Book 3 — CHAPTER III.

WAGES.

SECTION CLX.

THE PRICE OF COMMON LABOR.

Like the price of every commodity, the immediate wages of common labor is determined by the relation of the demand and supply of labor. Other circumstances being the same, every great plague[160-1] or emigration[160-2] is wont, by decreasing the supply, to increase the wage's of labor; and a plague, the wages of the lowest kind of labor most.[160-3] And so, the increased demand, in harvest time, is wont to increase wages; and even day board during harvest time is wont to be better.[160-4] [160-5] In winter the diminished demand lowers wages again.[160-6] Among the most effective tricks of socialistic sophistry is, unfortunately, to caricature the correct principle: "labor is a commodity," into this other: "the laborer is a commodity."

Moreover, common labor has this peculiarity, that those who have it to supply are generally much more numerous than those who want it; while the reverse is the case with most other commodities. Another important peculiarity of the "commodity" labor, is, that it can seldom be bought, without at the same time reducing the person of the seller to a species of dependence. Thus, for instance, the seller cannot be in a place different from that in which his commodity is. Hence a change in the person, etc. of the buyer very readily necessitates in the workman a radical change of life, and that the levelling adjustment of local excess and want is rendered so difficult in the case of this commodity.[160-7] Hence, it is that, if in the long run the exchange of labor against wages is to be an equitable one (§ 110), the master of labor must, so to speak, incorporate part of his own personality into it, have a heart for faithful workmen and thus attach them to himself.[160-8]

In harvest time. Other times.

In Scotland for males, 18s. 7d. 12s. 11½d.

" " females, 11s. 4d. 5s. 7d.

In Ireland " males, 12s. 9d. 6s. 11½d.

" " females, 8s. 3d. 3s. 9d.

" " males, 15s. 4d. 7s. 1¼d.

" " females, 7s. 1¾d. 3s. 11d.

SECTION CLXI.

WAGES OF LABOR.—THE MINIMUM OF WAGES.

Human labor cannot, any more than any other commodity, be supplied, in the long run, at a price below the cost of production.[161-1] [161-2] The cost of production here embraces not only the necessary or customary means of subsistence of the workman himself, but also of his family; that is, of the coming generation of workmen. The number of the latter depends essentially on the demand for labor. If this demand be such that it may be satisfied by an average of six children to a family, the rate of wages must be such as to support the workman himself and to cover the cost of bringing up six children.[161-3] Where it is customary for the wife and child, as well as for the father, to work for wages, the father does not need to earn the entire support of the family, and hence individual wages may be smaller.[161-4] But if it were to fall below the cost mentioned above, it would not be long before increased mortality and emigration, and a diminution of marriages and births would produce a diminution of the supply; the result of which would be, if the demand remained the same, a renewed rise of wages.

Conversely, it would be more difficult for the rate of wages to be maintained long much above that same cost, in proportion as the gratification of the sexual appetite was more generally considered the highest pleasure of sense, and the love of parents for their children as the most natural human duty. As Adam Smith says, where there is a great demand for men, there will always be a large supply of them.[161-5]

SECTION CLXII.[TN 7]

COST OF PRODUCTION OF LABOR.

The idea conveyed by the expression necessaries of life is, within certain limits, a relative one. In warm countries, a workman's family needs less clothing, shelter, fuel and even food[162-1] than in cold countries. This difference becomes still more striking when the warm countries possess absolutely cheaper food as, for instance, rice, Turkish wheat, bananas etc. Here, evidently, other circumstances being the same, the rate of wages may be lower.[162-2] The cultivation of the potato has operated in the same direction; since an acre of land planted with potatoes yields, on an average, twice as much food as the same acre planted with rye.[162-3] In France, two-thirds of the population lived almost without animal food, on chestnuts, Indian corn, and potatoes (Dupin), while in England, malt, hops, sugar, brandy, tea, coffee, tobacco, soap, newspapers, etc. are described as "articles chiefly used by the laboring classes." (Carey.)

The standard of decency of the working class also has great influence here. The use of blouses in Paris has nothing repulsive, nor that of wooden shoes in many of the provinces of France, nor the absence of shoes in lower Italy; while the English workman considers leather shoes indispensable, as he did only a short time ago a cloth coat. Compare infra, § 214.[162-4]

Of Watery contents included. Watery contents excluded.

wheat, 1,881 lbs. 1,680 lbs.

rye, 1,549 lbs. 1,404 lbs.

pease, 1,217 lbs. 1,095 lbs.

potatoes, 21,029 lbs. 5,257 lbs.

Azotized Substance. Fecula. Mineral Matter

Wheat, 282 lbs. 879 lbs. 49 lbs.

Rye, 243 lbs. 661 lbs. 34 lbs.

Pease, 309 lbs. 431 lbs. 33 lbs.

Potatoes, 525 lbs. 3,785 lbs. 178 lbs.

Of Rye. Of Wheat. Of Potatoes.

