Principles of Political Economy Part 7

[Footnote 166-4: _McCulloch_, Principles, 104, seq. 2d ed.]

[Footnote 166-5: Thus, in France, during the continental blockade, distant ocean commerce declined, and manufactures flourished instead. (_Lotz_, Revision, III, 134.)]

[Footnote 166-6: Thus, _Adam Smith_ divides "the funds destined for the payment of wages" into two kinds: the excess of employers' income over their own maintenance, and the excess of their capital over the demands of their own use of it. (Wealth of Nat, I, ch. 8.) _Senior_ considers it a self-evident principle, that the rate of wages depends on the size of the "fund for the maintenance of laborers compared with the number of laborers to be maintained."

(Three Lectures on the Rate of Wages, 1830, Outlines, 153, ff.) But what determines the quota of the aggregate national wealth and national income that is to const.i.tute this fund?

_Carey_, Rate of Wages, 1835, has a very exhaustive commentary on _Senior_.]

[Footnote 166-7: _Watts_, Statist. Journal, 1861, 500, a.s.serts altogether too generally that an "increase of profit increases the future wages-fund, and consequently the demand for laborers;" and that therefore every new machine useful in manufactures must also be of use to the laboring cla.s.s.

The employer engaged in any enterprise who has grown richer, _can_ pay more wages, but whether he _will_ do it depends on other causes, and even his ability to do it, in the long run, on his customers. When _John Stuart Mill_, Principles, I, ch. 5, 9, says that only the capital which comes into the hands of labor before the completion of their work contributes to their support, it is as if he were to explain the phenomena of prices by demand and supply, and nothing else, denying the influence of the cost of production, of value in use, and of the deeper determining causes upon them. (_Supra_, -- 107, note 1.) Compare _Roesler_, Z. Kritik der Lehre vom Arbeitslohn, 1861, 104 ff. In England, the superst.i.tion which to a great extent attached to the idea "wages-fund," was first questioned by _F. Longe_, Refutation of the Wages-Fund Theory of modern Political Economy, 1866.

See also _Thornton_, On Labour, II, ch. 1. Even _John Stuart Mill_ dropped his earlier erroneous views on this subject.

(Fortnightly Review, May and June, 1869.) Not, however, without exaggeration, as is proved by his well-known saying, that laborers needed capital but no capitalists. Still, even here, he tenaciously holds that a rise in wages which increases the price of some cla.s.ses of commodities, must decrease the aggregate demand for commodities. But better paid workmen may now increase their demand for commodities to the same extent that the purchasers of labor who do not gain as much as before, or the consumers of the goods whose price has been enhanced diminish theirs. (_Brentano_, in Hildebrand's Jahrbb., 1871, 374.) Only, this increase need not affect the very commodities influenced by the decrease.]

[Footnote 166-8: Thus, the person who builds his own house is wont to pay his workmen better than a contractor or builder by profession; and the maker of the entire manufactured article, as a rule, suffers less frequently than the maker of only half of it. (_Hermann_, Staatsw.

Unters., II, Aufl., 471.)]

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 cooperation 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 a.s.sertion 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 compet.i.tion.[167-8] The influence of these circ.u.mstances 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 circ.u.mstance, only in a much higher degree, enhances the price paid for diplomatic service.

[Footnote 167-1: Excellent germs thereof in _Adam Smith_, Wealth of Nat., I, ch. 10, 1. Earlier yet, in _Galiani_, Della Moneta, I, 2. _Cantillon_, Nature du Commerce, 24 ff.]

[Footnote 167-2: Even in the case of mere manual labor, for instance, a skillful packer of goods is paid higher wages than a mere day laborer; a sower better than a plowman or a digger; a vintner, in general, better than an agricultural laborer: in the Palatinate of the Rhine, in the ratio of 36:24. Thus, almost anyone can paint a door or a house, while an artist possesses a species of natural monopoly.]

[Footnote 167-3: Thus, the Greek juggler, who understood how to throw lintels from a certain distance through the eye of a needle, was very appropriately rewarded by his king with a bushel of lintels. On the other hand, the high fee paid for an operation for cataract depends both on the great importance of the eye which cannot be replaced in any way, and on the rarity of the courage among doctors to pierce the eye of a living man. Very remarkable achievements, which it requires great education to understand, are generally paid for at a very low rate. (_Stein_, Lehrbuch, 123.)]

[Footnote 167-4: I need only recall _Richelieu_ and _Mazarin_, the last of whom left an estate worth 200,000,000 livres. (_Voltaire_, Siecle de Louis XIV., ch. 6.) In Parisian industries, few workmen are as well paid as those who are skilled in rapidly effecting changes of form. The so-called _premieres de modes_ frequently received more than 1,800 francs a year, while the _appreteuses_ received only from 15 to 20 sous a day. (Revue des deux Mondes, Sept. 15, 1850.) There are women there paid very well for making pin-cushions, pen-wipers, etc., each one of a different form; but as soon as any one form ceases to be a novelty, the wages paid for making it sinks to a minimum. (_M. Mohl_, Gewerbswissenschaftliche Reise durch Frankreich, 87.)]

