THE DISAGREEABLENESS OF CERTAIN CLASSES OF LABOR.--ITS EFFECT ON WAGES.
C. Lastly, the personal disagreeableness of the work, which must be
compensated for by higher wages. The uncleanness of a coal-worker's
task, that of the chimney-sweep, and the repulsive labor of the butcher,
demand high compensation, while other branches of business, themselves
productive of pleasure, and therefore engaged in by many for pleasure's
sake only, yield relatively little to those who engage in them as a
regular industry.[169-1]
To this category belong the kinds of labor which require extraordinary
effort,[169-2] or which put life or health in unusual jeopardy.[169-3]
But, indeed, when the danger attending any kind of work is made glorious
by the romantic light of honor, or by still higher motives, it ceases to
have any influence on wages.[169-4] On the other hand, the
disreputableness of a business in itself raises wages;[169-5] whereas,
scholars, poets, etc., leaving the charm inherent in their occupations
out of account, are for the most part remunerated only by the honor paid
them, and, not unfrequently, only by fame after they have gone
hence.[169-6] And yet their talents are so rare, the preparation so
laborious, the economic risk so great! Nor is there for the really
creative workman any such thing as evening rest. (_Riehl._) Common
intellectual labor is worse paid in our days than it was, comparatively
speaking, a generation ago; because the increased average education
makes it less burthensome to most people, and even seem positively
agreeable to many. It would, indeed, be a dangerous retrogressive step
towards barbarism, if it should come to such a pass, that labor
preponderantly intellectual should be permanently more poorly
remunerated than mere muscular labor.[169-7] [169-8]
[Footnote 169-1: Thus the chase, fishing in rivers (compare
_Theocrit._, Idyll., 21), gardening, fine female manual
labor, and literature.]
[Footnote 169-2: The high wages paid to mowers and threshers
may be accounted for on this ground (§ 160). In countries
that have a strong heavy soil, wages are frequently 20 per
cent. higher than under circumstances otherwise similar
where it is sandy or light. In Mexico, a digger gets about
twice the wages of an agricultural laborer. (_Senior_, On
the Value of Money, 56.)]
[Footnote 169-3: Almost every trade predisposes to some
special disease. Compare _Halfort_, Enstehung, Verlauf und
Behandlung der Krankheiten der Künstler und
Gewerbetreibenden, 1845. _Livy_, Traité d'Hygiène publique
et privée, 1850, II, 755. It has been noticed, in Sheffield,
that thoughtless steel polishers look unfavorably on certain
new inventions intended to protect workmen against inhaling
small particles of stone and iron dust. They dread that if
these inventions come into general use, their wages would be
lowered in consequence; and prefer a short and merry life to
one longer and more quiet.
In places in which nearly all kinds of work are dangerous,
the danger cannot of course relatively raise the wages of
anyone. Thus, in the Thuringian forest, the wages of the
haulers of wood are very low. (_Lotz_, Revision, III, 151.)]
[Footnote 169-4: Missionaries! Besides the extremely small
wages paid to common soldiers (in the German infantry only
36.5 thalers cash per annum, to which in Leipzig, for
instance, rations, etc., add about 34 thalers more) is an
outlay made by the government principally to effect a levy
of the tax of the compulsory labor that lies in
conscription. (_Knies._) In the volunteer system, the
difference between officers and men is wont to be much
smaller. Thus, _Gustav Wasa_ paid his German mercenaries as
follows: 6 marks a month to captains, five to lieutenants
and 4 to common soldiers. (_Geijer_, Schwed. Gesch., II, 125
seq.) Similarly in the case of the Greek hired troops.
(_Böckh_, Staatshaushalt der Athener, I, 165 ff.) As to how
little at the outbreak of a war, soldier earnest money is
increased, and positions as officers most sought after, see
_Hermann_, II, Aufl., 479.]
[Footnote 169-5: Thus, for instance, the skinning or flaying
of dead animals is comparatively well paid, to which the
rarity of the application of the work of executioners
contributes. (_J. Moser_, Patr. Ph., I, No. 34.) The high
wages of actors, singers, dancers, and especially of the
female members of the stage, depends principally on the
contempt with which they were formerly looked upon;
excommunicated by the Catholic church, and a scarcely milder
sentence passed upon them by the Protestant, until about the
middle of the eighteenth century. (_Schleiermacher_,
Christliche Sitte, 681.) Compare even _J. J. Rousseau_,
Lettre sur les Spectacles à Mr. d'Alembert sur son Article
Genève.]