One lb. of dry substance, 1 1.28 .95

One lb. of protein substance, 1 1.11 1.78

One lb. of fecula,1 1.14 0.72

Grammes. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Plastic material, 56.70 70.87 119.07 155.92 184.27

Fat, 14.70 28.35 51.03 70.87 70.87

Starch, 340.20 340.20 530.15 567.00 567.00

SECTION CLXIII.

WAGES OF LABOR.—POWER OF THE WORKING CLASSES OVER THE RATE OF WAGES.

In this way, the working classes hold in their own hands one of the principal elements which determine the rate of wages; and it is wrong to speak of an "iron law" which, under the control of supply and demand, always reduces the average wages down to the means of subsistence.[163-1] For the moment, indeed, not only individual workmen, but the whole working class is master of the supply of its commodity only to a very small extent; since, as a rule, the care for existence compels it to carry, and that without interruption, its whole labor-power to market. But it is true that the future supply depends on its own will; since, with an increase or decrease in the size of the families of workingmen, that supply increases or diminishes. If, therefore, by a favorable combination of circumstances, wages have risen above the height of urgent necessity, there are two ways open to the working class to take advantage of that condition of things. The workman either raises his standard of living, which means not only that his necessary wants are better satisfied, his decencies increased and refined, but also and chiefly, that the intellectual want of a good prospect in the future, which so particularly distinguishes the honorable artisan from the proletarian is taken into consideration. And it is just here that a permanent workingmen's union, which should govern the whole class, might exert the greatest influence. Their improved economic state can be maintained only on condition that the laboring class shall create families no larger than they hope to be able to support consistently with their new wants.[163-2]

Or, the laboring class continues to live on as before, from hand to mouth, and employ their increased resources to gratify their sexual appetite earlier and longer than before, thus soon leading to an increase of population.

The English took the former course in the second quarter of the last century, when English national economy received a powerful impetus, and the large demand for labor rapidly enhanced the rate of wages. The Scotch did in like manner a generation later. The second alternative was taken by the Irish, when the simultaneous spread of the cultivation of the potato[163-3] and the union with England, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, gave an extraordinary extension to their resources of food. While the population of Great Britain, between 1720 and 1821, did little more than double, the population of Ireland increased from 2,000,000 to nearly 7,000,000 between 1731 and 1821. No wonder, therefore, that the average wages of labor was twenty to twenty-four pence per day in the former, and in the latter only five pence. (MCCulloch.)[163-4]

Naturally enough, this difference of choice by the two peoples is to be explained by the difference in their previous circumstances. The Irish people, robbed by violence of their own higher classes, and, therefore, and on this account precisely, almost entirely destitute of a middle class, had lost the check on increase they possessed in the middle ages, without having as yet assimilated to themselves[TN 8] the checks which come with a higher stage of culture. Their political, ecclesiastical and social oppression allowed them no hope of rising by temporary sacrifices and energetic efforts permanently to a better condition as citizens or gentlemen. Only the free man cares for the future. Hence, the sexual thoughtlessness and blind good nature, the original tendencies of the Irish people, necessarily remained without anything to counterbalance them. It always supposes a high degree of intelligence and self-restraint among the lower classes, when an increase in the thing-value, or the real value of wages, does not produce an increase in the number of workmen, but in their well-being. The individual is too apt to think that it matters little to the whole community whether he brings children into the world or not, a species of egotism which has done most injury to the interests in common of mankind. As a rule, it requires a great and palpable enhancement of wages to make workmen, as a class, raise their standard of living.[163-5] [163-6]

SECTION CLXIV.

WAGES.—COST OF PRODUCTION OF LABOR.

As the cheapening of the means of subsistence, when the circle of wants of the laboring class has not correspondingly increased, leads to a decline of wages, so an enhancement of their price must, when wages are already so low as only to be able to satisfy indispensable wants, produce an increase in the rate of wages. The transition in the former case is as pleasing as in the latter it is replete with the saddest crises.[164-1] The slower the rise in the price of the means of subsistence is, the more it is to be feared that the working classes will seek to meet it, not by emigration or by a diminished number of marriages, but by decreasing the measure of their wants, the introduction of a poorer quality of food, etc.[164-2]

However, all this is true only of permanent changes in the average price of the means of subsistence, such as are produced, for instance, by the development of agriculture, by taxation etc. Transitory fluctuations, such as result, for instance, from a single good or bad harvest, cannot have this result.[164-3] It is, in poor countries at least, one of the worst effects of a bad harvest, that it tends to positively lower the rate of wages. A multitude of persons who would otherwise be able to purchase much labor are now deterred from doing so, by the enhancement of the price of food.[164-4] On the other hand, the supply increases: many men who before would not work even for money, see themselves now compelled to do so. Those who have been workmen hitherto are compelled by want to make still greater exertions.[164-5]

In very cheap years, all this is naturally reversed.[164-6]

1287, 2s. 10¼ d. 3 d.

1315, 14s. 10-7/8 d. 3 d.

