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represent a certain amount of work-time, and (2) actual labor, which is measured by its duration.
Now, the same general laws, which universally regulate the price of commodities, regulate, of course, wages, the price of labor.
Wages will rise and fall in accordance with the proportion between demand and supply, that is, in accordance with the conditions of the competition between capitalists as buyers and laborers as sellers of labor. The fluctuations of wages correspond in general with the fluctuations in the price of commodities. Within these fluctuations the price of labor is regulated by its cost of production, that is, by the duration of labor which is required in order to produce this commodity, labor-power.
Now what is the cost of production of labor-power?
It is the cost required for the production of a laborer and for his maintenance as a laborer.
The shorter the time requisite for instruction in any labor, the less is the laborer’s cost of production, and the lower are his wages, the price of his work. In those branches of industry which scarcely require any period of apprenticeship, and where the mere bodily existence of the laborer is sufficient, the requisite cost of his production and maintenance are almost limited to the cost of the commodities which are requisite to keep him alive and fit for work. The price of his labor is therefore determined by the price of the bare necessaries of his existence.
Here, however, another consideration comes in.
