Chapter XIX: Section CLXII: 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]

[Footnote 162-1: Explained since _Liebig's_ time by the fact
that a part of food is consumed to preserve animal heat:
means of respiration in contradistinction to means of
nutrition. Recent research has shown that in cold weather
more urea and also more carbonic acid are given off; hence
the means of supplying this deficit should be greater in
cold weather than in warm. This more rapid transformation is
wont, when nutrition is sufficient, to be accompanied by
more energetic activity. (_Moleschott_, Physiologie der
Nahrungsmittel, 1850, 47, 50, 83.)]

[Footnote 162-2: This is opposed in part by the fact that a
hot climate induces indolence, and that therefore he needs a
greater incentive to overcome his disposition to idleness.
Thus, in the cooler parts of Mexico, the rate of wages was
26 sous a day, in the warmer, 32 sous. (_Humboldt_, N.
Espagne, III, 103.)]

[Footnote 162-3: According to _Engel_, Jahrbuch für Sachsen,
I, 419, on acres similarly situated and under similar
conditions, the lowest yielded:

_Watery contents _Watery contents
included._ excluded._

Of wheat, 1,881 lbs. 1,680 lbs.
" rye, 1,549 " 1,404 "
" pease, 1,217 " 1,095 "
" potatoes, 21,029 " 5,257 "

The dry substance of these products yielded:

_Azotized _Mineral
Substance._ _Fecula._ Matter._

Wheat, 282 lbs. 879 lbs. 49 lbs.
Rye, 243 " 661 " 34 lbs.
Pease, 309 " 431 " 33 lbs.
Potatoes, 525 " 3,785 " 178 lbs.

In Saxony, from 1838 to 1852, the average prices stood as
follows:

_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

(loc. cit.) The high price of protein in wheat depends
probably on the more agreeable appearance and pleasanter
taste of wheat flour; the still higher price of potato
protein on the exceedingly easy mode of its preparation.]

[Footnote 162-4: As regards food alone, the cost of the
support of a plowman on Count Podewil's estate, reduced by
_Rau_, Lehrbuch, § 191, to the unit of rye, is annually
1,655 lbs. of rye. According to _Koppe_, it is 1,952 lbs.;
to _Block_, 2,300 lbs.; to _Kleemann_, from 1,888 to 2,552
lbs.; to _Möllenger_, 2,171 lbs. The first three estimate
the cost in meat at 78, 160 and 60 pounds. Compare _Block_,
Beitr. Z. Landgüterschätzungskunde, 1840, 6. Exhaustive
estimates for all Prussian governmental districts in _von
Reden_, Preussische Erwerbs, und Verkehrsstatistik, 1853, I,
177 ff., according to which the requirement, per family,
varies between 71 thalers in Gumbinnen and 204 thalers in
Coblenz, the average being 105 thalers. According to more
recent accounts, a laborer's family in East Prussia, gangmen
not included, get along very well on 177 thalers per annum.
(_von der Goltz_, Ländl. Arbeiterfrage, 1872, 9 ff.) In
Mecklenburg, omitting _Hofgänger_, on 183 thalers. (Ann.
des. patr. Vereins, 1865, No. 26.)

The necessary outlay of the family of an agricultural day
laborer in England, in 1762, was estimated as follows: for
bread and flour, £6 10s. per annum; for vegetables and
fruit, £1 1-2/3s.; for fuel, light and soap, 2-9-5/6s.; for
milk, butter and cheese, £1 1-6-5/6s.; for meat, £1 6s.; for
house-rent, 1-6s.; for clothing, bedding, etc., 2-16-1/3s.;
for salt, beer and colonial wares, 1-16-5/6s.; for medicine,
expenses attending confinement of wife, etc., 1-6-1/2s. (_J.
Wade_, History of the middle and working Classes, 1853,
545.) Concerning 1796, compare _Sir F. M. Eden_, State of
the Poor, I, 660, 1823; _Lowe_, on the present Condition of
England. Compare on the receipts and expenses of ten working
families in and about Mühlhausen, the tables in the Journal
des Economistes, October, 1861, 50; and further
_Ducpétiaux_, Budgets économiques des Classes ouvrières en
Belgique, 1855. According to _Playfair_ in _Knop_,
Agriculturchemie, I, 810, ff., different classes of grown
men need daily food.

==================+=========+========+========+========+========
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
==================+=========+========+========+========+========

Here 1 stands for a convalescent who can bear only enough to
preserve life; 2, the condition of rest; 3, moderate motion
of from 5 to 6 English miles' walk daily; 4, severe labor =
a walk of 20 English miles daily; 5, very severe labor = to
a day's walk of 14 English miles, with a load weighing 60
lbs. If the fat be given in terms of starch, the aggregate
need of both substances in the case of 1 is 6.6 times as
great as the need of plastic substance; in the case of 2, 3,
4, and 5, respectively 5.7, 5.2, 4.8 and 4.0 times as much.

A Dutch soldier doing garrison duty receives daily, in times
of peace, 0.333 kilogrammes of wheat flour, 0.125 of meat,
0.850 of potatoes, 0.250 of vegetables, containing in the
aggregate 60 grammes of albumen. In forts, where the service
is more severe, he receives 0.50 kilogrammes of wheat flour,
0.06 of rice or groats, with an aggregate amount of 116
grammes of albumen. (_Mulder_, Die Ernährung in ihrem
Zusammenhange mit dem Volksgeiste, übersetzt _von
Molecshott_, 1847, 58 seq.) According to the researches of
Dr. Smith, in order to avoid the diseases caused by hunger,
a man needs, on an average, to take 4,300 grains of carbon
and 200 grains of nitrogen in his daily food; a woman 3,900
grains of carbon and 180 grains of nitrogen. In 1862, the
workmen in the famishing cotton industries of Lancashire
were actually reduced to just about this minimum. (_Marx_,
Kapital, I, 642.) Death from starvation occurs in all
vertebrates when the loss of weight of the body, produced by
a want of food, amounts to between two-fifths and one-half
of what it was at the beginning of the experiment.
(_Chossat_, Recherches expérimentales sur l'Inanition, 184,
3.)]