Chapter XX: 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 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]

[Footnote 163-1: Compare _Lassalle_, Antwortschreiben an das
Central Comite zur Berufung eines allg. deutschen
Arbeitercongresses, 1863, 15; also _Turgot_, sur la
Formation etc., § 6. When _Lassalle_ says that when a varied
standard of living has become a national habit it ceases to
be felt as an improvement, he says what is in a certain
sense true. But is the man to be pitied who, absolutely
speaking, is getting on well enough; relatively speaking,
better off than before; but who is only not better off than
other men?]

[Footnote 163-2: A case in Holstein, in which, in the first
half of the eighteenth century, the serfs of a hard master
conspired together not to marry, and thus soon forced him to
sell his estate. (_Büsch_, Darstellung der Handlung, V, 3,
II.)]

[Footnote 163-3: On the otherwise remarkable economic
advance in Ireland about 1750, see _Orrey_, Letters
concerning the Life and Writings of Swift, 1751, 127;
_Anderson_, Origin of Commerce, a., 1751.]

[Footnote 163-4: Compare especially _Malthus_, Principles,
ch. 4, sec. 2. How little Adam Smith dreamt of this may be
best seen in I, 115, Bas. Recently, the average wages per
week amounted in England to 22-1/2s., in Scotland to
20-1/2s., in Ireland to 14-3/4s. (_Levi_, Wages and Earnings
of the working Classes, 1866.)]

[Footnote 163-5: Thus the unheard of long series of
excellent harvests in England, between 1715 and 1765,
contributed very largely to this favorable transformation.
Day wages expressed in wheat, between 1660 and 1719,
amounted on an average to only about 2/3 of a peck; between
1720 and 1750, to an entire peck. In the fifteenth century,
a similar series of good harvests contributed very much to
the flourishing condition of the "yeomanry." Under Henry
VII., workmen earned from two to three times as much corn as
they did a century later. And so in France, the great
Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, by setting
free a vast quantity of hitherto bound-up force, enhanced
the productiveness of the entire economy of the nation, and
made the division of the national income more nearly equal.
There is an essential connection here between the rapidity
of the transition and the facts, that the habits of
consumption of the working class received a powerful
impulse, and that population increased much less rapidly
than the national income. Compare _John Stuart Mill_,
Principles, II, ch. 11, 2. In our own days again, English
workmen had a splendid opportunity to raise their standard
of life. Emigration to Australia, etc. preponderated over
the natural increase of population to such an extent that,
in 1852, for instance, only 217,000 more human beings were
born in England and Wales than died, and 368,000 emigrated.
At the same time, exports increased: in 1849, they were
£63,000,000; in 1850 £71,000,000; about the end of 1853,
something like £90,000,000.

This golden opportunity was used by the English laboring
classes to both largely multiply marriages and to enhance
the rate of wages. The number of marriages contracted in
England yearly, from 1843 to 1847, was 136,200; from 1853 to
1857, 159,000. The number of births annually, from 1843 to
1847, was 544,800; from 1853 to 1857, 640,400. And wages, in
a number of industries, rose, between 1839 and 1859, from
about 18 to 24 per cent. (Quarterly Review, July, 1860, 86),
while the prices of most of the necessaries of life
declined. That, in the same time, the condition of English
laborers was elevated, both intellectually and morally, is
proved by many facts cited in _Jones' and Ludlow's_ work on
the social and political condition of the laboring classes
in England. In Germany, the recent establishment of peace on
a firm footing and the French war contributions have given
the country an impulse which might be taken advantage of by
the laboring class with the happiest results if they would
accustom themselves to more worthy wants and at the same
time preserve their accustomed industry.]

[Footnote 163-6: The cheapening of the necessaries of life,
experience shows, is more likely to lead to an increase of
population; that of luxuries, to a raising of the standard
of life or of comfort.]