industry, and declares roundly that the productiveness of labour does not concern the labourer at all.[1]
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 surplus-value; 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.[2] 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
- ↑ "Trades' Unions, in their desire to maintain wages, endeavour to share in the benefits of improved machinery. (Quelle horreur!) … 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.)
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 1½d. per yard to 1d., 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."