1316, 15s. 11-7/8 d. 3-7/8 d.

1392, 3s. 2-5/8 d. 5 d.

1407, 3s. 4 d. 3 d.

1439, 8s.-26s. 8 d. 4½ d.

1466, 5s. 8 d. 4-6 d.

1505, 6s. 8 d. 4 d.

1575, 20s. 8 d.

1590, 21s. 3-6 d.

1600, 10 d.

SECTION CLXV.

WAGES.—THE DEMAND FOR LABOR.

The demand for labor, as for every other commodity, depends, on the one hand, on the value in use of it, and on the other, on the purchaser's capacity to pay for it (his solvability), These two elements determine the maximum limit of wages, as the means of support considered indispensable by the workmen determine the minimum. There are circumstances conceivable under which the rise in wages might entirely eat up rents; but there must always be a portion of the national income reserved to reward capital (its profit). If wages were to absorb the latter also, the mere owner of capital would cease to have any interest in the progress of production. Capital would then be withdrawn from employment and consumed.[165-1] Obviously, no man engaged in any enterprise can give more as wages to his workmen than their work is worth to him.[165-2] Hence the additional product in any branch of industry, due to the labor of the workman last employed, has a controlling influence on the rate of the wages which can be paid to his fellow workmen. If the additional products of the workmen successively last employed constitute a diverging series,[165-3] the last term in the series is the natural expression of the unsurpassable maximum of wages; if they constitute a converging series, men the employer can pay the last workman higher wages than the additional product due to him; provided, however, that the reduction which is to be expected in the case of the workmen previously employed to the same level still leaves him a sufficiently high rate of profit.[165-4] Hence the growing skill of a workman, in and of itself, makes an increase of his wages possible;[165-5] while, conversely, if he can be replaced by capital, which always relatively decreases the value in use of his labor, there is a consequent pressure on his wages.

When the number of men employed in gathering them was Then the additional yield obtained by the last workman employed is

4, 80 scheffels,

5, 86.6 " 6.6 scheffels.

6, 91 " 4.4 scheffels.

7, 94 " 3 scheffels.

8, 96 " 2 scheffels.

(von Thünen, Der isolirte Staat, II, 174 ff.)

SECTION CLXVI.

WAGES.—PRICE OF COMMON LABOR.

In the case of a commodity as universally desired as human labor is, the idea of the purchasers' capacity to pay (solvability) must be nearly commensurate with the national income, or to speak more correctly, with the world's income.[166-1] In regard to the different kinds of labor, and especially to common labor, it is evident that the different kinds of consumption require very different quantities of them. Here, therefore, we depend on the direction which national consumption takes, and this in turn is most intimately related to the distribution of the national income.[166-2] If all workmen were employed in nothing but the production of articles consumed by workmen, the rate of wages would be determined almost exclusively by the ratio between the number of the working population and the amount of the national income. But, if this were the case, landowners and capitalists would be obliged to live just as workmen do, and their highest luxury would have to consist in feeding idlers. (§ 226). The effect must be much the same, when the wealthy are exceedingly frugal and employ their savings as rapidly as possible in the employment of common home labor; while, on the other hand, the exportation of wheat, wood, and other articles, which the working classes consume, in exchange for diamonds, lace, champagne, diminishes the efficient demand for common labor in a country.[166-3]

The assumption frequently made, that the demand for labor depends on the size of the national capital, is far from exact.[166-4] Thus, for instance, every transformation of circulating into fixed capital, especially when the labor used in effecting this transformation is ended, diminishes the demand for other labor. That principle is not unconditionally true, even in the case of circulating capital. Thus, for instance, the rate of wages is wont to be raised by the transfer of capital from such businesses as require little labor into such as require much.[166-5] Only that part of circulating capital can have any weight here which is intended, directly or indirectly, for the purchase of labor and for the purchase of each kind of labor in particular.[166-6] The capital of the employer is, by no means, the real source[166-7] of the wages of even the workmen employed by him, It is only the immediate reservoir through which wages are paid out, until the purchasers of the commodities produced by that labor make good the advance, and thereby encourage the undertaker to purchase additional labor. Correlated to this is the fact, that other circumstances being the same, those workmen usually receive the highest wages who have to do most immediately with the consumer.[166-8]

SECTION CLXVII.

DIFFERENCE OF WAGES IN DIFFERENT BRANCHES OF LABOR.

