DIFFERENCE OF WAGES IN DIFFERENT BRANCHES OF LABOR. (CONTINUED.)
B. The great economic risk of the work. When a branch of labor necessary
to a country is, notwithstanding, attended by many chances of failure to
the individual who devotes himself to it, a sufficient supply of the
labor can be relied on only in case that the danger attending it is
compensated for by a corresponding premium paid to success.[168-1] The
choice of a profession or avocation, Adam Smith has compared to a
lottery, in which the fortunate winners gain only what the unfortunate
have lost. The greater the prizes, the greater also the number of
blanks.[168-2] However, the surplus wages in risky kinds of labor are
not sufficient to constitute a full insurance premium. This is connected
with the vanity of men who, as a rule, over-estimate not only their
talent but their good fortune,[168-3] and especially in youth, when they
decide on the choice of a profession, etc. According to this, wages must
be specially low where even complete failure does not endanger the
living or the social position of the workman. Partly on this account are
the industries carried on by women so poorly remunerated;[168-4] as also
such work as is done by a large class of people to fill up their leisure
hours.[168-5]
The prospect of frequent interruptions in any kind of labor must have
the same effect on the wages paid for it as its economic or business
risk.[168-6] Thus, for instance, a mason or roofer must earn at least
enough, during the days he can work, to enable him to live during the
time he is prevented working by bad weather. Hence, the highness of his
wages may, in some respects, be called an apparent one.[168-7] Wages
paid by the week more generally tend to equality than wages paid by the
day, and more so yet wages paid by the year, for then winter and summer
compensate the one for the other. When the workman must be ever ready to
perform his task, account must be taken not only of the number of hours
he is engaged, but also of fractions of his waiting hours, which must be
paid for likewise.[168-8] Two half days cost almost everywhere more than
one whole one.
The number of holidays plays a very important part here. In Protestant
countries, the workman must, in about three hundred work days, earn
enough to live on for about sixty holidays as well. In Catholic
countries, before the time of Clement XIV., he had to earn enough in
addition to support himself for about one hundred and fifty holidays, on
ninety of which he performed no work whatever.[168-9] So large a number
of holidays produces a higher rate of wages or necessitates a low
standard of life among the working classes.[168-10] Something similar is
true of evening leisure and rest;[168-11] _i. e._, of the time when
labor ceases.
[Footnote 168-1: The greater the preparatory cost of labor
is, the more difficult it is for workmen to go from one kind
of labor to another; but, at the same time, the more certain
it is that, without the inducement of a premium paid, there
will be no after increase or recruiting of labor-force.]
[Footnote 168-2: Thus, for instance, in the country, where
doctors generally get along well enough, the most skillful
never obtains any very distinguished position. But, in large
cities, on the other hand, there is the greatest difference
between first-class physicians and obscure practitioners.
Great generals usually obtain a larger income and greater
influence than great admirals; and so it is that prizes in
the military lottery are greater, and there are therefore
more blanks than in the naval lottery. The common soldier is
almost everywhere worse paid than the common sailor. (_Adam
Smith._) To some extent, this depends on the prison-like
life of the seaman in times of service, and in the absence
of an attractive uniform. As to the extent that the lottery
comparison is defective, see _Macleod_, Elements, 215.]
[Footnote 168-3: Who, otherwise, would have anything to do
with a lottery in which the mass of players were certain to
lose, and the keeper of it to gain? And this accounts for
the fact well known to all financiers, that the amount of
the budget remaining the same, a greater eagerness to enter
the military service of the country is inspired by endowing
the higher positions munificently--provided they are
attainable by all--and paying the lower ones in a very
niggardly way, than when the pay is made more uniform.
Something similar is to be observed in the ecclesiastical
service of the Roman and Protestant churches, inasmuch as
the former, considered from an economic point of view,
offers more magnificent prizes, but also more blanks, while
the latter divides its emoluments more equally.]
[Footnote 168-4: As most seamstresses are, when the worst
comes to the worst, supported by their parents, connections
by marriage, brothers, etc., the condition of those who have
to live by their needle must be a pretty hard one. Who is
not familiar with the refrain to _Hood's_ celebrated song of
the shirt: "Oh God, that bread should be so dear, and flesh
and blood so cheap!" There is a "distressed needlewoman's
society" in London. They undoubtedly suffer from an
overcrowding of their avocation, yet their chief desire is
that the competition of all who do not live exclusively by
the labor of their hands should be prohibited; for instance,
that of seamstresses who are paid for their work outside of
factories. (Edinb. Rev., 1851, 24.) In Paris, in 1845, the
yearly earnings of women workers averaged 375 francs, their
yearly wants 500 francs. (Journal des Economistes, X, 250.)
