HOW LABOUR ACQUIRES VALUE AND MAN BECOMES FREE.
The proximity of the market enables the farmer not only to enrich his
land and to obtain from it far more than he could otherwise do, but it
also produces a demand for many things that would otherwise be wasted.
In the West, men set no value upon straw, and in almost every part of
this country the waste arising out of the absence of a market for any
commodities but those which can be carried to a distance, must strike
every traveller. Close to the town or city, almost every thing has
some value. So too with labour, the value of which, like that of land,
tends to increase with every increase in the facility of exchanging
its products.
The solitary settler has to occupy the spots that, with his rude
machinery, he _can_ cultivate. Having neither horse nor cart, he
carries home his crop upon his shoulders, as is now done in many parts
of India. He carries a hide to the place of exchange, distant,
perhaps, fifty miles, to obtain for it leather, or shoes. Population
increases, and roads are made. The fertile soils are cultivated. The
store and the mill come nearer to him, and he obtains shoes and flour
with the use of less machinery of exchange. He has more leisure for
the improvement of his land, and the returns to labour increase. More
people now obtain food from the same surface, and new places of
exchange appear. The wool is, on the spot, converted into cloth, and
he exchanges directly with the clothier. The saw-mill is at hand, and
he exchanges with the sawyer. The tanner gives him leather for his
hides, and the papermaker gives him paper for his rags. With each of
these changes he has more and more of both time and manure to devote
to the preparation of the great food-making machine, and with each
year the returns are larger. His _power to command_ the use of the
machinery of exchange increases, but his _necessity_ therefor
diminishes, for with each there is an increasing tendency toward
having the consumer placed side by side with the producer, and with
each he can devote more and more of his time and mind to the business
of fashioning the great machine to which he is indebted for food and
clothing; and thus the increase of a consuming population is essential
to the progress of production.
Diversification of employments, resulting from combination of action,
thus enables men to economize labour and to increase production.
Increased production, on the other hand, makes a demand for labour.
The more wheat raised and the more cloth made, the more there will be
to give in exchange for labour, the greater will be the number of
persons seeking for labourers, and the greater will be the power of
men to determine for themselves the mode in which they will employ
their time or their talents. If, therefore, we desire to see men
advance in freedom, we must endeavour to increase the productive
power; and that, as we see, grows with the growth of the power to
improve the land, while it diminishes with every diminution in the
power to return to the land the manure yielded by its products. In
purely agricultural countries there is little demand for labour, and
it always tends to diminish, as may be proved by any reader of this
volume who may chance to occupy a purely agricultural neighbourhood.
Let him look around him, and he will, without difficulty, find
hundreds of men, and hundreds of women and children, wasting more time
than would, if properly employed, purchase twice the clothing and
twice the machinery of production they are now enabled to obtain. Why,
however, he will probably ask, is it that they do so waste it? Because
there is no demand for it, except in agriculture; and when that is the
case, there must necessarily be great waste of time. At one season of
the year the farm requires much labour, while at another it needs but
little; and if its neighbours are all farmers, they are all in the
same situation. If the weather is fit for ploughing, they and their
horses and men are all employed. If it is not, they are all idle. In
winter they have all of them little to do; in harvest-time they are
all overrun with work; and crops frequently perish on the ground for
want of the aid required for making them. Now, it would seem to be
quite clear that if there existed some other mode of employment that
would find a demand for the surplus labour of the neighbourhood, all
would be benefited. The man who had a day's labour to sell could sell
it, and, with the proceeds of the labour of a very few days, now
wasted, could purchase clothing for his children, if, indeed, the
labour of those children, now also wasted, did not more than pay for
all the clothing, not only of themselves, but of his wife and himself.