All the causes which make wages higher in some branches of labor; than in others, may be divided into three great categories.[167-1]

A. Rare personal acquirements. The supply of labor requiring rare personal ability will always be limited.[167-2] Such labor must, naturally, have great value in use, when a small supply of it is met by a great demand.[167-3] It sometimes happens that a species of labor can be utilized only by a small circle of persons who demand it. But the wages for it is raised very high by the great solvability of those who do demand it. How frequently it happens, for instance, that a minister is paid a very high salary for the ability he possesses of making complicated and dry affairs of state attractive to the personal taste of his sovereign.[167-4] Here, particularly, the confidence which the workman inspires by his skill and fidelity enters as an element. Without this confidence, there are many kinds of business which would be crushed out entirely by the control it would be necessary to subject them to, and others would not be possible at all.[167-5] When, for instance, in a large manufacturing establishment, understrappers, workmen, foremen, subordinate superintendents, directors, etc., draw different salaries, their pay, if equitably graduated, should be in harmony with the principles laid down in § 148, The head of a manufacturing establishment, for instance, who has organized a more perfect division and coöperation of labor, himself, and by means of which ten men are enabled to perform the work before performed by twenty, may equitably retain, as the reward of his organizing power, a considerable amount of what was previously paid out in wages. Louis Blanc's proposition, that all should receive equal salaries is, as Bastiat remarks, equivalent to the assertion that a yard of cloth manufactured by a lazy or unskillful workman is worth as much as two yards manufactured by an industrious and skillful one.[167-6]

Such qualified labor, as is treated of here, may be most accurately estimated, the quality of which supposes a certain cost of acquisition. This cost may be considered as the outlay of so much capital, which, with interest,[167-7] should come back to the workman in his wages. Otherwise, others would be deterred from entering the same business by the example of his loss. Here, especially, it is necessary to take into account the long period of apprenticeship or tuition, and the large fees paid for the same; and this, whether they depend on the natural difficulties in the way of acquirement or on artificial obstacles opposed to freedom of competition.[167-8] The influence of these circumstances is particularly great in those kinds of labor which require a "liberal" education.[167-9] Among the costs of production proper, peculiar to this labor-force, must be included, also, the necessary support of the workman, during the interval between the completion of his studies and the beginning of his full reward.[167-10]

When a species of work requires special current expenses to be made in order to its proper performance, these also should of course be made good to the workman in his wages. Most intellectual labor, for instance, requires quiet surroundings. The brain-worker cannot share his study with his family, and, therefore should receive wages or remuneration large enough in amount to enable him to arrange his dwelling accordingly. A similar circumstance, only in a much higher degree, enhances the price paid for diplomatic service.

SECTION CLXVIII.

DIFFERENCE OF WAGES IN DIFFERENT BRANCHES OF LABOR. (CONTINUED.)

B. The great economic risk of the work. When a branch of labor necessary to a country is, notwithstanding, attended by many chances of failure to the individual who devotes himself to it, a sufficient supply of the labor can be relied on only in case that the danger attending it is compensated for by a corresponding premium paid to success.[168-1] The choice of a profession or avocation, Adam Smith has compared to a lottery, in which the fortunate winners gain only what the unfortunate have lost. The greater the prizes, the greater also the number of blanks.[168-2] However, the surplus wages in risky kinds of labor are not sufficient to constitute a full insurance premium. This is connected with the vanity of men who, as a rule, over-estimate not only their talent but their good fortune,[168-3] and especially in youth, when they decide on the choice of a profession, etc. According to this, wages must be specially low where even complete failure does not endanger the living or the social position of the workman. Partly on this account are the industries carried on by women so poorly remunerated;[168-4] as also such work as is done by a large class of people to fill up their leisure hours.[168-5]

The prospect of frequent interruptions in any kind of labor must have the same effect on the wages paid for it as its economic or business risk.[168-6] Thus, for instance, a mason or roofer must earn at least enough, during the days he can work, to enable him to live during the time he is prevented working by bad weather. Hence, the highness of his wages may, in some respects, be called an apparent one.[168-7] Wages paid by the week more generally tend to equality than wages paid by the day, and more so yet wages paid by the year, for then winter and summer compensate the one for the other. When the workman must be ever ready to perform his task, account must be taken not only of the number of hours he is engaged, but also of fractions of his waiting hours, which must be paid for likewise.[168-8] Two half days cost almost everywhere more than one whole one.

The number of holidays plays a very important part here. In Protestant countries, the workman must, in about three hundred work days, earn enough to live on for about sixty holidays as well. In Catholic countries, before the time of Clement XIV., he had to earn enough in addition to support himself for about one hundred and fifty holidays, on ninety of which he performed no work whatever.[168-9] So large a number of holidays produces a higher rate of wages or necessitates a low standard of life among the working classes.[168-10] Something similar is true of evening leisure and rest;[168-11] i. e., of the time when labor ceases.

SECTION CLXIX.

THE DISAGREEABLENESS OF CERTAIN CLASSES OF LABOR.—ITS EFFECT ON WAGES.

