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