In order that the reader may see clearly how this state of things
affects all labourers, even those who are employed, we must now ask
him to examine with us the manner in which the prices of all
commodities are affected by excess of supply over demand, or of demand
over supply. It is well known to every farmer, that when the crop of
peaches, or of potatoes, is, _in even a very small degree_, in excess
of the regular demand, the existence of that small surplus so far
diminishes the price that the larger crop will not yield as much as a
much smaller one would have done. It is also known to them that when
the crop is a little less than is required to supply the demand, the
advance in price is large, and the farmer then grows rich. In this
latter case the purchasers are looking for the sellers, whereas in the
former one the sellers have to seek the buyers. Now, labour is a
commodity that some desire to sell, and that others desire to buy,
precisely as is the case with potatoes; but it has this disadvantage
when compared with any other commodity, that it is less easily
transferred from the place where it exists to that at which it is
needed, and that the loss resulting from _the absence of demand on the
spot_ is greater than in reference to _any other commodity
whatsoever_. The man who raises a hundred bushels of peaches, of which
only seventy are needed at home, can send the remainder to a distance
of a hundred or a thousand miles, and the loss he sustains is only
that which results from the fact that the price of the whole is
determined by what he can obtain for the surplus bushels, burdened as
they are with heavy cost of transportation, that he must lose; for the
man that _must_ go to a distant market must always pay the expense of
getting there. This is a heavy loss certainly, but it is trivial when
compared with that sustained by him who has labour to sell, because
_that_, like other very perishable commodities, cannot be carried to
another market, and _must be wasted_. If he has two spare hours a day
to sell, he finds that they waste themselves in the very act of
seeking a distant market, and his children may go in rags, or even
suffer from hunger, because of his inability to find a purchaser for
the only commodity he has to sell. So, too, with the man who has days,
weeks, or months of labour for which he desires to find a purchaser.
Unwilling to leave his wife and his children, to go to a distance, he
remains to be a constant weight upon the labour market, and must
continue so to remain until there shall arise increased competition
for the purchase of labour. It is within the knowledge of every one
who reads this, whether he be shoemaker, hatter, tailor, printer,
brickmaker, stonemason, or labourer, that a very few unemployed men in
his own pursuit keep down the wages of all shoemakers, all hatters,
all tailors, or printers; whereas, wages rise when there is a demand
for a few more than are at hand. The reason for this is to be found in
the difficulty of transferring labour from the place at which it
exists to that at which it is needed; and it is to that we have to
attribute the fact that the tendency to depression in the wages of all
labour is so very great when there is even a very small excess of
supply, and the tendency to elevation so great when there is even a
very small excess of demand. Men starve in Ireland for want of
employment, and yet the distance between them and the people who here
earn a dollar a day, is one that could be overcome at the expense of
fifteen or twenty dollars. Wages may be high in one part of the Union
and low in another, and yet thousands must remain to work at low ones,
because of the difficulty of transporting themselves, their wives, and
their families, to the places at which their services are needed.
Every such man tends to keep down the wages, of _all other men who
have labour to sell_, and therefore every man is interested in having
all other men fully employed, and to have the demand grow faster than
the supply. This is the best state of things for all, capitalists and
labourers; whereas, to have the supply in excess of the demand is
injurious to all, employers and employed. All profit by increase in
the competition for the purchase of labour, and all suffer from
increased competition for the sale of it.
We had occasion, but a little while since, to visit a factory in which
were employed two hundred females of various ages, from fourteen to
twenty, who were earning, on an average, three dollars per week,
making a total of six hundred dollars per week, or thirty thousand
dollars a year; or as much as would, buy five hundred thousand yards
of cotton cloth. Now supposing these two hundred females to represent
one hundred families, it would follow that their labour produced five
thousand yards of cloth per family, being probably three times as much
in value as the total consumption of clothing by all its members,
from, the parent down to the infant child.
Let us now suppose this factory closed; what then would be the value
of the labour of these girls, few of whom have strength for field-work
even if our habits of thought permitted that it should be so employed?
It would be almost nothing, for they could do little except
house-work, and the only effect of sending them home would be that,
whereas one person, fully employed, performs now the labour of the
house, it would henceforth be divided between two or three, all of
whom would gradually lose the habit of industry they have been
acquiring. The direct effect of this would be a diminution in the
demand for female labour, and a diminution of its reward. While the
factory continues in operation there is competition for the purchase
of such labour. The parent desires to retain at least one child. A
neighbour desires to hire another, and the factory also desires one.