C. Lastly, the personal disagreeableness of the work, which must be compensated for by higher wages. The uncleanness of a coal-worker's task, that of the chimney-sweep, and the repulsive labor of the butcher, demand high compensation, while other branches of business, themselves productive of pleasure, and therefore engaged in by many for pleasure's sake only, yield relatively little to those who engage in them as a regular industry.[169-1]

To this category belong the kinds of labor which require extraordinary effort,[169-2] or which put life or health in unusual jeopardy.[169-3] But, indeed, when the danger attending any kind of work is made glorious by the romantic light of honor, or by still higher motives, it ceases to have any influence on wages.[169-4] On the other hand, the disreputableness of a business in itself raises wages;[169-5] whereas, scholars, poets, etc., leaving the charm inherent in their occupations out of account, are for the most part remunerated only by the honor paid them, and, not unfrequently, only by fame after they have gone hence.[169-6] And yet their talents are so rare, the preparation so laborious, the economic risk so great! Nor is there for the really creative workman any such thing as evening rest. (Riehl.) Common intellectual labor is worse paid in our days than it was, comparatively speaking, a generation ago; because the increased average education makes it less burthensome to most people, and even seem positively agreeable to many. It would, indeed, be a dangerous retrogressive step towards barbarism, if it should come to such a pass, that labor preponderantly intellectual should be permanently more poorly remunerated than mere muscular labor.[169-7] [169-8]

SECTION CLXX.

RATE OF WAGES.—INFLUENCE OF CUSTOM.

Custom always exerts a great influence where there is question of choosing an avocation with the intention of devoting one's self to it entirely and exclusively. There is a public opinion which fixes the gradation of the different classes of labor and their appropriate reward, which is slow to change, and which both determines, and is determined by the relation of supply and demand. There is an equilibrium between the pleasantness of work and the rate of wages only in the case of such kinds of labor as are on the same social footing. It frequently happens, however, that the most repulsive work has to be performed by those who are forced to accept any pay and to be satisfied with it.[170-1] There are many branches of labor those engaged in which still form a kind of exclusive caste; and the pay of the higher branches is maintained at a high rate, especially by the fact that the members of the castes to which they belong are provident in their marriages. The lower classes are not in a condition to meet the preparation necessary to engage in such professions, even if they were certain of being afterwards reimbursed with interest for the outlay.[170-2] One of the chief causes of the lowness of wages paid to women is, that so few branches of labor are traditionally open to them, that the few that are, are intended to supply luxuries, and are, besides, for the most part, over-crowded. The distribution of the aggregate wages earned by any industry, among the higher and lower classes of workmen who coöperate in it, depends very largely on their social position relatively to one another.[170-3] [170-4] Here political forms and changes may exert the greatest influence.[170-5]

Thus, the artificial increase of the wages of masters effected by the former guild-system was produced, to say the least, as much at the cost of the journeymen and apprentices as of the public. And if, on the other hand, it cannot be said that the most recent marked rise in wages, in so many countries, is merely the consequence of the extension of the parliamentary right of suffrage, certain it is that the two phenomena are very closely related, and that both are at once the effect and the cause of the intensified feeling of individuality and of the consciousness of constituting a class in the community of the lower strata of society.

SECTION CLXXI.

HISTORY OF THE WAGES OF COMMON LABOR.—IN THE LOWER STAGES OF CIVILIZATION.

In very low stages of civilization, where there is scarcely any such thing as rent, and where capital is extremely rare, the wages of labor, notwithstanding its small amount absolutely speaking, must eat up the greatest part of the product.[171-1] With every further advance, the condition of the laboring class is modified, according as the natural decline in this relative amount of their wages is outweighed or counterbalanced, or neither outweighed nor counterbalanced, by the increase in the aggregate product; in other words, in the national income in general as compared with the number of workmen.

SECTION CLXXII.

HISTORY OF THE WAGES OF COMMON LABOR.—IN FLOURISHING TIMES.

When, where a nation's economy[172-1] is growing and flourishing, capital increases more rapidly than population, there is a search for employment by capital still greater than the search for employment by labor. The consequence is, of course, a decline in the rate of interest, and a rise in the rate of the wages of labor, although the latter may be compelled to surrender a part of its increase to rent, which also rises. If simultaneously with these phenomena, there have been great advances made in national productive skill, especially in the cultivation of land; if, therefore, labor and the capital consumed have become more prolific, the condition of the laboring class is improved in a two-fold manner; the condition of capitalists needs, to say the least, grow no worse, and the increase of rent paid to landowners may be avoided.[172-2]

This favorable development is most striking in the colonies of rich and highly civilized parent countries, where the labor, capital and social customs of an old and ripe civilization are found together with the overflowing natural forces inherent in a virgin soil, engaged in the work of economic production. Here the growth of national wealth is most rapid; and the rate of wages is here wont to be highest.[172-3] With the high rate of interest that obtains where capital is rapidly saved, and with the low price of land, it is not a matter of difficulty for good workmen to enter into the ranks of landowners and capitalists. In North America, and especially in the western part,[172-4] it is very frequently in the normal course of economic development for young people to begin to work on wages, then to work on their own account, and finally to become themselves employers of labor.

SECTION CLXXIII.

HISTORY OF THE WAGES OF COMMON LABOR.—IN FLOURISHING NATIONS.

