PIECE-WAGES.
Wages by the piece are nothing else than a converted form of wages by time, just as wages by time are a converted form of the value or price of labour-power.
In piece-wages it seems at first sight as if the use-value
* "Report, &c., relative to the Grievances complained of by the Journeymen Bakers." Lond. 1862, p. 411, and ib. Evidence, notes 479, 359, 27. Anyhow the full-priced also, as was mentioned above, and as their spokesman, Bennett, himself admits, make their men "generally begin work at 11 p.m. . . . up to 8 o'clock the next morning . . . they are then engaged all day long ... as late as 7 o'clock in the evening." (1. c, p. 22.)
Piece-Wages. 603
bought from the labourer was, not the function of his labourpower, living labour, but labour already realised in the product, and as if the price of this labour was determined, not as with time-wages, by the fraction, daily value of labor power
'=' ' <J ' working day of given number of hours
but by the capacity for work of the producer.-The confidence that trusts in this appearance ought to receive a first severe shock from the fact that both forms of wages exist side by side, simultaneously, in the same branches of industry ; e.g., "the compositors of London, as a general rule, work by the piece, time-work being the exception, while those in the country work by the day, the exception being work by the piece. The shipwrights of the port of London work by the job or piece, while those of all other parts work by the day."2
In the same saddlery shops of London, often for the same work, piece-wages are paid to the French, time-wages to the English. In the regular factories in which throughout piecewages predominate, particular kinds of work are unsuitable to this form of wage, and are therefore paid by time.But it is moreover self-evident that the difference of form in the ])ayment of wages alters in no way their essential nature,
* "The system of piece-work illustrates an epoch in the history of the working man; it is halfway between the position of the mere day labourer depending upon the will of the capitalist and the co-operative artisan, who in the not distant future promises to combine the artizan and the capitalist in his own person. Piece-workers are in fact their own masters' even whilst working upon the capital of the employer." (■John Watts: "Trade Societies and Strikes, Machinery and Co-operative Societies." Manchester, 1865, p. 52, 53.) I quote this little work because it is a very sink of all long-ago-rotten, apologetic commonplaces. This same Mr. Watts earlier traded in Owenism and published in 1842 another pamphlet: "Facts and Fictions of Political Economists," in which among other things he declares that "property is robbery." That is long ago.
»T. J. Dunning: "Trade's Unions and Strikes," Lond. 1860. p. 22.
* How the existence, side by side and simultaneously, of these two forms of wage favours the masters' cheating: "A factory employs 400 people, the half of which work by the piece, and have a direct interest in working longer hours. The other 200 are paid by the day, work equally long with the others, and get no more money for their overtime. . . . The work of these 200 people for half an hour a day is equal to one person's work for 50 hours, orof one person's labour in a week, and is a positive gain to the employer." ("Reports of Insp. of Fact., 31st Oct., 1860," p. 9.) "Overworking to a very considerable extent still prevails; and, in most instances, with that security against detection and punishment which the iaw itself affords. I have in many former reports shown . . . the injury to workpeople who are not employed on piece-work, but receive weekly wages." Leonard Horner in "Reports of Insp. of Fact." 30th April, 1859, pp. 8, 9.)
6o4 Capitalist Production.
although the one form may be more favorable to the development of capitalist production than the other.
Let the ordinary working day contain 12 hours of which 6 are paid, 6 unpaid. Let its value-product be 6 shillings, that of one hour's labour therefore 6d. Let us suppose that, as the result of experience, a labourer who works with the average amount of intensity and skill, who, therefore, gives in fact only the time socially necessary to the production of an article, supplies in 12 hours 24 pieces, either distinct products or measurable parts of a continuous whole. Then the value of these 24 pieces, after subtraction of the portion of constant single piece 3d. The labourer receives ld. per piece, and thus earns in 12 hours 3 shillings. Just as, with time-wages, it does not matter whether we assume that the labourer works 6 hours for himself and 6 hours for the capitalist, or half of every hour for himself, and the other half for the capitalist, so here it does not matter whether we say that each individual piece is half paid, and half unpaid for, or that the price of 12 pieces is the equivalent only of the value of the labour-power, whilst in the other 12 pieces surplus-value is incorporated.
