Religion, colonising & trade

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1834114039

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-222204

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Lucas, Charles Prestwood http://d-nb.info/gnd/101180705

Title:: Religion, colonising & trade

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Soc. for Promoting Christian Knowledge

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: 84 Seiten

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter IV. 1688-1783

Collection:: Economics Books

i6 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. merchandise, namely, his labour. If he have neither land nor capital to employ his labour, he must offer it to those who can make use of it How much will they give for his services ? Forced by competition to produce at the least possible cost, they will give no more than what is strictly necessary. But what is strictly necessary is what is needed to enable the labourer to subsist and to perpetuate his kind. This is the necessary wage of which Ricardo speaks, the standard minimum towards which, amid the oscillations induced by supply and demand, wages actually gravitate. Suppose labour became more productive. The workman would produce more com modities in the day. It would follow that each of these commodities would have cost less labour and would sell cheaper. The workman who lives by the consumption of these commodities would thus be able to maintain himself at less expense, and consequently content himself with lower wages. Rodbertus endeavours to render this clearer by an example. A proprietor obtains from his land, by employing a labourer, i6o bushels of wheat. Of this he gives eighty bushels to the labourer, representing his necessary wage, and can keep eighty bushels for himself. If by means of improved processes he can gather in 240 bushels, he will have for his share 160, and in this way the wage, which at first formed half the total produce, will be, when the labour has become more productive, only one-third. As a matter of fact, since the invention of steam, the aggregate of products created in civilized societies has increased threefold, perhaps fivefold, while wages have not been augmented in proportion. This remark of Rodbertus is just ; but the fact which he criticises cannot be otherwise under the rule of our present laws and institutions. If products have increased to such a degree, it is due to the fact that two or three times as much capital is employed to-day as in the last century. This capital must be remunerated, and thus it engrosses the surplus production of which it is the source. When corn was ground by means of hand-mills, almost all the produce was distributed in wages. If, owing to the erection of a steam-mill, only a third of the hands previously employed are needed, their remuneration will absorb only a third of the produce, and the

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: Religion, colonising & trade

Monograph

Chapter

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation