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