Chapter 24. the Relation of Labor to Value

1. May a singer of songs or a mixer of drinks be called a productive laborer?

2. Are fine products high in price because wages are high, or vice versa?

3. Is common, unskilled labor "scarce" (in any reasonable sense of the word) in China? in the United States?

4. Can a manufacturer pay the same to laborers if the product will be marketed next year, as he can if it is to be marketed to-morrow? If so, how is the value of the labor adjusted to its product?

NOTE.--An able discussion of the effect of discounting in the sale of labor in the market is given by Böhm-Bawerk, Positive Theory of Capital, pp. 313-318 et seq.; see also Wieser, Natural Value, numerous passages. The changes in industrial organization are treated with historic insight by Hadley, Economics, Secs. 341-354. F. W. Taussig's Wages and Capital (1896) gives a sympathetic interpretation of the wage-fund doctrine; the work is especially valuable for its excellent review of the history of the subject and for the chapters analyzing the modern industrial process.