Labour exchange

“ In a society of producers of commodities, the exchange of commodities is carried out according to the labour socially necessary for their production. Labour is the source and the measure of their exchange value. ”

“ The other mode in which co-operation tends, still more efficaciously, to increase the productiveness of labour, consists in the vast stimulus given to productive energies, by placing the labourers, as a mass, in a relation to their work which would make it their principle and their interest—at present it is neither—to do the utmost, instead of the least possible, in exchange for their remuneration. ”

“ In this state of things, the whole produce of labour belongs to the labourer; and the quantity of labour commonly employed in acquiring or producing any commodity, is the only circumstance which can regulate the quantity of labour which it ought commonly to purchase, command, or exchange for. ”

“ But in reality no such exchange can take place; it only appears to do so.2 What really happens is, that the employer receives in return from the worker commodities that cannot exist, unless the worker devotes his labour-power to creating them. The worker receives one part, the employer the other part of the commodity so created. The production of the commodity is the result of a co-operation between employer and employed. ”

“ Labour was the first price, the original purchase money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased; and its value, to those who possess it, and who want to exchange it for some new productions, is precisely equal to the quantity of labour which it can enable them to purchase or command. ”

“ The sum of the statistics of necessities, put up by the Labour Exchanges of the different localities, would make it possible for the general Labour Unious and the general Union of Labour Exchanges of the whole country to easily send those products and raw materials which are abundant in one region into those regions where they are needed. Everybody will take from the public warehouses, in which products and provisions are piled up, to his heart's content, as he will need it, because production will proceed according to the public needs. ”

“ The principles of free exchange of labour shall also apply to the earning of income by workers in organizations of associated labour in other activities in which the action of market laws cannot be a basis for the adjustment of work and needs, nor a basis for assessing the value of labour. ”

“ The rapidly changing processes and widening markets of English industry seemed to demand the sweeping away of all restrictions on the supply and employment of labour, a process which involved the levelling of all classes of wage-earners to their " natural wages." ”

“ The advantage of the English system of labour exchanges will be found in the fact that it is a national system, with the support of the state behind it. Unless, as has been proposed, it is made compulsory in all large trades, much of its success will depend on the patronage extended to it by employers, which in its turn must be justified by the efficiency of the service rendered. ”

“ The fact that the earliest durable combinations of wage-earners in England precede the factory system by a whole century, and occur in trades carried on exclusively by hand labour, reminds us that the creation of a class of lifelong wage-servants came about in more than one way. ”

“ This division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived, is not originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that general opulence to which it gives occasion. It is the necessary, though very slow and gradual, consequence of a certain propensity in human nature, which has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another. ”

“ But division of Labor would be useless were it not for Trade. Each of those frontiersmen must trade his share in the other’s habitation for the other’s share in his habitation; each of those messengers must exchange his claim to compensation for delivering one of the other’s two messages for the other’s claim to compensation for delivering one of his. This, then, is the sum and substance of Trade in Economics—adjustments of compensation for specialized Production through division of Labor. ”

“ With this question of free interchange of commodities is intimately bound up that of compulsory labour, which consists in the natives of the interior being compelled to work for the Government at certain fixed rates. ”

“ Protection for the benefit of a particular trade, or all trades, while it may conduce to the immediate advantage of Labour, is presumed to operate to the greater ultimate advantage of the capitalist, and to strengthen his position. ”

“ The workers, by the strength of their Trade Unions, may from time to time obtain improved conditions of employment, but until they obtain possession of the means of producing wealth, namely, the land, the mines, the railways, shipping, factories and workshops, they will remain dependent on a small section of the community providing them with employment. ”

“ The workers have been taught by the practical economists of the trade-unions, and have learnt for themselves by bitter experience, that every time any of them in a moment of ambition or good will does one stroke of work not in his bond, he is increasing the future unpaid labour not only of himself, but of his fellows. ”

“ These irritations most frequently exhibit themselves in the shape of combinations for the advance of wages. We have no hesitation in declaring our opinion that it is the positive duty of the working-man to obtain as high wages as he can extract out of the joint products of capital and labour; and that he has an equal right to unite with other workmen in making as good a bargain as he can, consistently with the rights of others, for his contribution of industry to the business of [Pg 376] production. ”

“ But law or custom may interfere to limit competition. If apprentice laws, or the regulations of corporate bodies, make the access to a particular employment slow, costly, or difficult, the wages of that employment may be kept much above their natural proportion to the wages of common labour. ”

“ The combination of friendly benefits with trade objects was destined to be hotly attacked twenty years later by the more ardent spirits in the Trade Union world, as leading to inertia and supineness in respect of wages, hours, and conditions of labour. ”

“ We propose to show what Labour can effect, and how it is to be encouraged and economized and rewarded: to treat of Capital, its nature and operation, and the proportions of its increase; and to exhibit the union of these two mighty agents of Production. Under the second head, Distribution, occur the great questions of Rent, Profits, Wages, and Population, the various modes of Interchange at home and abroad, including the consideration of all Monopolies, domestic and foreign. Under the third head, Consumption, are considered the modes of Demand and Supply, and of Taxation. ”

