CONCLUDING REMARKS.

THROUGHOUT the foregoing discussions I have written under a constant sense of my accountability as a teacher of political economy. I have adduced no causes, recognized no objects, but such as I deemed to be strictly economical. No ethical or social considerations have moved me consciously in the composition of this work. Causes have, it is true, been here adduced which are not commonly recognized as economical, but it has only been where reasons could be shown sufficient, in my judgment, for attributing to these causes, which are perhaps primarily ethical or social, a clear potency within the field of industry, affecting either the production or the distribution of wealth; for I hold that it can not be questioned that whatever affects either of these is, in just so far, an economical cause. Thus, sympathy for labor (pp. 362–372), if it serves in any degree to make competition on the side of the laboring class more active and persistent; if it takes any thing from the activity and persistency with which the employing class use the means in their power to beat down wages, or lengthen the hours of work, or introduce young children into painful and protracted labor, becomes, in just so far as it has such an effect, a strictly economical cause, to be recognized, and, so far as may be, its force measured, by the writer on the distribution of wealth. The economist recognizes indolence (pp. 174, 175), the indisposition to labor, as an economical cause, holding men back from the acquisition of wealth which they might obtain but for the force of this principle. Why is not public opinion, restraining men, as it so largely does, from the acquisition of wealth by means held to be dishonorable or oppressive to the weaker classes of the community, also and equally to be recognized as an economical cause?

I regret that this treatise should be so strongly controversial in form; but the fact is, certain doctrines which I deem to be wholly unfounded have become so widely spread that one can make no progress, by so much as a step, towards a philosophy of wages without encountering them. These doctrines are:

1st (pp. 136-140). That there is a wage-fund irrespective of the numbers and industrial quality of the laboring population, constituting the sole source from which wages can at any time be drawn.

2d (pp. 161-165). That competition is so far perfect that the laborer, as producer, always realizes the highest wages which the employer can afford to pay, or else, as consumer, is recompensed in the lower price of commodities for any injury he may chance to suffer as producer.

3d (pp. 243-246). That, in the organization of modern industrial society, the laborer and the capitalist are together sufficient unto production, the actual employer of labor being regarded as the capitalist, or else as the mere stipendiary agent and creature of the capitalist, receiving a remuneration which can properly be treated like the wages of ordinary labor.

These doctrines I have found it necessary to controvert; and in so doing have not cared to mince matters or pick phrases. For any excess of controversial zeal I shall easily be justified, if I have substantiated the positions I have taken; on the other hand, if I have been unduly presumptuous in assailing doctrines sanctioned by such high authority, a little too much harshness in argument will not add appreciably to my offence.

It may, perhaps, be well to guard against misconstruction on a single point. In getting rid of the wage-fund, we have not reached the result that wages can be increased at any time or to any amount whatever. We have merely cast aside a false measure of wages. Wages still have their measure and their limits, and no increase can take place without a strictly economical cause.

Wages can not be larger than the product except by force of pre-existing contract. Wages must, in the long run, be less than the product by enough to give the capitalist his due returns, and the employer his living-profits.

What then has been effected by doing away with the wage-fund? We have shown (Chapter VIII.) that the remuneration of hired labor finds its measure not in a past whose accumulations have been plundered by class legislation and wasted by dynastic wars, but in the present and the future, always larger, freer, and more fortunate. If capital furnishes the measure of wages, then that measure is derived from the past, such as it has been, and no increase of energy, intelligence, and enterprise on the part of the laboring class can add to, as no failure on their part can take from, their present remuneration, which is determined wholly by the ratio existing between capital and population. If production furnishes the measure of wages, as is here maintained, then the wages class are entitled to the immediate benefit of every improvement in science and art, every discovery of resources in nature, every advance in their own industrial character (Chapter IX.). Surely it is not a small matter that the laborer should find the measure of his wages in the present and the future, rather than in the past!

But that portion of this treatise on which I should be disposed most strongly to insist, as of extended consequence in the philosophy of wages, is the doctrine that if the wage laborer does not pursue his interest, he loses his interest (Chapter X.) in opposition to the view so generally maintained by economists, that if the wage laborer does not seek his interest, his interest will seek him; that economical forces are continually operating to relieve and repair the injuries of labor; and, specifically, that all sums taken in excessive profits, or for the excessive remuneration of capital, whether through combina

tions of employers or capitalists or through the disabili ties of the working class, are sure to be restored to wages. To the contrary, I have sought to show that, in a state of imperfect competition :

First, wages may be reduced without any enhancement of profits, the difference being, not gain to the employer, but loss to mankind through the industrial degradation of the laborer (Chapter IV.) Secondly, for so much of the sums taken from the laboring class by reduction of wages as the employers or capitalists may at the time secure in excessive profits or excessive interest, there exists no adequate security, under the operation of strictly economical forces, that it will be fully returned to the wages class in a quickened demand for their labor, inasmuch as luxuriousness and indolence (pp. 237-40, 251) will inevitably enter, among the majority of employers, to waste in self-indulgence a portion of the profits so acquired, or to take something from the activity and the carefulness with which future production will be pursued. Thirdly, in respect to such industrial injuries as have just been described, economical forces by themselves tend (pp. 165, 166) to perpetuate and continually to deepen the injury, putting the laborer at a constantly increasing disadvantage in the exchange of his services.

If these three propositions have been substantiated, it follows with absolute certainty that the doctrine of the schools, that in a state of imperfect competition the employer and the capitalist are the guardians of the laborer's interests and the trustees of his wages, is most fallacious, those interests being, in truth, only secured when placed in his own keeping (pp. 241, 242), those wages being only his own when paid into his hands, and that, to enable him thus to maintain his rights in the distribution of the product of industry, he must be qualified by an education which is wholly extra-economical, for which the community, through either its social or its political agencies, must make provision.

This brings us face to face with the doctrine of Laissez faire, which teaches that the spontaneous action of individuals, each seeking his own interest on his own instance, guided and helped at most by the purely social forces of the community, will achieve the best possible industrial results; and that the interference of government, operating by constraint and compulsion, under the sanction of law, can only be mischievous. Reasons have been shown for believing that Laissez faire, so long and loudly proclaimed a principle of universal application, is nothing but a rule of conduct (pp. 162–4) applicable in certain conditions; a rule very useful, indeed, when duly subordinated to higher considerations, but mischievous when allowed to bar the way to clear, practical opportunities for advancing the industrial condition of mankind; a rule, in short, which, like fire or water, is a good servant but a bad master.

Yet, in reducing Laissez faire from the rank assigned it in most economical treatises, to its true grade of a practical rule, good in certain conditions only, we have not reached the result that State interference is therefore desirable at any and every point where the spontaneous action of individuals shall be seen to be inadequate to achieve the highest good of all classes. We have merely put the objection to paternal government on grounds which will · bear examination. State interference, however well intended, however clear the occasion, is certain in some degree to miss its mark, and to work more or less of positive mischief in any attempt to remove the evils incident to individual action. Legislation is always more or less unwise ; administration always falls in some degree short of its intent (pp. 172, 173). Certainly no one can entertain a stronger sense of the evils of the regulation by law of the industrial concerns of the people than the writer of this treatise. State interference with industry is only justified where the admitted mischiefs of restriction are heavily overborne by an urgent occasion for preventing the per