[Footnote 169-6: _Schiller's_ "Theilung der Erde." _Blanqui_
says of the learned: "They are most frequently satisfied
with a citizen-crown, and think themselves remunerated when
justice has been done to their genius. Their magnanimity
impels them, to their own injury, to diffuse their knowledge
as rapidly as possible. Thus they are like the light of day
which no one pays for, but which all enjoy, without thanking
the giver as they ought." The reward of intellectual labor
is called an _honorarium_. (_Riehl_, Die Deutsche Arbeit,
1861, 232.) According to _J. B. Say_, Traité, II, ch. 7, the
poor wages of savants depends on the fact that they take to
market, and all at once, a great quantity of what they
produce, which cannot even be used up.]
[Footnote 169-7: In Switzerland, journeymen are often better
paid than the clerks kept by the greater tradesmen.
(_Böhmert_, Arbeiterverhältnisse, II, 168.) In England,
also, since 1850, the wages for "unskilled labor" has risen,
relatively, most. (_Tooke_, Hist. of Prices, VI, 177.) It
would be a frightful peril to our whole civilization if
school teachers and subordinate officials should be turned
into enemies of the entire existing state of things by
want.]
[Footnote 169-8: The high wages paid to engineers on
railroads is accounted for by the wear, physical and mental,
their employment entails, and also by their unavoidable
expenses away from home; further, by the importance of the
interests confided to their trust. On the Leipzig-Dresden
Railway, locomotive engineers, for the most part previously
journeymen blacksmiths, earned 900 thalers a year.
Similarly, in the case of pilots. The high wages paid on
board ships engaged in the slave-trade arose from the
unhealthiness of the African coast, where formerly
one-sixteenth of the crew died yearly (Edinburg Rev., 480),
from the moral turpitude of the business, and from the
severe penalties under which it was afterwards prohibited.
On the other hand, the low wages paid to European mining
laborers is largely the consequence of the certainty of
being cared for in old age, of those so employed. Weavers'
wages are low because the facility of learning the trade
makes it possible for the business to be carried on at home;
and hence there is a comparatively great pressure to engage
in it. (_Baines_, History of the Cotton Manufacture, 485
ff.)
According to the first annual report of the poor law
commissioners (202), the weekly wages in Manchester of
hod-carriers was 12s.; of hand-weavers, 7-15s.; of diggers,
10-15s.,; of pack-carriers, 14-15s.; of shoemakers, 15-16s.;
of machine-weavers, 13-16-5/6s.; of white-washers, 18s.; of
tailors, 18s.; of dyers, 15-20s.; of plasterers, 19-21s.; of
masons, 18-22s.; of tinsmiths, 22-24s.; of carpenters, 24s.;
of spinners, 20-25s.; of machinists, 26-30s.; of iron
founders and power-loom tenders, 28-30s. In Belgium, the
average daily wages for male labor was 1.18 francs for
agricultural laborers; for those engaged in industry, 1.48
francs; in the manufacture of linen, 0.80 francs; of cotton,
1.55; of woolens, 1.62; of silk, 1.25; of stockings, 1.14;
of glass, 2.58; of coal, 1.33. All according to the
Statistique générale de la B. In Athens, in the time of
Aristophanes, a pack-carrier earned 4 oboli a day; a street
sweeper, 3; a stone cutter on the public works, 6; a
carpenter, 5; for roofing houses and taking down
scaffoldings, each man, 6. The architects who superintended
the building of the temple of Polias, on the other hand, got
only 6 oboli per day, and the contractor 5. (_Böckh_, I, 165
ff.)
The Edictum Diocletiani of the year 301 after Christ
contains the following provisions in relation to wages,
besides "board:" shepherds, camel-drivers and muleteers, 20
denarii; agricultural laborers, water-carriers, scavengers,
25; bakers, masons, roofers, house-finishers and repairers
of the inside, lime burners, wheelwrights and common clay
moulders, 50; boatsmen, sailors, makers of marble or mosaic
floors, 60; wall painters, 70; clay moulders for statues,
75; artistic painters, 150. (ed. _Mommsen_, cap. 7.) In
slave countries, the price of different slaves is to be
judged, mainly, by the above rules. Concerning the Greeks,
see _Böckh_, I, 95 ff. _St. John_, The Hellenes, III, 23 ff.
It is a characteristic fact that the Romans, after the
Syrian war, began to pay high prices for the hitherto much
despised kitchen slaves. (_Livy_, XXXIX, 6.) Remarkable
fixed prices for slaves by _Justinian_: Cod. VI, 43, 3; VII,
7, 1, 5. Thus, in the Lex Burgundionum, tit. 10, the
compensation for the murder of a common laborer is fixed at
30 solidi; of a carpenter, at 40; of a smith, at 50; of a
silversmith, at 100; of a goldsmith, at 150. Advanced
civilization is wont to raise the price of slaves who
perform work of a higher quality, just as it raises the
wages of labor of a higher quality.]