A permanently[173-1] high rate of wages[173-2] is, both as cause and effect, very intimately connected with a flourishing condition of national life. It proves on the one hand, great productiveness of the public economy of the people generally: prudence, self-respect and self-control, even of the lowest classes, virtues, which, however, are found, on the whole, only where political liberty exists, and where the lowest classes are rightly valued by the higher.[173-3] On the other hand, it produces a condition of the great majority of that portion of the population who have to support themselves on the wages they receive, worthy of human beings, a condition in which they can educate their children, enjoy the present and provide for the future. Equality before the law and participation in the affairs of government are empty phrases, and even tend to inflame the passions, where the rate of wages is not high. When the lower classes are dissatisfied, in highly civilized countries, with the sensitiveness and mobility of the whole national life, there can be no certainty of the freedom of the middle classes or of the rule of the upper. Here, in other respects, also, the philanthropy of employers harmonizes remarkably well with their reasonable self-interest. According to § 40, only the well-paid workman can accomplish anything really good, just as, conversely, only the good workman is on the whole, and in the long run, well paid. This suggests the physiological law, that where muscular activity is great, nutrition must be great, likewise; and the rapid waste and repair of tissues strengthens the muscles and gives tone to the whole physical life. With a correct insight into the relations of things, antiquity described its greatest worker, Herakles, as a great eater also. A well-paid workman, who costs and accomplishes as much in a day as two bad ones, is cheaper than they. He works much more cheerfully and faithfully, is, hence, more easily superintended, is less frequently sick, and later decrepid. [173-4] His childhood costs less, and his burial is not so expensive. In cases of need, he can more easily bear the weight of taxation or a temporary lowering of wages. [173-5] We might say of the granting of holidays and of evening leisure something similar to what we have said of the rate of wages. They are indispensable requisites to the development of a desirable individuality in the working classes; and when used for that purpose are certainly no detriment to the product of labor or to employers.[173-6] [173-7]

In consideration of all the blessings attending a high rate of wages, we may well be induced to put up with a certain and frequently inconvenient external defiance of the lower classes which is wont to accompany it.[173-8] It teaches the upper classes many a moral lesson, and is surely a lesser sin in the lower, than the cowardly, malicious crimes of the oppressed. When wages are so low that they have to be supplemented by begging or public charity, the effect on morality is the same as when government officials, who cannot live on their salaries, resort to bribery or embezzlement.[173-9] [173-10]

In Tax per capita of the population for support of the poor.

Leeds, 22—22½s. 5s. 7d.

Gloucester, 13—15¼s. 8s. 8d.

Somerset, 16¾—19¾s. 8s. 9d.

Wilts, 13-7/12—15-5/12s. 16s. 6d.

SECTION CLXXIV.

HISTORY OF THE WAGES OF COMMON LABOR.—IN DECLINING COUNTRIES AND TIMES.

When, circumstances being otherwise unaltered, the aggregate income of a nation decreases, the wages of labor are wont to be lower in proportion as the points above mentioned, and which are unfavorable to the laborer in his competition, appear.[174-1] The worse distribution, also, of the national resources, when, instead of a numerous middle class, a few over-rich people monopolize all that is to be possessed, diminishes the wages of common labor and thus again produces a worse distribution than before.[174-2] In a similar way, wages must decline when the mode of life of the laboring class, or the quality of their work, has deteriorated. Some of these causes may exist transitorily even among otherwise flourishing nations; as, for instance, in war times,[174-3] or when population for a while grows more rapidly than national wealth. But among nations universally declining, they are all wont to meet, and one strengthens the other.[174-4] One of the saddest symptoms of such a condition is the low value here put upon the life and strength of workmen. The cheapness of labor has indeed a charm for enterprising spirits, which induces them to employ human labor even where machinery, beasts, etc., would economically be better adapted to the performance of the work.[174-5] Day-laborers are, on this account, more profitable to persons of enterprise (Unternehmer=undertaker) because they can more easily rid themselves of them. But such egotistic calculation should have no place even in the case of actual slaves.[174-6]

Besides, it not unfrequently happens, that the laboring class seek to oppose the decline of wages by increasing their industry, shortening their holidays and leisure, and by drawing their wives and children into their work. This may, under certain circumstances, result in an increase of the national income, and thus constitute a transition to the restoration of high wages, especially if beforehand there was reason to complain of the idleness of the working class. But if the other circumstances of competition are unfavorable to the working class, if especially they used their personally increased income to add to the population, it would not be long before they fell back to their previous state. In such case, the consequence is, that the same quantity of labor has become cheaper; that all permanent profit falls to the capitalists and landowners, and all that remains to the laboring class is only greater toil, a sadder home-life, and sadder children. The danger of such an issue is all the greater, because few things so much contribute to reckless marriages and the thoughtless procreation of children, as the industrial coöperation of wife and child.[174-7] [174-8]

A. B. C. D. E. F.

Cwt. 1810-20 1700[TN 13] 1827 1830 1820-33 1826-45

beef, 26.00 33.0 35.0 6.6 34.0 36.00

potatoes, 1.85 — — — 1.0 02.68

wheat, 5.50 — — 2.0 7.6 11.00

rye, — 6.5 8.7 1.5 5.4 8.60

butter, 42.30 87.0 64.0 22.0 83.0 84.00

sugar, 96.00 181.0 128.0 — — —

SECTION CLXXV.