The form of piece-wages is just as irrational as that of timewages. Whilst in our example two pieces of a commodity, after subtraction of the value of the means of production consumed in them, are worth 6d. as being the product of one hour, the labourer receives for them a price of 3d. Piece-wages do not, in fact, distinctly express any relation of value. It is not, therefore, a question of measuring the value of the piece by the working time incorporated in it, but on the contrary of measuring the working-time the labourer has expended, by the number of pieces he has produced. In time-wages the labour is measured by its immediate duration, in piece-wages by the quantity of products in which the labour has embodied itself during a given time.* The price of labour-time itself is finally determined by the equation; value of a day's labour=daily
* "Le salaire peut se mesurer de deux manieres: ou sur la duree du travail, ou sur son produit." ("Abrege elementaire des principes dc I'Economie Politique." Paris 1796, p. 32.) The author of this anonymous work: G. Gamier.
Piece-Wages. 605
value of labour-power. Piece-wage is, therefore, only a modified form of time-wage.
Let us now consider a little more closely the characteristic peculiarities of piece-wages.
The quality of the labour is here controlled by the work itself, which must be of average perfection if the piece-price is to be paid in full. Piece-wages become, from this point of view, the most fruitful source of reductions of wages and capitalistic cheating.
They furnish to the capitalist an exact measure for the intensity of labour. Only the working-time which is embodied in a quantum of commodities determined beforehand and experimentally fixed, counts as socially necessary working time, and is paid as such. In the larger workshops of the London tailors, therefore, a certain piece of work, a waistcoat e.g.is called an hour, or half an hour, the hour at 6d. By practise it is known how much is the average product of one hour. With new fashions, repairs, etc., a contest arises between master and labourer, whether a particular piece of work is one hour, and so on, until here also experience decides. Similarly in the London furniture workshops, etc. If the labourer does not possess the average capacity, if he cannot in consequence supply a certain minimum of work per day, he is dismissed.Since the quality and intensity of the work are here controlled by the form of wage itself, superintendence of labour becomes in great part superfluous. Piece-wages therefore lay the foundation of the modern "domestic labour," described above, as well as of a hierarchically organised system of exploitation and oppression. The latter has two fundamental forms. On the one hand piece-wages facilitate the interposition of parasites between tlie capitalist and the wage-labourer, the "sub-letting of labour." The gain of these middle-men comes
* "So much weight of cotton is delivered to him [the spinner], and he has to return by a certain time, in lieu of it, a given weight of twist or yarn, of a certain degree of fineness, and he is paid so much per pound for all that he so returns. If his work is defective in quality, the penalty falls on him, if less in quantity than the minimum fixed for a given time, he is dismissed and an abler operative procured." (Ure 1. c. p. 317.)
6o6 Capitalist Production.
entirely from the difference between the labour price which the capitalist pays, and the part of that price which they actually allow to reach the labourer.In England this system is characteristically called the "Sweating system." On the other hand piece-wage allows the capitalist to make a contract for so much per piece with the head labourer — in manufactures with the chief of some group, in mines with the extractor of the coal, in tlie factory with the actual machine-worker — at a price for which the head labourer himself undertakes the enlisting and payment of his assistant workpeople. The exploitation of the labourer by capital is here effected through the exploitation of the labourer by the labourer.Given piece-wage, it is naturally the personal interest of the labourer to strain his labour-power as intensely as possible; this enables the capitalist to raise more easily the normal degree of intensity of labour.It is moreover now the personal interest of the labourer to lengthen the working day, since with it his daily or weekly wages rise.* This gradually brings"It is when work passes through several hands, each of which is to take its share of profits, while only the last does the work, that the pay which reaches the work-woman is miserably disproportioned." (Child Emp. Com. II. Report, p. Ixx, n. 484.)Even Watts, the apologetic, remarks: "It would be a great improvement to the system of piece-work, if all the men employed on a job were partners in the contract, each according to his abilities, instead of one man being interested in overworking his fellows for his own benefit." (1. c. p. 53.) On the vileness of this system, cf. Child. Emp. Com. Rep. III. p. 66, n. 22, p. 11, n. 124, p. xi. n. 13, 63, 69, etc.