This does not apply to female servants whose wages,
especially in highly cultured localities as the vicinity of
large cities (Holstein, Brandenburg), is very high. In
England, the wages of female domestics is frequently higher
than in the United States; and hence nearly two-thirds of
all English girls between fifteen and twenty-five years of
age serve as maids. _Browning_, Political and Domestic
Condition of Great Britain, 413; _Carey_, Rate of Wages, 92.
A remarkable indication that women thrive only in the
family. (Compare § 250.)]
[Footnote 168-5: Thus, the darning of stockings in the sandy
parts of North Germany, in the Highlands of Scotland, in the
Faroe Islands, and formerly, even in the ante-rooms of the
Russian nobility. (_Schlözer_, Anfangsgründe der
Staatswirthsch, I, 126.) Flax spinning and linen weaving in
Westphalia and Ireland, and wool weaving in the East Indies.
Manufacturing industries must be in a very highly developed
condition, and machinery carried to a high degree of
perfection to compete in price with these accessory
industries. Cheapness of many products manufactured in
convents and monasteries.]
[Footnote 168-6: Among these interruptions, may also be
reckoned the prospect the laborer has of being early
incapacitated for work, and thus of seeing himself cut off
from every other source of support. This is one of the
principal reasons why opera singers are generally better
paid than actors.]
[Footnote 168-7: In Leipzig, in 1863, mason and carpenter
journeymen earned during the summer, from twenty silver
groschens to one thaler, ordinary garden workmen, 20 silver
groschens, while shoemaker journeymen did not make much more
than 3-1/2 thalers a week, and manual laborers, only from 10
to 15 silver groschens a day. The masons of Paris have the
reputation of being the best patrons of the savings banks,
and, on that account, are more exposed to being attacked by
thieves than any other class. (_Frégier_, Des Classes
dangereuses, II, 3, 1.) High wages paid for threshing in
East Prussia, because, the workman during the winter can be
employed in very few different kinds of labor, and therefore
must earn his entire support by threshing. In Paris, of
101,000 persons engaged in industry in 1860, 6,400 had to
calculate on no interruption of their work, the remaining
number, however, lost with a certain degree of regularity,
from 2 to 4 months a year. (Revue des deux Mondes, 15 Fév.,
1865.) If the interruption can be so accurately estimated in
advance that the workman may engage in some business for
himself during the interval, as for instance when the
workmen in the Bavarian breweries work during the summer as
masons, its influence on wages decreases. (_Storch_,
Handbuch, I, 192.) As to how, in Switzerland, since 1850,
the guaranty of full employment to masons in winter is
considered as an addition to the wages of summer, see
_Böhmert_, Arbeiterverhältnisse, I, 141.]
[Footnote 168-8: _Commissionaires_, hack-drivers,
_Extraposthalter_ in Germany, porters, nurses, guides,
servants in watering places and countries visited by
tourists. A London porter gets at least a shilling an hour.
If employed by the day, he of course gets smaller wages.
Image venders, who travel from house to house, sell their
wares much lower at their own houses. The person who calls
them in from the street is obliged to pay them not only for
this one journey, but for several others which yielded them
no profit.]
[Footnote 168-9: If we call the minimum daily need or the
absolute requirement of the workman = m, the rate of daily
wages in the former case must amount to at least m + m/6; in
the latter, on the other hand, to m + m/4. A Bavarian
holiday estimated at a _minus_ of much more than 1,000,000
florins. (_Hermann_, II, Anfl., 192.)]
[Footnote 168-10: _Von Sonnenfels_, Polit. Abhandlungen,
1777, 332 ff.]
[Footnote 168-11: In a part of Lower Bavaria, in which there
were 204 holidays in a year, among them the anniversaries of
the consecration of 40 churches in the country about, and a
feast day following each such anniversary, as well as
target-shooting festivals, the celebration begins at 4
o'clock P. M. of the preceding day. (_Rau_, Lehrbuch, I, §
193.)]