[Footnote 167-5: Jewelers, lawyers, statesmen, generals.

_Senior_ says that of the income of 4,000 which a lawyer or a doctor draws, only 40 are wages for his labor; 3,000 are a rent paid for the possession of extraordinary talent, or for his good luck, and 960 as the interest on his intellectual capital, which is also the chief element of wealth. (Outline, 134.)]

[Footnote 167-6: On the sad experience of the tailors'

a.s.sociation founded by Louis Blanc himself, at Clichy, and in consequence of which they soon gave up paying equal wages and returned to piece wages, see Journal des Economistes, Mars, 1850, 349.]

[Footnote 167-7: As the interest on land improvements a.s.sumes the character of rent, so also does that of the education of labor the character of wages. The rate of interest usual in a country, and the average duration of the life of the workman affect the capital thus invested as a species of annuity.]

[Footnote 167-8: Wages in the country are generally lower than in the cities. In the electorate of Hesse, for instance, on the supposition of steady employment, males, in the country, received 69 thalers, 23 silver groschens a year; females, 55 thalers, 9 silver groschens; in the cities, on the other hand, males, 88 thalers, 23 silver groschens, and females 61 thalers, 28 silver groschens.

(_Hildebrand_, statistische Mittheilungen, 101, 137.) And so, according to _Colquhoun_, Treatise on Indigence, 1806, the English agricultural laborers received, on an average, 31 per annum, and manufacturing workmen, 55. The reason of this is, besides the greater facility of learning how to perform agricultural labor, the greater dearness of living in cities, and in England also, because industry has developed much more rapidly than agriculture.]

[Footnote 167-9: The cost of bringing up a common laborer, in England, according to _Senior_, is 40; a gentleman, 2,040. (Outlines, 205.) The more expensive an education which one acquires for its own sake and without any special object beyond this in view, is, the less can the capital laid out in it affect wages. (_von Mangoldt_, V. W. L., 382.)]

[Footnote 167-10: If the salaries of clergymen are, on an average, lower than the income of a lawyer or a doctor, it is partly because theological candidates are provided for much earlier, and partly because of the lesser cost attending the study of theology. Thus, at the end of the eighteenth century, there were 350 students at the University of Tubingen who are maintained gratis, on foundation-money, and who had previously attended monastery schools, free of charge. (_Nicolai_, Reisebescreibungen, XI, 73.) The remarkable contrast between the high wages of the Athenian sophists and the low wages of modern abbes, Adam Smith accounts for princ.i.p.ally by the many scholarships of modern times. In Saxony, in 1850 etc., the outlay by the state and of foundation-funds for the education of a student amounted to an average of nearly 140 thalers. (_Engel._)]

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 const.i.tute 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.ses.[168-10] Something similar is true of evening leisure and rest;[168-11] _i. e._, of the time when labor ceases.

[Footnote 168-1: The greater the preparatory cost of labor is, the more difficult it is for workmen to go from one kind of labor to another; but, at the same time, the more certain it is that, without the inducement of a premium paid, there will be no after increase or recruiting of labor-force.]

[Footnote 168-2: Thus, for instance, in the country, where doctors generally get along well enough, the most skillful never obtains any very distinguished position. But, in large cities, on the other hand, there is the greatest difference between first-cla.s.s physicians and obscure pract.i.tioners.

Great generals usually obtain a larger income and greater influence than great admirals; and so it is that prizes in the military lottery are greater, and there are therefore more blanks than in the naval lottery. The common soldier is almost everywhere worse paid than the common sailor. (_Adam Smith._) To some extent, this depends on the prison-like life of the seaman in times of service, and in the absence of an attractive uniform. As to the extent that the lottery comparison is defective, see _Macleod_, Elements, 215.]

[Footnote 168-3: Who, otherwise, would have anything to do with a lottery in which the ma.s.s of players were certain to lose, and the keeper of it to gain? And this accounts for the fact well known to all financiers, that the amount of the budget remaining the same, a greater eagerness to enter the military service of the country is inspired by endowing the higher positions munificently--provided they are attainable by all--and paying the lower ones in a very n.i.g.g.ardly way, than when the pay is made more uniform.

Something similar is to be observed in the ecclesiastical service of the Roman and Protestant churches, inasmuch as the former, considered from an economic point of view, offers more magnificent prizes, but also more blanks, while the latter divides its emoluments more equally.]