* This spontaneous result is often artificially helped along, e.g., in the Engineering Trade of London, a customary trick is "the selecting of a man who possesses superior physical strength and quickness, as the principal of several workmen, and paying him an additional rate, by the quarter or otherwise, with the understanding that he is to exert himself to the utmost to induce the others, who are only paid the ordinary wages, to keep up to him. . . . Without any comment this will go far to explain many of the complaints of stinting the action, superior skill, and working-power, made by the employers against the men" (in Trades-Unions. Dunning, 1. c. pp. 22, 23). As the author is himself a labourer and secretary of a Trade's Union, this might be taken for exaggeration. But the reader may compare the "highly respectable" Cyclopedia of Agriculture of J. Ch. Morton, Art. "Labourer," where this method is recommended to the farmers as an approved one.
* "All those who are paid by piece-work . . . profit by the transgression of the legal limits of work. This observation as to the willingness to work overtime is especially applicable to the women employed as weavers and reelers." (Rept. of Insp. of Fact., 30th April, 1858, p. 9). "This system (piece-work), so advantageous to the employer . . . tends directly to encourage the young potter greatly to overwork himself during the four or five years during which he is employed in the piece-work system, but at low wages. . . . This is . . . another great cause
Piece-Wages. 607
on a reaction like that already described in time-wages, without reckoning that the prolongation of the working day, even if the piece-wage remains constant, includes of necessity a fall in the price of the labour.
In time-wages, with few exceptions, the same wage holds for the same kind of work, whilst in piece-wages, though the price of the working time is measured by a certain quantity of product, the day's or week's wage will vary with the individual differences of the labourers, of whom one supplies in a given time the minimum of product only, another the average, a third more than the average. With regard to actual receipts there is, therefore, great variety according to the different skill, strength, energy, staying-power, etc., of the individual labourers.Of course this does not alter the general relations between capital and wage-labour. First, the individual differences balance one another in the workshop as a whole, which thus supplies in a given working-time the average product, and the total wages paid will be the average wages of that particular branch of industry. Second, the proportion between wages and surplus-value remains unaltered, since the mass of surplus-labour supplied by each particular labourer corresponds with the wage received by him. But the wider scope that piece-wage gives to individuality, tends to develop on the one hand that individuality, and with it the sense of liberty, independence, and self-control of the labourers, on the other, their competition one with another. Piece-work has, therefore, a tendency, vhile raising individual wages above the average, to lower this average itself. But where a particular rate of piece-wage has for a long time been fixed by tradition, and its lowering, therefore, presented especial difficulties, the masters, in such exceptional cases, sometimes had recourse to its compulsory transformation into time-wages. Hence, e.g., in 1860 a great strike among the ribbon-weavers
to which the bad constitutions of the potters are to be attributed." (Child Empl. Com. I. Rept., p. xiii.)
1 "Where the work in any trade is paid for by the piece at so much per job . . . wages may very materially differ in amount. . . . But in work by the day the.e is generally an uniform rate . . . recognized by both employer and employed as the standp.rd of wages for the general run of workmen in the trade.' (Dunning, 1. c. p. 17.)
6o8 Capitalist Production.
