The Great Money Trick
(Performed with Matches)
Hello and welcome to my company,
I’m going to be serious, I hope you will allow me;
I’m here to explain how you get your money:
This is serious, it won’t be funny –
A lesson about profit and how you get your wages,
I’ll make it easy, in sequential stages.
Now, imagine you’re a fagger, I mean a smoker -
Just now and then, not an absolute choker -
But you need to light your fag, and that’s a fact,
Now imagine that you use a safety match.
This lucifer will light our way to wisdom,
By exemplifying capitalism:
Each match will be a symbol, nay, an allegory,
To represent political economy;
SHOW A BOX OF MATCHES ON SCREEN OR BY HAND
Imagine I own the factories, shops, land, and banks,
I am the capitalist in these gathered ranks,
There are no tricks, no magical catches,
I own the means of production:
These four matches;
SHOW THE FOUR MATCHES ON SCREEN OR BY HAND
You workers are free, not slaves in cages,
But to live, you must labour for your wages:
And earn one match, that’s it, complete,
SHOW THE SINGLE MATCH ON SCREEN OR BY HAND
And now you spend it the next week,
On those indispensable necessities for life,
Which gives me, the capitalist, without strife,
Another match to add to the pre-existent four,
We’ve got richer, you stay poor,
We’ve gone up from four to five,
SHOW THE FIVE MATCHES ON SCREEN OR BY HAND
You spent your wage on staying alive,
You’re all confined to your penurious corner,
While the rich get richer, the poor are poorer;
But that, of course, is not the end of it,
The capitalist takes and makes another match as profit,
The matches now go up from four to six,
While you, the workers, are left, of course, with nix.
SHOW THE SIX MATCHES ON SCREEN OR BY HAND
You don’t need to be a genius to see
The implications of infinity.
SHOW A WHOLE BOX OF MATCHES ON SCREEN OR THROW BY HAND
And that, my friends, is how the system works,
And I’m not declaring that we’re all burkes,
But at the very least let’s make the rich pay much more tax,
And at the very least let’s all accept these awkward facts:
Why should the poor support the poor with homespun charity?
The rich should pay the tax that leads to parity,
A progressive tax that redistributes our wealth,
That guarantees some security and health.
.
Now isn’t that preferable to being hapless?
It’s a scheme that’s absolutely matchless.
It’s a systemic Scrooge-like process of redemption,
It is in fact an immaculate conception.
A scheme I hope you’ll countenance and savour,
And at the very least remember to vote Labour.