workers. On average, this means earnings per family worker of 350 roubles. But, where more wage workers are employed this would imply a higher income per family worker.
“The high incomes of these “handicraftsmen” accrue from the large number of wage-workers employed, averaging about 10 persons per establishment. These are already small manufacturers, owners of capitalist workshops, and to include them among the “handicraftsmen,” together with the one-man establishments, rural artisans and even domestic producers who work for manufacturers (and sometimes, as we shall see below, for these same affluent handicraftsmen!) only testifies, as we have already remarked, to the utter vagueness and haziness of the term “handicraft.”” (p 420)
The data, it might be argued, does not show high levels of concentration, typical of capitalism, but that is explained by the fact that the term “handicraft” is itself vague, and the “average” figures obscure the divisions further. The data does not include the buyers-up, which distorts the figures for the distribution of incomes further. In reality, the buyers up represent capitalist employers for whom many of the “independent” producers work, essentially as wage workers.
“We are therefore entitled, in fact we are obliged, to conclude that the actual distribution of incomes in handicraft industry is far more uneven than was shown above, for the categories which include the largest industrialists of all have been omitted.” (p 421)
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