of Coventry.Piece-wage is finally one of the chief supports of the hour-system described in the preceding chapter.From what has been shown so far, it follows that piece-wage is the form of wages most in harmony with the capitalist mode of production. Although by no means new — it figures side hy side with time-wages officially in the French and English lalx)ur statutes of the 14th century — it only conquers a larger field for action during the period of Manufacture, properly so-called. In the stormy youth of Modern Industry, especially from 1797 to 1815, it served as a lever for the lengthening of the working day, and the lowering of wages. Very important materials for the fluctuation of wages during that period are to be found in the Blue-books: "Report and Evidence from the Select Committee on Petitions respecting the Com Laws," (Parliamentary Session of 1813-14), and "Report from the Lords' Committee, on the state of the Growth, Commerce, and Consumption of Grain, and all Laws relating thereto," (Session of 1814-15). Here we find documentary evidence of the constant lowering of the price of labour from the beginning of the Anti-Jacobin War. In the weaving industry, e.g., piece-wages had fallen so low that in
* "Le travail des Compagnons-artisans sera regie a la journee ou a la piece . . . Ces maitres-artisans savent a peu pres combien d'ouvrage un compagnon-artisan peut faire par jour dans chaque metier, et les payent souvent a proportion de I'ouvrage qu'ils font; ainsi ces compagnons travaillent autant qu'ils peuvent, pour leur propre interet, sans autre inspection." (Cantillon, Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en general, Amst. Ed., 1756, pp. 185 and 202. The first edition appeared in 1755.) Cantillon, from whom Quesnay, Sir James Steuart & A. Smith have largely drawn, already here represents piece-wage as simply a modified form of time-wage. The French edition of Cantillon professes in its title to be a translation from the English, but the English edition: "The analysis of Trade, Commerce, etc., by Philip Cantillon, late of the city of London, Merchant," is not only of later date (1759), but proves by its contents that it is a later and revised edition; e.g., in the French edition, Hume is not yet mentioned, whilst in the English, on the other hand, Petty hardly figures any longer. The English edition is theoretically less important, but it contains numerous details referring specifically to English commerce, bullion trade, etc., that are wanting in the French text. The words on the title-page of the English edition, according to which the work is "Taken chiefly from the manuscript of a very ingenious gentleman, deceased, and adapted, etc," seem, therefore, a pure fiction, very customary at that time.
* "Combien de fois n'avons-nous pas vu, dans certains ateliers, embaucher beaucoup plus d'ouvriers que ne le demandait le travail a mettre en main? Souvent, dans la prevision d'un travail aleatoire, quelquefois meme imaginaire, on admet des ouvriers: comme on les paie aux pieces, on se dit qu'on ne court aucun risque, parceque toutes les pertes de temps seront a la charge des inoccups." (H. Gregoir: "Les Typographes devant le Tribunal correctionnel de Bruxelles," Bruxelles, 1865, p. 9.)
Piece-Wages. 609
spite of the very great lengthening of the working day, the daily wages were then lower than before. "The real earnings of the cotton weaver are now far less than they were; his superiority over the common labourer, which at first was very great, has now almost entirely ceased. Indeed . . . the difference in the wages of skilful and common labour is far less now than at any former period."How little the increased intensity and extension of labour through piece-wages benefited the agricultural proletariat, the following passage borrowed from a work on the side of the landlords and farmers shows: "By far the greater part of agricultural operations is done by people, who are hired for the day or on piece-work. Their weekly wages are about 12s., and although it may be assumed that a man earns on piece-work under the greater stimulus to labour, Is. or perhaps 2s. more than on weekly wages, yet it is found, on calculating his total income, that his loss of employment, during the year, outweighs this gain . . . Further, it will generally be found that the wages of these men bear a certain proportion to the price of the necessary means of subsistence, so that a man with two children is able to bring up his family without recourse to parish relief."Malthus at that time remarked with reference to the facts published by Parliament: "I confess that I see, with misgiving, the great extension of the practice of piece-wage. Really hard work during 12 or 14 hours of the day, or for any longer time, is too much for any human being. "In the workshops under the Factory Acts, piece-wage becomes the general rule, because capital can there only increase the efficacy of tlie working day by intensifying labour.'*
With the changing productiveness of labour the same quantum of product represents a varying working time. Therefore, piece-wage also varies, for it is the money expression of a determined working time. In our example above, 24 pieces were produced in 12 hours, whilst the value of the product
' Remarks on the Commercial Policy of Great Britain, London, 1815.
* A defence on the Land-owners and Farmers of Great Britain, 1814, pp. 4, 5. ' Malthus, Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent, Lond., 1815.
♦ "Those who are paid by piece-work . . . constitute probably four-fifths of the workers in the factories." "Report of Insp. of Fact., 30th April, 1858."
