SECTION CLXVII.. Difference of Wages in Different Branches of Labor.

DIFFERENCE OF WAGES IN DIFFERENT BRANCHES OF LABOR.

All the causes which make wages higher in some branches of labor; than in others, may be divided into three great categories.[167-1]

A. Rare personal acquirements. The supply of labor requiring rare personal ability will always be limited.[167-2] Such labor must, naturally, have great value in use, when a small supply of it is met by a great demand.[167-3] It sometimes happens that a species of labor can be utilized only by a small circle of persons who demand it. But the wages for it is raised very high by the great solvability of those who do demand it. How frequently it happens, for instance, that a minister is paid a very high salary for the ability he possesses of making complicated and dry affairs of state attractive to the personal taste of his sovereign.[167-4] Here, particularly, the confidence which the workman inspires by his skill and fidelity enters as an element. Without this confidence, there are many kinds of business which would be crushed out entirely by the control it would be necessary to subject them to, and others would not be possible at all.[167-5] When, for instance, in a large manufacturing establishment, understrappers, workmen, foremen, subordinate superintendents, directors, etc., draw different salaries, their pay, if equitably graduated, should be in harmony with the principles laid down in § 148, The head of a manufacturing establishment, for instance, who has organized a more perfect division and coöperation of labor, himself, and by means of which ten men are enabled to perform the work before performed by twenty, may equitably retain, as the reward of his organizing power, a considerable amount of what was previously paid out in wages. Louis Blanc's proposition, that all should receive equal salaries is, as Bastiat remarks, equivalent to the assertion that a yard of cloth manufactured by a lazy or unskillful workman is worth as much as two yards manufactured by an industrious and skillful one.[167-6]

Such qualified labor, as is treated of here, may be most accurately estimated, the quality of which supposes a certain cost of acquisition. This cost may be considered as the outlay of so much capital, which, with interest,[167-7] should come back to the workman in his wages. Otherwise, others would be deterred from entering the same business by the example of his loss. Here, especially, it is necessary to take into account the long period of apprenticeship or tuition, and the large fees paid for the same; and this, whether they depend on the natural difficulties in the way of acquirement or on artificial obstacles opposed to freedom of competition.[167-8] The influence of these circumstances is particularly great in those kinds of labor which require a "liberal" education.[167-9] Among the costs of production proper, peculiar to this labor-force, must be included, also, the necessary support of the workman, during the interval between the completion of his studies and the beginning of his full reward.[167-10]

When a species of work requires special current expenses to be made in order to its proper performance, these also should of course be made good to the workman in his wages. Most intellectual labor, for instance, requires quiet surroundings. The brain-worker cannot share his study with his family, and, therefore should receive wages or remuneration large enough in amount to enable him to arrange his dwelling accordingly. A similar circumstance, only in a much higher degree, enhances the price paid for diplomatic service.