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PART I.

PRODUCTION AND POPULATION.

THE WAGES QUESTION.

CHAPTER I.

WAGES A QUESTION IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH.

ALL the questions of Political Economy may, both conveniently and appropriately, be grouped under four titles, namely, the Production, the Distribution, the Exchange, and the Consumption of Wealth. All wealth has, of course, to be produced, in the first place; and, moreover, it is produced to be consumed, and for this end alone. Production and Consumption, therefore, are concerned with the entire sum of wealth.

All wealth, however, is not exchanged'; nor is all

1 Not only is not, but could not be. I say this to meet the suggestion that wealth, though actually not exchanged, is yet always subject to exchange in the sense that, if that particular form of wealth were to rise, or some possible substitute for it in use were to fall markedly in price, exchange would then take place, so that such wealth should still be regarded as within the domain of exchange. But the state of facts assumed is not real. No matter how much rice. might advance, or other food decline in price, no human power could take all the crop out of India and bring back a food-substitute to the people, even were it Liebig's extract. The whole transportation system of India, reinforced by the revenues of the British Government, broke down under the effort, in 1873-4, to distribute to the people of certain districts of India an amount of rice equivalent to but a small portion of their usual crop. The railroads and water-courses of the United States could not take all the crops from the farms where they were raised.

wealth distributed. Exchange and Distribution, therefore, have not to deal with the entire sum of wealth. Nor is that part of wealth which is excluded from Exchange identical with that which is excluded from Distribution. Vast amounts of wealth are exchanged which are not distributed; vast amounts are distributed which are not exchanged.

The term Production of Wealth does not need, for our present purposes, to be defined.

Consumption, in the economical sense, is the use of wealth. The actual destruction of wealth thereby may be total or partial, rapid or slow, according to the nature of the material and the object to which it is directed. The Consumption begins when the use begins.

"That almost all that is produced is destroyed, is true; but we can not admit that it is produced for the purpose of being destroyed. It is produced for the purpose of being made use of. Its destruction is an incident to its use; not only not intended, but, as far as possible, avoided."

Wealth is exchanged, in the meaning of the political economist, when the producer and the consumer of it are different persons; and this, whether different persons have united in the production of it or not.

On the other hand, wealth must be distributed when different persons (having separate legal interests) unite in production; and this, whether the product is to be exchanged or not.

In illustration of the latter case, let us suppose that a dozen persons unite in a fishing venture, on equal or unequal shares. Upon their return the product is distributed-that is, divided into shares-among them. It may be that each of the producers will desire all the fish thus falling to his share for his own immediate consumption, or to be salted down for winter use: then none of the product will be exchanged, though all of it has been subject to distribution.

1 N. W. Senior, Pol. Econ., p. 54.

Or, again, some of the fishermen may desire to sell the whole, others portions only, of their fish, in order to purchase articles more adapted to their necessities: then we should have a product distributed wholly and exchanged in part.

2

In illustration of the former case, let us take a small farmer, in the American sense of that term,' a peasant proprietor in the phrase of Europe, cultivating his land by his own labor and that of his minor children, and perhaps of his wife as well. The product here is not distributed, because it is all his, the children and, for that matter, the wife, having no separate interests legally, and the avails of their labor going entire to the father and husband. The product, therefore, not being divisible into shares representing the claims of different producers, Distribution is not concerned at all with it; yet a part of it, or the whole, may be exchanged. If the farm were situated in one of our North-eastern States, and the product were chiefly pork, corn, potatoes, and garden vegetables, the greater part would presumably go to the support of the family, and but little would be exchanged for other articles. If, on the

1" When we speak of an American farmer, we generally mean one who is the absolute owner of the land and every thing on it."-T. Sedgwick, Pol. Econ., p. 54.

2

"It may be said that the father and husband is bound, both morally and legally, to support his wife and children out of the product; and that the subsistence thus derived by them constitutes, in effect, their wages. To this it will be sufficient to answer, first, that the amount and character of that subsistence are not determined by contract between the parties, as in the case of what may properly be called wages, but, within the limits of the mere support of life, are wholly at the will and discretion of the head of the family, having no relation to what other persons, rendering the same character and amount of service, may be receiving next door; and, second, which settles the question, that the head of the family is equally bound to supply subsistence whether the wife and children labor or not. In the case of children too young to labor, or of an invalid wife, the obligation of the head of the family, in respect to subsistence, is precisely the same.

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