2M
6io Capitalist Production.
of the 12 hours was 63., the daily value of the labourpower 3s., the price of the labour-hour 3d., and the wage for one piece ld. In one piece half-an-hour's labour was absorbed. If the same working day now supplies, in consequence of the doubled productiveness of labour, 48 pieces instead of 24, and all other circumstances remain unchanged, then the piece-wage falls from l|d. to fd., as every piece now only represents, instead ofof a working hour. 24 by l|d. =3s., and in like manner 48 by fd.=3s. In other words, piece-wage is lowered in the same proportion as the number of the pieces produced in the same time rises,and therefore as the working time spent on the same piece falls. This change in piece-wage, so far purely nominal, leads to constant battles between capitalist and labour. Either because the capitalist uses it as a pretext for actually lowering the price of labour, or because increased productive power of labour is accompanied by an increased intensity of tlie same. Or because the labourer takes seriously the appearance of piece-wages, viz., that his product is paid for, and not his labour-power, and therefore revolts against a lowering of wages, unaccompanied by a lowering in the selling price of the commodity. "The operatives . . . . carefully watch the price of the raw material and the price of manufactured goods, and are thus enabled to form an accurate estimate of their master's profits."The capitalist rightly knocks on the head such pretensions as gross errors as to the nature of wage-labour.He cries out against this usurping attempt to lay taxes on the advance of
* "The productive power of his spinning-machine is accurately measured, and the rate of pay for work done with it decreases with, though not as, the increase of its productive power." (Ure, 1. c, p. 317.) This last apologetic phrase Ure himself again cancels. The lengthening of the mule causes some increase of labour, he admits. The labour does therefore not diminish in the same ratio as its productivity increases. Further: "By this increase the productive power of the machine will be augmented one-fifth. When this event happens the spinner will not be paid at the same rate for work done as he was before, but as that rate will not be diminished in the ratio of one-fifth, the improvement will augment his money earnings for any given number of hours' work," but "the foregoing statement requires a certain modification. . . . The spinner has to pay something additional for juvenile aid out of his additional sixpence, accompanied by displacing a portion of adults" (1. c. p. 321), which has in no way a tendency to raise wages.
' H. Fawcett : "The Economic Position of the British Labourer. Cambridge and London, 1866," p. 178.
• In the London Standard of October 26, 1861, there is a report of proceedings
National Differences of Wages. 6ii
industry, and declares roundly that the productiveness of labom- does not concern the labourer at all.CHAPTER XXII.
NATIONAL DIFFERENCES OF WAGES.
In the 17th chapter we were occupied with the manifold combinations which may bring about a change in magnitude of the value of labour-power — this magnitude being considered either absolutely or relatively, i.e., as compared with surplusvalue ; whilst on the other hand, the quantum of the means of subsistence in which the price of labour is realised might again undergo fluctuations independent of, or different from, the changes of this price.As has been already said, the simple translation of the value or respectively of the price of labour-power into the exoteric form of wages transforms all these laws into laws of the fluctuations of wages. That which appears in these fluctuations of wages within a single country as a series of varying combinations, may appear in different countries as contemporaneous difference of national wages. In the comparison of the wages in different nations, we must therefore take into account all the factors that determine
of the firm of John Bright & Co., before the Rochdale magistrates "to prosecute for intimidation the agents of the Carpet Weavers Trades' Union. Bright's partners had introduced new machinery which would turn out 240 yards of carpet in the time and with the labour (!) previously required to produce 160 yards. The workmen had no claim whatever to share in the profits made by the investment of their employer's capital in mechanical improvements. Accordingly, Messrs. Bright proposed to lower the rate of pay from lj4d. per yard to Id., leaving the earnings of the men exactly the same as before for the same labour. But there was a nominal reduction, of which the operatives, it is asserted, had not fair warning before hand."
1 "Trades' Unions, in their desire to maintain wages, endeavour to share in the benefits of improved machinery. (Quelle horreurl) . . . the demanding higher wages, because labour is abbreviated, is in other words the endeavour to establish a duty on mechanical improvements." ("On Combination of Trades, new ed., London, 1834," p. 42.)
' "It is not accurate to say that wages" (he deals here with their money expression) "are increased, because they purchase more of a cheaper article." (David Buchanan in his edition of Adam Smith's "Wealth," &c., 1814, Vol. I;, p. 417. Note.)
6i2 Cc(Ayj/U ProducCtAK.
changes in the amount of tho value of labour-power ; the price and the extent of the prime neco&saries of life as naturally and historically developed, the cc&t of training the labourers, the part played by the labour of women and children, the productiveness of labour, its ejlensive and intensive magnitude. Even the most superficial comparison requires the reduction first of the average day-wage for the same trades, in different countries, to a uniform working day. After this reduction to the same terms of the day-wages, time-wage must again be translated into piece-wage, as the latter only can be a measure both of the productivity and the intensity of labour.