WAGE POLICY.—SET PRICE OF LABOR.

Among the artificial means employed to alter the existing rate of wages, we may mention first, a rate of wages fixed by governmental authority. These have, in many places, constituted an intermediate step between serfdom and the free wage-system. In most cases, this measure was intended in the interest of the upper classes to prevent the lower obtaining the full advantage of their freedom under the favoring circumstances of competition.[175-1] In later times, another cause has frequently been added to this, viz.: by diminishing the cost of production to increase foreign sales. (See § 106.) In the higher stages of civilization, nations will scarcely look with favor on the diminution of the rightful, for the most part, individually small gains of the most numerous, the poorest and most care-worn class of the community.[175-2] The purchasers of labor would, in consequence, be badly served, since they would have lost the possibility of obtaining better workmen by paying higher wages. Hence, there would, probably, be none but mediocre labor to be found.[175-3] On the other hand, fixed rates which keep within the limits described in § 114 are, under certain circumstances, desirable. This is especially the case where the purchasers of labor on the one hand, and the buyers of labor on the other, have formed themselves into united groups, and where the rate fixed is only in the nature a treaty of peace under governmental sanction, when a war over prices had either broken out actually or there was danger to fear that one would break out. It must not be forgotten, that thus far common labor has scarcely had any thing similar to an "exchange."[175-4]

SECTION CLXXVI.

WAGES-POLICY.—STRIKES.

Where the wages-receiving class feel themselves to be a special class, vis-a-vis of the purchasers of their labor, they have frequently endeavored, by the preconcerted suspension of labor upon a large scale, to force their masters to pay them higher wages, or grant them some other advantage.[176-1] It is hard to say whether such strikes have more frequently failed or succeeded.[176-2]

As a rule, a war over prices, carried on by such means, and without force on either side, must generally issue in the victory of the richer purchasers of labor.[176-3] The latter require the uninterrupted continuation of labor for their convenience and profit; but the workmen need it to live. It is but seldom that the workmen will be in a condition to stop work for more than a few months, without feeling the sting of hunger. The purchaser of labor can live longer on his capital; and the victory here belongs to the party who, in the struggle, holds out longest. Hence, a strike that lasts more than six weeks may, for that reason alone, be considered a failure. The employers of labor, on account of their smaller number and greater education, make their counter-coalition much more secret and effective. How many instances there are in which labor-saving machines have come into use more rapidly than they otherwise would have come but for the influence of these coalitions![176-4]

On the other hand, it cannot be ignored that a host of workmen, by means of an organization which provides them with a unity of will, such as the heads of great enterprises naturally possess, must become much better skilled in carrying on a struggle for higher wages. Where wages in general tend to rise, but by force of custom, which is specially powerful here (§ 170), are kept below their natural level, a strike may very soon attain its end. And workmen are all the more to be wished God-speed here in proportion as employers are slow to decide of their own motion upon raising wages, and where, under certain circumstances,[176-5] a single cold-hearted master might force all his competitors to keep wages down. If even the entire working class should follow the example of the strikers, so that all commodities, in so far as they are products of labor, should grow dearer to an extent corresponding to the rise in wages, there would still remain an improvement of the condition of the working class at the cost of the interest paid on capital and the profits of enterprise. It is, of course, otherwise with the struggle of workmen against the natural conditions which determine the rate of their wages (§§ 161-166) in which they might, in turbulent times, possibly succeed[176-6] temporarily, but would, in the long run, have to fail.[176-7]

The working class will be best fortified in such a struggle for higher wages when their organization is a permanent one, and when they have taken care, during good times, to collect a certain amount of capital to protect their members, during their cessation from work, against acute want. This is the object of the trades-unions as they have grown up in England, especially since the total decline of the guild system and of governmental provisions relating to apprentices, fixed rates of wages[176-8] etc. But it cannot be denied that these unions, although democratic in form, often exercise a very despotic sway over their members;[176-9] that they have, so far as the employers of labor are concerned, and the non-union laborers, gone back to a number of measures, outgrowths of the guild and embargo systems, which it was fondly hoped had been forever banished by the freedom of industry.[176-10] What many of the friends of this system hope it may accomplish in the future, viz.: regulate the whole relation between capital and labor, and thus, on the whole, control the entire public economy of a people,[176-11] is, fortunately, all the more certainly a chimera, as any national or universal approximation to this end would be the most efficacious way to compel employers of labor to the formation of corresponding and probably far superior opposing unions. Notwithstanding this, however, I do not doubt that the recent development of trades-unions in England is both a cause and an effect of the rise in wages in the branches of industry in question, as well as of the moral elevation of the condition of the working class which has simultaneously taken place.[176-12] The mere possibility of a strike is of itself calculated, in the determination of the rate of wages, to procure for the equitable purchaser of labor the desirable preponderance over the inequitable.[176-13]

SECTION CLXXVII.

