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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  commodities ­
  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