234 
POLITICAL ECONOMY 
be realized. It is supposed that workpeople 
are in a position to sell their labour in the 
lump, which is to say that they are so placed 
that they can prevent employers from dis 
missing any hands when wages rise. Now 
employers as a body would certainly be 
wishful to dismiss some hands when the 
trade unions had forced up wages in the 
manner supposed, because wages, which we 
imagined to have been equal previously to the 
marginal worth of labour, would have become 
greater than the marginal worth of labour. 
That the workpeople would get wages in 
excess of their marginal worth, if they got 
their way in the case put above, can easily 
be demonstrated. It has been premised that 
the quantities both of employing power and 
capital engaged in industry would be reduced. 
This being so, the marginal worth of labour 
would be bound to fall because its marginal 
worth varies directly as the quantity of the 
other factors in collaboration with which it is 
working ; and though its marginal worth would 
fall in the circumstances considered, its wage 
has been supposed to rise. But according to 
the theory of wages, the employer will not pay 
labour more than its marginal worth : if an 
attempt is made to force him to do so he will 
turn off workpeople until he reaches the point