To supply these demands requires all the females of the neighbourhood
capable of working and not provided with families of their own, and
thus those who are willing to work have the choice of employers and
employment; while the competition for the purchase of their services
tends to raise the rate of wages. If, now, in the existing state of
things, another factory were established in, the same neighbourhood,
requiring a hundred or a hundred and fifty more females, the effect
would be to establish increased competition for the purchase of
labour, attended by increased power of choice on the part of the
labourer, and increased reward of labour--and it is in this increased
power of choice that freedom consists. If, on the contrary, the
factories were closed, the reverse effect would be produced, the
competition for the purchase of labour being diminished, with
corresponding diminution of the power of choice on the part of the
labourer, diminution in his compensation, and diminution of freedom.
What is true with regard to the females of this neighbourhood is
equally true with regard to the men, women, and children of the world.
Wherever there exists competition for the purchase of labour, there
the labourer has his choice among employers, and the latter are not
only required to pay higher wages, but they are also required to treat
their workmen and workwomen with the consideration that is due to
fellow-beings equal in rights with themselves: but wherever there is
not competition for the purchase of labour, the labourer is compelled
to work for any who are willing to employ him, and to receive at the
hands of his employer low wages and the treatment of a slave, for
slave he is. Here is a plain and simple proposition, the proof of
which every reader can test for himself. If he lives in a
neighbourhood in which there exists competition for the purchase of
labour, he knows that he can act as becomes a freeman in determining
for whom he will work, and the price he is willing to receive for his
services; but if he lives in one in which there is competition for the
sale of labour, he knows well that it does not rest with him to
determine either where he will work or what shall be his wages.
Where all are farmers, there can be no competition for the purchase of
labour, except for a few days in harvest; but there must be
competition for the sale of labour during all the rest of the year. Of
course, where all are farmers or planters, the man who has labour to
sell is at the mercy of the few who desire to buy it, as is seen in
our Southern States, where the labourer is a slave; and in Ireland,
where his condition is far worse than that of the slaves of the South;
and in India, where men sell themselves for long terms of years to
labour in the West Indies; and in Portugal, where competition for the
purchase of labour has no existence. Where, on the contrary, there is
a diversification of employments, there is a steady improvement in the
condition of men, as they more and more acquire the power to determine
for themselves for whom they will work and what shall be their reward,
as is seen in the rapid improvement in the condition of the people of
France, Belgium, and Germany, and especially of those of Russia, where
competition for the purchase of labour is increasing with wonderful
rapidity. Diversification of employment is absolutely necessary to
produce competition for the purchase of labour. The shoemaker does not
need to purchase shoes, nor does the miner need to buy coal, any more
than the farmer needs to buy wheat or potatoes. Bring them together,
and combine with them the hatter, the tanner, the cotton-spinner, the
maker of woollen cloth, and the smelter and roller of iron, and each
of them becomes a competitor for the purchase of the labour, or the
products of the labour, of all the others, and the wages of all rise
with the increase of competition.
In order that labour may be productive, it must be aided by machinery.
The farmer could do little with his hands, but when aided by the
plough and the harrow he may raise much wheat and corn. He could carry
little on his shoulders, but he may transport much when aided by a
horse and wagon, and still more when aided by a locomotive engine or a
ship. He could convert little grain into flour when provided only with
a pestle and mortar, but he may do much when provided with a mill. His
wife could convert little cotton into cloth when provided only with a
spinning-wheel and hand-loom, but her labour becomes highly productive
when aided by the spinning-jenny and the power-loom. The more her
labours and those of her husband are thus aided the larger will be the
quantity of grain produced, the more speedily will it be converted
into flour, the more readily will it be carried to market, the larger
will be the quantity of cloth for which it will exchange, the greater
will be the quantity of food and clothing to be divided among the
labourers, and the greater will be the facility on the part of the
labourer to acquire machinery of his own, and to become his own
employer, and thus to increase that diversification in the employment
of labour which tends to increase the competition for its purchase.