[Footnote 168-4: As most seamstresses are, when the worst comes to the worst, supported by their parents, connections by marriage, brothers, etc., the condition of those who have to live by their needle must be a pretty hard one. Who is not familiar with the refrain to _Hood's_ celebrated song of the shirt: "Oh G.o.d, that bread should be so dear, and flesh and blood so cheap!" There is a "distressed needlewoman's society" in London. They undoubtedly suffer from an overcrowding of their avocation, yet their chief desire is that the compet.i.tion of all who do not live exclusively by the labor of their hands should be prohibited; for instance, that of seamstresses who are paid for their work outside of factories. (Edinb. Rev., 1851, 24.) In Paris, in 1845, the yearly earnings of women workers averaged 375 francs, their yearly wants 500 francs. (Journal des Economistes, X, 250.) This does not apply to female servants whose wages, especially in highly cultured localities as the vicinity of large cities (Holstein, Brandenburg), is very high. In England, the wages of female domestics is frequently higher than in the United States; and hence nearly two-thirds of all English girls between fifteen and twenty-five years of age serve as maids. _Browning_, Political and Domestic Condition of Great Britain, 413; _Carey_, Rate of Wages, 92.

A remarkable indication that women thrive only in the family. (Compare -- 250.)]

[Footnote 168-5: Thus, the darning of stockings in the sandy parts of North Germany, in the Highlands of Scotland, in the Faroe Islands, and formerly, even in the ante-rooms of the Russian n.o.bility. (_Schlozer_, Anfangsgrunde der Staatswirthsch, I, 126.) Flax spinning and linen weaving in Westphalia and Ireland, and wool weaving in the East Indies.

Manufacturing industries must be in a very highly developed condition, and machinery carried to a high degree of perfection to compete in price with these accessory industries. Cheapness of many products manufactured in convents and monasteries.]

[Footnote 168-6: Among these interruptions, may also be reckoned the prospect the laborer has of being early incapacitated for work, and thus of seeing himself cut off from every other source of support. This is one of the princ.i.p.al reasons why opera singers are generally better paid than actors.]

[Footnote 168-7: In Leipzig, in 1863, mason and carpenter journeymen earned during the summer, from twenty silver groschens to one thaler, ordinary garden workmen, 20 silver groschens, while shoemaker journeymen did not make much more than 3 thalers a week, and manual laborers, only from 10 to 15 silver groschens a day. The masons of Paris have the reputation of being the best patrons of the savings banks, and, on that account, are more exposed to being attacked by thieves than any other cla.s.s. (_Fregier_, Des Cla.s.ses dangereuses, II, 3, 1.) High wages paid for threshing in East Prussia, because, the workman during the winter can be employed in very few different kinds of labor, and therefore must earn his entire support by threshing. In Paris, of 101,000 persons engaged in industry in 1860, 6,400 had to calculate on no interruption of their work, the remaining number, however, lost with a certain degree of regularity, from 2 to 4 months a year. (Revue des deux Mondes, 15 Fev., 1865.) If the interruption can be so accurately estimated in advance that the workman may engage in some business for himself during the interval, as for instance when the workmen in the Bavarian breweries work during the summer as masons, its influence on wages decreases. (_Storch_, Handbuch, I, 192.) As to how, in Switzerland, since 1850, the guaranty of full employment to masons in winter is considered as an addition to the wages of summer, see _Bohmert_, Arbeiterverhaltnisse, I, 141.]

[Footnote 168-8: _Commissionaires_, hack-drivers, _Extraposthalter_ in Germany, porters, nurses, guides, servants in watering places and countries visited by tourists. A London porter gets at least a shilling an hour.

If employed by the day, he of course gets smaller wages.

Image venders, who travel from house to house, sell their wares much lower at their own houses. The person who calls them in from the street is obliged to pay them not only for this one journey, but for several others which yielded them no profit.]

[Footnote 168-9: If we call the minimum daily need or the absolute requirement of the workman = m, the rate of daily wages in the former case must amount to at least m + m/6; in the latter, on the other hand, to m + m/4. A Bavarian holiday estimated at a _minus_ of much more than 1,000,000 florins. (_Hermann_, II, Anfl., 192.)]

[Footnote 168-10: _Von Sonnenfels_, Polit. Abhandlungen, 1777, 332 ff.]

[Footnote 168-11: In a part of Lower Bavaria, in which there were 204 holidays in a year, among them the anniversaries of the consecration of 40 churches in the country about, and a feast day following each such anniversary, as well as target-shooting festivals, the celebration begins at 4 o'clock P. M. of the preceding day. (_Rau_, Lehrbuch, I, -- 193.)]

SECTION CLXIX.

THE DISAGREEABLENESS OF CERTAIN CLa.s.sES 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]