Note 263 — Chapter XI · THE ULTIMATE RELATION OF COST TO VALUE (continued 2)

A rise of the exchange value of the specific product of labor compensates for superior disutility by enabling the laborer to purchase things of higher esteem value with his enhanced wages. In other words, we have been explaining the familiar doctrine that wages tend to be higher in employments of higher cost. If a laborer were free to choose the precise length of his own working day, he would stop when the final disutility of the labor and the utility of the commodities purchased by the marginal increment of wages are equivalent.