Here, then, we have the law of wages, as a deduction from a principle most obvious and most universal. That wages depend upon the margin of cultivation—that they will be greater or less as the produce which labor can obtain from the highest natural opportunities open to it is greater or less, flows from the principle that men will seek to satisfy their wants with the least exertion.
Now, if we turn from simple social states to the complex phenomena of highly civilized societies, we shall find upon examination that they also fall under this law.
In such societies, wages differ widely, but they still bear a more or less definite and obvious relation to each other. This relation is not invariable, as at one time a philosopher of repute may earn by his lectures many fold the wages of the best mechanic, and at another can hardly hope for the pay of a footman; as in a great city occupations may yield relatively high wages, which in a new settlement would yield relatively low wages; yet these variations between wages may, under all conditions, and in spite of arbitrary divergences caused by custom, law, etc., be traced to certain circumstances. In one of his most interesting chapters, Adam Smith thus enumerates the principal circumstances "which make up for a small pecuniary gain in some employments and counterbalance a great one in others: First, the agreeableness or disagreeableness of the employments themselves. Secondly, the easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and expense of learning them. Thirdly, the constancy or inconstancy of employment in them. Fourthly, the small or great trust which must be reposed in them. Fifthly, the probability or improbability of success in them."[1] It is not necessary to dwell in detail on these causes of variation in wages between different employment. They have been admirably explained and illustrated by Adam Smith and the economists who have followed him, who have well worked out the details, even if they have failed to apprehend the main law.
- ↑ This last, which is analogous to the element of risk in profits, accounts for the high wages of successful lawyers, physicians, contractors, actors, etc.