“ Let any one imagine that the labourers of England should suddenly desist from helping each other in simple employments, and he will see at once the prodigious advantages of simple co-operation. In a countless number of employments, the produce of labour is, up to a certain point, in proportion to such mutual assistance amongst the workmen. ”

“ But nations do not, at least in modern times, emigrate en masse; and, while the labor and capital of a country remain in the country, they are most beneficially employed in producing, for foreign markets as well as for its own, the things in which it lies under the least disadvantage, if there be none in which it possesses an advantage.
The fundamental ground on which all trade, or all exchange of commodities, rests, is division of labor, or separation of employments. ”

“ Trade Unions arose under the tradition of the old order, when in every business, employer and employed stood in marked antagonism, stood as a special instance of the universal relationship of gentle or intelligent, who supplied no labour, and simple, who supplied nothing else. The interest of the employer was to get as much labour as possible out of his hirelings; the complementary object in life of the hireling, whose sole function was drudgery, who had no other prospect until death, was to give as little to his employer as possible. ”

“ As a mere temporary expedient, we are willing to allow shareholders a low rate of interest.
5.—Trades' Unions. Their past, present, and future.
(a) Their past.
Capital is concentrated social force, while the workman has only to dispose of his individual working force. The contract between capital and labour can therefore never be struck on equitable terms, equitable even in the sense of a society which places the ownership of the material means of life and labour on one side and the vital productive energies on the opposite side. The only social power of the workmen is their number. ”

“ The wages of the inferior classes of workmen, I have endeavoured to show in the first book are everywhere necessarily regulated by two different circumstances; the demand for labour, and the ordinary or average price of provisions. The demand for labour, according as it happens to be either increasing, stationary or declining; or to require an increasing, stationary, or declining population; regulates the subsistence of the labourer, and determines in what degree it shall be either liberal, moderate, or scanty. ”

“ And though the immediate employer of each section of workpeople knows the hours that they work and the wages that they receive, he is precluded by the stream of competitive pressure, transmitted through the retail shopkeeper and the wholesale trader, from effectively resisting the promptings of his own self-interest towards a constant cheapening of labour. ”

“ These are almost always able to undersell the smaller tradesmen, partly, it is understood, by means of division of labour, and the economy occasioned by limiting the employment of skilled agency to cases where skill is required; and partly, no doubt, by the saving of labour arising from the great scale of the transactions; as it costs no more time, and not much more exertion of mind, to make a large purchase, for example, than a small one, and very much less than to make a number of small ones. ”

“ That part of the plan which deals with land-labour must be carried out under supervision of the peasants’ and land-workers’ organisations; that relating to industry, trade and transport operated by wage-earners, by means of Workers’ Control; the natural organs of Workers’ Control inside the industrial plant will be the Factory-Shop and similar Committees; and in the labour market, the Trade Unions. ”

“ In exchanging, indeed, the different productions of different sorts of labour for one another, some allowance is commonly made for both. It is adjusted, however, not by any accurate measure, but by the higgling and bargaining of the market, according to that sort of rough equality which, though not exact, is sufficient for carrying on the business of common life. ”

“ It is simply a device to save labour and eliminate risk, and its effect can only be the same as that of the improvements and inventions which in modern times have so wonderfully cheapened and facilitated exchanges - namely, to increase rent. And cooperation in production is simply the substitution of proportionate wages for fixed wages - a substitution of which there are occasional instances in almost all employments. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hence arose, of course, a necessity for looking abroad for new markets to take the place of those before obtained at home, and thus cheap labour, a consequence of the system, became in its turn a cause of new efforts at dispensing with and further cheapening labour. ”

“ But the complex division of labor which developed out of the Industrial Revolution has made the exchange of products increasingly important. To-day the typical workman concentrates upon one particular kind of work, and is content to exchange a share of his earnings for the numerous goods and services which he cannot supply for himself. Exchange thus increases the total output of the community or nation by permitting individuals to specialize in those commodities which they can produce most effectively. ”

“ This industry is remarkable for the extraordinary division of labour in its processes. In the preparation of a bullock more than thirty specialties are involved, and some twenty different rates of pay. This system enabled the packing companies, until checked by the development of labour unions, to save money not only by paying low wages for crude labour and high for skilled, but to develop wonderful expertness in every line, and so “speed up” the workmen to a remarkable pace. [17] No more interesting field can be found for the study of the qualities of foreign races. ”

“ The average workman, however, pays little attention to rhetoric and rodomontade, from whomsoever it may emanate, and I have succeeded in satisfying bodies of workmen as to the value of production by taking an American establishment and giving the output, hours and remuneration per man per annum, or any other convenient period of time, along with the output, hours and remuneration per man for the same period in a comparable establishment in England. ”

“ The minutest system of subdivided labor now rules here as in all trades. When a coat is in question, it is no longer the master-tailor, journeyman and apprentices who prepare it, but a legion of cutters, basters, machinists, pressers, fellers, button-hole, and [Pg 36] general workers, who find the learning of any one alone of the branches an easy matter, and so rush into the trade, the fiercest and most incessant competition being the instant result. ”