Chapter 24: The Relation of Labor to Value

1. May a singer of songs or a mixer of drinks be called a productive laborer?

2. Are fine products high in price because wages are high, or vice versa?

3. Is common, unskilled labor "scarce" (in any reasonable sense of the word) in China? in the United States?

4. Can a manufacturer pay the same to laborers if the product will be marketed next year, as he can if it is to be marketed to-morrow? If so, how is the value of the labor adjusted to its product?

NOTE.--An able discussion of the effect of discounting in
the sale of labor in the market is given by Böhm-Bawerk,
_Positive Theory of Capital_, pp. 313-318 _et seq._; see
also Wieser, _Natural Value_, numerous passages. The
changes in industrial organization are treated with
historic insight by Hadley, _Economics_, Secs. 341-354. F.
W. Taussig's _Wages and Capital_ (1896) gives a sympathetic
interpretation of the wage-fund doctrine; the work is
especially valuable for its excellent review of the history
of the subject and for the chapters analyzing the modern
industrial process.