It will next, we think, be quite clear to the reader that _the nearer_
the grist-mill is to the farm, the less will be the labour required
for converting the wheat into flour, the more will be the labour that
may be given to the improvement of the farm, and the greater will be
the power of the farmer to purchase shoes, hats, coats, ploughs, or
harrows, and thus to create a demand for labour. Equally clear will it
be that _the nearer_ he can bring the hatter, the shoemaker, and the
tailor, the maker of ploughs and harrows, the less will be the loss of
labour in exchanging his wheat for their commodities, and the greater
will be his power to purchase books and newspapers, to educate his
children, and thus to introduce new varieties in the demand for
labour; and each such new variety in the demand for that commodity
tends to raise the wages of those engaged in all other pursuits. If
there be none but farmers, all are seeking employment on a farm. Open
a carpenter's or a blacksmith's shop, and the men employed therein
will cease to be competitors for farm labour, and wages will tend to
rise. Open a mine, or quarry stone and build a mill, and here will be
a new competition for labour that will tend to produce a rise in the
wages of all labourers. Build a dozen mills, and men will be required
to get out timber and stone, and to make spindles, looms, and
steam-engines; and when the mills are completed, the demand for labour
will withdraw hundreds of men that would be otherwise competitors for
employment in the ploughing of fields, the making of shoes or coats,
and hundreds of women that would otherwise be seeking to employ
themselves in binding shoes or making shirts. Competition for the
purchase of labour grows, therefore, with every increase in the
diversification of employment, with constant tendency to increase in
the reward of labour. It declines with every diminution in the modes
of employing labour, with steady tendency to decline in wages.
If the reader will now trace the course of man toward freedom, in the
various nations of the world, he will see that his progress has been
in the ratio of the growth of towns at which he and his neighbours
could exchange the products of their labour, and that it has declined
as the near towns have given way to the distant cities. The people of
Attica did not need to go abroad to effect their exchanges, and
therefore they became rich and free; whereas the Spartans, who
tolerated nothing but agriculture, remained poor and surrounded by
hosts of slaves. The towns and cities of Italy gave value to the land
by which they were surrounded, and freedom to the people by whom that
land was cultivated. So was it in Holland, and in Belgium, and so
again in England. In each and all of these land increased in value
with every increase in the facility of exchanging its products for
clothing and machinery, and with each step in this direction men were
enabled more readily to maintain and to increase the power of the
land, and to permit larger numbers to obtain increased supplies from
the same surfaces. Association thus increased the power of
accumulating wealth, and wealth thus diminished in its power over
labour, while with augmented numbers the people everywhere found an
increase in their power to assert and to defend their rights. Having
reflected on the facts presented to him in the pages of history, and
having satisfied himself that they are in perfect accordance with the
views here presented, the reader will perhaps find himself disposed to
admit, the correctness of the following propositions:--
I. That the nearer the market the less must be the cost to the farmer
for transporting his products to market and for bringing back the
manure to maintain and improve his land.
II. That the nearer the market the less must be the loss of labour in
going to market, and the greater the quantity that can be given to the
improvement of the land.
III. That the more the labour and manure that can be given to land,
the larger will be the product and the greater its value.
IV. That the larger the quantity of commodities produced the greater
will be the demand for labour to be employed in converting them into
forms that fit them for consumption, and the larger the quantity to be
divided among the labourers.
V. That the greater the competition for the purchase of labour the
greater must be the tendency toward the freedom of the labourer.
VI. That the freedom of man in thought, speech, action, and trade,
tends thus to keep pace with increase in the habit of association
among men, and increase in the value of land;--and
VII. That the interests of the labourer and land-owner are thus in
perfect harmony with each other, the one becoming free as the other
becomes rich.
Equally correct will be found the following propositions:--
I. That the more distant the market the greater must be the cost to
the farmer for transporting his products to market, the greater must
be the difficulty of obtaining manure, and the more must his land be
impoverished.
II. That the more distant the market the greater must be the loss of
labour on the road, and the less the quantity that can be given to the
improvement of the land.
III. That the less the labour and manure applied to the land the less
must be the product, and the less its value.
IV. That the longer this process is continued the poorer must become
the land, until at length it ceases to have value, and must be
abandoned.
V. That the smaller the quantity of commodities produced the less must
be the demand for labour to be employed in their conversion, and the
less the quantity to be divided among the labourers.
VI. That the less the competition for the purchase of labour the less
must be the power of the labourer to determine for whom he will work,
or what must be his reward, and the greater the tendency toward his
becoming enslaved.
VII. That the tendency toward slavery tends thus to keep pace with the
decline in the habit of association among men, and the loss of value
in land;--and
VIII. That thus the labourer and land-owner suffer together, the one
becoming enslaved as the other becomes impoverished.
If evidence be desired of the correctness of these propositions, it
may found in the history of Egypt, Greece, Rome, Mexico, and of every
other country that has declined in wealth and population.