The Socialism of to-day

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 835096955

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-28834

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Laveleye, Émile de

Title:: The Socialism of to-day

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Field & Tuer

Year of publication:: 1884

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (XLIV, 331 S.)

Collection:: Economics Books

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A'^/?Z MARX. 37 l'he truth is that the value of labour is like that of everything else, in proportion to its utility. In a glass manufactory the stokér receives three shillings a day, the glass-blower five, six, or eight shillings, the skilled engraver ten to twelve shillings • diamond-cutters at Amsterdam gain twenty to twenty-four shillings. The cost of maintenance of these different classes of workmen is pretty nearly the same ; but the value of their labour, and consequently of their produce, differs greatly, and it is the higher in proportion as their abilities are more scarce and in greater request. Suppose I want to get up from the bottom of a well a chest containing two cwts. of silver. Alone, I cannot do it Somebody comes, but will not help me except on condition of sharing the contents of the chest If I cannot get aid elsewhere I will consent to the bargain, for I still find in it a great advantage. In this case, the produce of a day's labour would have been for each of the partners one cwt of silver. The value of labour for the employer is then equal to the profit he makes out of it, and if he is com pelled by the scarcity of hands, that is also what he can give as wages ; but, on the other hand, if the workman is forced by the competition of his class to give his labour at any price, he can content himself with what suffices for his maintenance! The remuneration of wages, then, will fluctuate between a maximum equivalent to the value of what it creates, less interest and rent, and a minimum corresponding to the neces sary cost of maintenance. The law of supply and demand will determine the oscillations between these two extremes From what has gone before, it results that, the more productive labour becomes, the more its remuneration may be raised, if the supply of hands does not lower wages. When this surplus value, resulting from an increase of production, does not remain in the hands of the wage-earner, it is not, as Marx says, the capitalist who “pockets it." Competition soon reduces his profits by lowering prices as much as possible, and in the last analysis it is the consumers who benefit by industrial improve- nients. ^ One of the odd things about Das Kapital is that it never iscusses the influence exercised by competition, that ever

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