In every country there is a certain average intensity of labour, below which the labour for the production of a commodity requires more than the socially necessary time, and therefore does not reckon as labour of normal quality. Only a degree of intensity above the national average affects, in a given country, the measure of value of the mere duration of the working time. This is not the case on the universal market, whose integral parts are die individual countries. The average intensity of labour changes from country to country; here it is greater, there less. These national averages form a scale, whose unit of measure is the average unit of universal labour. The more intense national labour, therefore, as compared with the less intense, produces in the same time more value, which expresses itself in more money.
But the law of value in its international application is yet more modified by this, that on the world-market the more productive national labour reckons also as the more intense, so long as the more productive nation is not compelled by competition to lower the selling price of its commodities to the level of their value.
In proportion as capitalist production is developed in a country, in the same proportion do the national intensity and productivity of labour there rise above the international level.The different quantities of commodities of the same kind, produced in different countries in the same working time, have,
* We shall inquire, in another place, what circumstances in relation to productivity may modify this law for individual branches of industry.
National Differences of Wages. 613
llici'ef?re, unequal iniernational values, which are expressed in tlifferent pricesi.e., in sums of money varying according to international valuer. The relative value of money will, therefore, be less Ji\ the nation with more developed capitalist mode of production than in the nation with less developed. It follows, ihen, that the nominal wages, the equivalent of labour-powf.r expressed in money, will also be higher in the first nation than in the second; which does not at all prove that this holds also for the real wages, i.e., for the means of subsistence placed at the disposal of the labourer.
But even apart from these relative differences of the value of money in different countries, it will be found, frequently, that the daily or weekly, &c., wage in the first nation is higher than in the second, whilst the relative price of labour, i.e., the price of labour as compared both with surplus-value and with the value of the product, stands higher in the second than in the first.J. W. Co well, member of the Factory Commission of 1833, after careful investigation of the spinning trade, came to ihe conclusion that, " in England wages are virtually lower to the capitalist, though higher to the operative than on the Continent of Europe." (Ure, p. 314.) The English Factory Inspector, Alexander Redgrave, in his Report of Oct. 31st, 1S66, proves by comparative statistics with Continental states, that in spite of lower wages and much longer working-time, Continental labour is, in proportion to the product, dearer than English. An English manager of a cotton factory in Olden-
' James Anderson remarks in his polemic against Adam Smith : "It deserves, likewise, to be remarked, that although the apparent price of labour is usually lower in poor countries, where the produce of the soil, and grain in general, is cheap; yet it is in fact for the most part really higher than in other countries. For it is not the wages that is given to the labourer per day that constitutes the real price of labour, although it is its apparent price. The real price is that which a certain quantity of work performed actually costs the employer; and considered in this light, labour is in almost all cases cheaper in rich countries than in those that are poorer, although the price of grain, and other provisions, is usually much lower in the last than in the first. . . . Labour estimated by the day, is much lower in Scotland than in England. . . . Labour by the piece is generally cheaper in England." (James Anderson, Observations on the means of exciting a spirit of National Industry, &c., Edin. 1777, pp. 350, 351). On the contrary, lowness of wages produces, in its turn, dearness of labour. "Labour being dearer in Ireland than it is in England . . . because the wages are so much lower." (N. 2079 in Royal Com> mission on Railways, Minutes, 1867.)
6 14 Capitalist Production.
burg, declares that the working-time there lasted from 5.30 a.m. to 8 p.m., Saturdays included, and that the workpeople there, when under English overlookers, did not supply during this time quite so much product as the English in 10 hours, but under German overlookers much less. Wages are much lower than in England, in many cases 50%, but the number of hands in proportion to the machinery was much greater, in certain departments in the proportion of 5 :3. — Mr. Redgrave gives very full details as to the Russian cotton factories. The data were given him by an English manager until recently employed there. On this Russian soil, so fruitful of all infamies, the old horrors of the early days of English factories are in full swing. The managers are, of course, English, as the native Russian capitalist is of no use in factory business. Despite all over-work, continued day and night, despite the most shameful under-payment of the workpeople, Russian manufacture manages to vegetate only by prohibition of foreign competition. I give, in conclusion, a comparative table of Mr. Redgrave's, on the average number of spindles per factory and per spinner in the different countries of Europe. He, himself, remarks that he had collected these figures a few years ago, and that since that time the size of the factories and the number of spindles per labourer in England has increased. Ho supposes, however, an approximately equal progress in the Continental countries mentioned, so that the numbers given would still have their value for purposes of comparison.
Average Number of Spindles per Factory.
England,
average
of
spindles
per
factory
12,600
France,
}f
,')
)f
1,500
Prussia,
»
f>
w
1,500
Belgium,
ty
ff
w
4,000
Saxony,
»
if
»
4,500
Austria,
jj
»
yy
7,000
Switzerland "
if
»
8,000
spindles
National Differences of Wages. 615
Average Number of Peesons Employed to Spindles.
France, one person to Russia, "
Prussia, "
Bavaria, "
Austria, "
Belgium, "
Saxony, "
Switzerland, " Smaller States of Germany, Great Britain, "
" This comparison," says Mr. Redgrave, " is yet more unfavourable to Great Britaiti, inasmuch as there is so large a number of factories in which weaving by power is carried on in conjunction with spinning [whilst in the table the weavers are not deducted], and the factories abroad are chiefly spinning factories ; if it were possible to compare like with like, strictly, I could find many cotton spinning factories in my district in which mules containing 2,200 spindles are minded by one man (the " minder ") and two assistants only, turning off daily 220 lbs. of yarn, measuring 400 miles in length." (Reports of Insp. of Fact., 31st Oct., 1866, p. 31-33, passim.)
It is well known that in Eastern Europe as well as in Asia, English companies have undertaken the construction of railways, and have, in making them, employed side by side with the native labourers, a certain number of English workingmen. Compelled by practical necessity, they thus have had to take into account the national difference in the intensity of labour, but this has brought them no loss. Their experience shows that even if the height of wages corresponds more or less with the average intensity of labour, the relative price of labour varies generally in the inverse direction."Essay on the Rate of Wages, with an Examination of the Causes of the Differences in the Conditions of the Labouring Population throughout the World," Phila* delphia, 1S35.
6i6 Capitalist Production.
In an " Essay on the Rate of Wages,"one of his first economic writings, H. Carey tries to prove that the wages of the different nations are directly proportional to the degree of productiveness of the national working days, in order to draw from this international relation, the conclusion that wages everywhere rise and fall in proportion to the productiveness of labour. The whole of our analysis of the production of surplus value shows the absurdity of this conclusion, even if Carey himself had proved his premises, instead of, after his usual uncritical and superficial fashion, shuffling to and fro a confused mass of statistical materials. The best of it is that he does not assert that things actually are as they ought to be according to his theory. For State intervention has falsified the natural economic relations. The different national wages must be reckoned, therefore, as if that part of each that goes to t]ie State in the form of taxes, came to the labourer himself. Ought not Mr. Carey to consider further whether those " State expenses " are not the " natural " fruits of capitalistic development? The reasoning is quite worthy of the man who first declared the relations of capitalist production to be eternal laws of nature and reason, whose free, harmonious working is only disturbed by the intervention of the State, in order afterwards to discover that the diabolical influence of England on the world-market (an influence which, it appears, does not spring from the natural laws of capitalist production) necessitates State intervention, i.e., the protection of those laws of nature and reason by the State, aliathe System of Protection. He discovered further, that the theorems of Ricardo and others, in which existing social antagonisms and contradictions are formulated, are not the ideal product of the real economic movement, but on the contrary, that the real antagonisms of capitalist production in England and elsewhere are the result of the theories of Ricardo and others ! Einally, he discovered that it is, in the last resort, commerce that destroys the inborn beauties and harmonies of the capitalist mode of production. A step further, and he will, perhaps, discover that the one evil in capitalist production is capital itself. Only a man
National Differences of Wages. 617
with such atrocious want of the critical faculty and such spurious erudition deserved, in spite of his Protectionist heresy, to become the secret source of the harmonious wisdom of a Bastiat, and of all the other Free Trade optimists of to-day.