WAGES-POLICY.—STRIKES AND THE STATE.

Should the state tolerate the existence of strikes or strike-unions? Legislation in the past most frequently gave a negative answer to the question, as well from a repugnance for high wages as for the self-help of the masses.[177-1] But even leaving the above reasons out of consideration, every strike is a severe injury to the national resources in general,[177-2] one which causes that part especially to suffer from which those engaged in the various enterprises and the working class draw their income. And, even for the latter, the damage endured is so great that it can be compensated for only by very permanently high wages.[177-3] How many a weak man has been misled by a long cessation from work during a strike, which ate up his savings, into lasting idleness and a devil-may-care kind of life. When employers, through fear of strikes, keep all large orders, etc. secret, the workmen are not in a condition to forecast their prospects and condition even for the near future. And in the end a dread of the frequent return of such disturbances may cause capital to emigrate.[177-4]

However, where there exists a very high degree of civilization, there is a balance of reasons in favor of the non-intervention of governments,[177-5] but only so long as the striking workmen are guilty of no breach of contract and of no crime. Where every one may legally throw up his employment, there is certainly no plausible legal objection to all of them doing so at once, and then forming new engagements. Coalitions of purchasers of labor for the purpose of lowering wages, which are most frequent though noiselessly formed, the police power of the state cannot prevent. If now it were attempted to keep the working class alone from endeavoring to correspondingly raise their wages, the impression would become general, and be entertained with right, that the authorities were given to measuring with different standards. Where the working classes so sensitively feel the influence of the government on the state of their wages, they would be only too much inclined to charge every chance pressure made by the circumstances of the times to the account of the state, and thus burthen it with a totally unbearable responsibility. Since 1824, freedom of competition has prevailed in this matter on both sides in England.[177-6] The dark side of the picture would be most easily brightened by a longer duration of contracts of labor.[177-7]

Whether the trades-unions, when they shall have happily withstood the fermentative process now going on, shall be able to fill up the void created by the downfall of the economically active corporations of the latter part of the middle ages, we shall discuss in our future work, Die Nationalökonomik des Gewerbfleisses. One of the chief conditions precedent thereto is the strict justice of the state, which should protect members of the unions from all tyranny by their leaders, and from violations of the legal rights of non-members.[177-8]

SECTION CLXXVIII.

WAGES-POLICY.—MINIMUM OF WAGES.

The demand[178-1] so frequently heard recently, that the state should guaranty an "equitable" minimum of wages, could be granted where the natural rate of wages has fallen below that minimum, only on condition that some of the working class in the distribution of the wages capital (no longer sufficient in all the less profitable branches of business) should go away entirely empty handed. Hence, as a rule, in addition to that wages-guaranty, the guaranty of the right to labor is also required. But as useful labor always finds purchasers (the word "useful" being here employed in the sense of the entire economy of a people, and understood in the light of the proper gradation of wants and the means of satisfying them), such a right to labor means no more and no less than that the state should force labor which no one can use, upon others.[178-2] Something similar is true of Louis Blanc's proposition that the rate of wages of the workmen should be determined and regulated by their own votes and among themselves.[178-3]

All such measures are injurious in proportion as they, by extending aid and the amount of the minimum, go beyond the limits of benevolence, and approach those of a community of goods. (§ 81 ff.) However, if they would be lasting and not pull workmen rapidly down to the very depths of universal and irremediable misery, these measures should be accompanied by the bestowal of power on the guarantor to hold the further increase of the human family within bounds.[178-4]

The condition of workmen can be continued good or materially improved only on condition that their numbers increase less rapidly than the capital destined for wages. The latter increases usually and most surely by savings. But only the middle classes are really saving. In England, for instance, the national capital increases every year by at least £50,000,000, while the working classes spend at least £60,000,000 in tobacco and spirituous liquors, i. e., in numberless instances, only for a momentary injurious enjoyment by the adult males of the class, one in which their families have almost no share. According to this, every compulsory rise in wages would be a taking away from the saving class and a giving to a class that effect no savings. Is not this to act after the manner of the savages who cut down a fruit tree in order more conveniently to relish its fruit?[178-5]

Benjamin Franklin calls out to workmen and says: If any one tells you that you can become rich in any other way than through industry and frugality, do not listen to him; he is a poisoner! And, in fact, only those changes permanently improve the condition of the working classes which are useful to the whole people: enhanced productiveness of every branch of business in the country, increased capital, the growth (also relative) of the industrial middle classes, the greater education, strength of character, skill and fidelity in labor of workmen themselves. Much especially depends upon their foresight and self-control as regards bringing children into the world. Without this latter virtue even the favorable circumstances would be soon trifled away.[178-6]