physical entity, which is not the relation of the labor-supply to the general market and demand, but is a result of "the want or suffering of the community." To overcome this entity he would revolutionize trade and production, abolish profit, and base every transaction on its cost in labor, without regard to the results of that labor.
Now, as I understand supply and demand in the market, they are not dead-weights of matter, like a rock crushing my finger; they are forces like the gravitation controlling the rock, and which I must recognize if I would keep my finger whole and escape mental distress. These forces affect laborers and capitalists, producers and consumers alike, and they are the strongest influence in fixing market-prices. In fact, we may consider them the only forces present and active when the selling price is fixed. All other forces must have been transmuted before price can be fixed. It is not easy to comprehend these forces, for Prof. Cairns, while saying[1] "demand and supply are essentially the same phenomena regarded from different points of view, consequently general demand cannot increase or diminish except in constant relation with general supply," yet says also they are "not independent economic forces." Mr. Mill says:[2]
"Demand and supply—the quantity demanded and the quantity supplied—will be made equal. If unequal at any moment competition equalizes them, and the manner in which this is done is by an adjustment of the value."
Yet every merchant knows that competition is only one of many elements which enter into an "equation" of supply and demand. I dwell on this, not to show the differences of professional economists, but to illustrate the subtlety of these controlling influences of the market-price of labor and commodities. These influences are quite beyond the comprehension of a trades-union as such. We may say a powerful union would employ a leader of great capacity, who would construe these influences properly; but the very process which made him a union-leader would unfit him for a judge of the markets. A general can lead an army to victory; but generals, as a class, have been poor judges of national policy, in war or peace. The union-leader may extort an advance of wages through the force of his followers. But this advance in price must be converted into permanent exchange value in order to be of benefit to the laborer. One possible element of this value is the very labor of the unionists themselves while they were striking for the advance; or the advance may have carried the products out of relation to all other values. The only solvents of these delicate problems are the principles of supply and demand I have stated. They must be interpreted by social agents with the highest faculties and the best power of discrimination. If society proves one of these men and finds him trustworthy, it must
