Answer.--From the combination of labour and material.
Question.--"4. If capital is spent in paying wages for labour or
manufacture which brings no return (as the labour of an acrobat
or manufacturer of fireworks), is such capital lost or not? and
if lost, what is the effect of such loss on the future wages fund?"
Answer.--In the case supposed the capital ceases to exist as
capital, and the future wages fund is diminished to that extent;
but see the next answer.
Question.--"5. If under such circumstances it is lost, and can
only be recovered (much more recovered with interest) when it
has been spent in wages for productive labour or manufacture,
what labours and manufactures are productive, and what are
unproductive? Do all capitalists know the difference, and are
they always desirous to employ men in productive labours and
manufactures, and in these only?"
Answer.--Generally speaking, productive labour means labour which
produces useful or agreeable results. Probably no paid labour is
absolutely unproductive; for instance, the feats of the acrobat and
the fireworks amuse the spectators. Capitalists in general desire
to employ men in labours and manufactures which produce gain to
the capitalists themselves. The amount of the gain depends on
the relation between the demand for the product and the cost of
production; and the demand for the product depends principally
upon the extent to which it is useful or agreeable--that is, upon
the extent to which the labour is productive or unproductive. In
this indirect way capitalists are generally desirous to employ
men in productive labours and manufactures, and in them only.
Question.--"6. Considering the unemployed and purchasing public
as a great capitalist, employing the workmen and their masters
both, what results happen finally to this purchasing public if
it employs all its manufactures in productive labour? and what
if it employs them all in unproductive labour?"
Answer.--This is not the light in which we should consider the
"unemployed and purchasing public." But if they are all to
be considered in that light, it is obvious that the result
of employing all manufacturers in doing what is useless or
disagreeable would be general misery, and vice versâ.
Question.--"7. If there are thirty workmen, ready to do a day's
work, and there is only a day's work for one of them to do, what is
the effect of the natural laws of wages on the other twenty-nine?"
Answer.--The twenty-nine must go without work and wages; but the
phrase "natural law" is not ours.
Question.--"8. (a) Is it a natural law that for the same quantity
or piece of work, wages should be sometimes high, sometimes
low? (b) With what standard do we properly or scientifically
compare them, in calling them high or low? (c) And what is the
limit of their possible lowness under natural laws?"
Answer.--(a) It is an inevitable result from the circumstances
in which mankind are placed, if you call that a natural law.
(b) High wages are wages greater than those which have been
usually paid at a given time and place in a given trade; low
wages are the reverse. There is no absolute standard of wages.
(c) The limit of the possible lowness of wages is the starvation
of the workman.
Question.--"9. In what manner do natural laws affect the wages
of officers under Government in various countries?"
Answer.--In endless ways, too long to enumerate.
Question.--"10. 'If any man will not work, neither should he
eat.' Does this law apply to all classes of society?"
Answer.--No; it does not. It is not a law at all, but merely a
striking way of saying that idleness produces want.