The Wages of the Adventurer

Why is the adventurer’s wages are generally higher than those of the mere labourer even if he gets no profit as a capitalist?

The limit of strict necessity varies, not only according to the more or less comfortable condition of the labourer, and his family, but likewise according to the several items of expense reputed unavoidable in the country he inhabits.

Among these is the one we have just adverted to; namely, the rearing of children; there are others less urgent and imperative in their nature, though equally enforced by feeling and natural sentiments; such as the care of the aged, to which unhappily the labouring class are far too inattentive.

Nature could entrust the perpetuation of the human species to no impulse less strong, than the vehemence of appetite and desire, and the anxiety of paternal love; but has abandoned the aged, whom she no longer wants, to the slow workings of filial gratitude, or, what is even less to be depended upon, to the providence of their younger years. Did the habitual practice of society imperatively subject every family to the obligation of laying by some provision for age, as it commonly does for infancy, our ideas of necessity would be somewhat enlarged, and the minimum of wages somewhat raised.

The wages of the labourer are a matter of adjustment and compact between the conflicting interests of master and worker. The latter endeavouring to get as much, the former to give as little, as he possibly can; but in a contest of this kind, there is on the side of the master an advantage, over and above what is given him by the nature of his occupation.

The master and the workman are no doubt equally necessary to each other; for one gains nothing but with the other’s assistance; the wants of the master are, however, of the two, less urgent and less immediate. There are few masters but what could exist several months or even years, without employing a single labourer; and few labourers that can remain out of work for many weeks, without being reduced to the extremity of distress.

This circumstance must have its weight in striking the bargain for wages between them.

Sismondi has suggested some legislative provisions to better the condition of the labouring classes.

He says that their low wages leads to the gain of their employers.

accrues to the benefit of the adventurers and masters who employ them; and thence infers, that in the moment of calamity, their claim for relief is upon the masters, and not upon society at large.

He proposes to make it obligatory for:

• landowners and farmers to always feed the agricultural labor
• manufacturers to provide subsistence for the manufacturing labourer

He also proposes that the employers can prevent or allow marriage of their workers so that they can raise their families.

It must appear shocking to the eye of philanthropy, that such is not always the case. It is lamentable to think of the little providence of the labouring classes against the season of casual misfortune, infirmity, and sickness, as well as against the certain helplessness of old age.

Such considerations afford most powerful reasons for forwarding and encouraging provident associations of the labouring class, for the daily deposit of a trifling saving, as a fund in reserve for that period, when age, or unexpected calamity, shall cut off the resource of their industry. 52 But such institutions can not be expected to succeed, unless the labourer be taught to consider these means of precaution as a matter of duty and necessity, and hold to the obligation to carry his savings to such places of deposit, as equally indispensable with the payment of his rent or taxes=

this new duty would doubtless tend in a slight degree to raise the scale of wages, so as to allow of such frugality, but for that very reason it is desirable. How can such establishments thrive in countries where habit and the interested views of the This scheme, however entitled to favourable consideration by the motive of humanity in which it originated, seems to me altogether impracticable. It would be a gross violation of the right of property, to saddle one class of society with the compulsory maintenance of another; and it would be a violation still more gross, to give one set of men a personal control over another; for the freedom of personal action is the most sacred of all the objects of property.

The arbitrary prohibition of marriage to one class is a premium to the procreation of all the rest. Besides, it is not true that low wages always leads to the the employer’s profit.

Their reduction, followed up by the constant action of competition, is sure to bring about a fall of the price of products; so that it is the class of consumers, in other words, the whole community, that derives the profit.

And if it be so great as to throw the subsistence of the labourers upon the public at large, the public is in a great measure indemnified by the reduced prices of the objects of its consumption. that he must be stimulated by the impulse of want.

Adam Smith had great experience and deep insight. He said= “The liberal reward of labour, as it encourages the propagation, so it increases the industry of the common people. The wages of labour are the encouragement of industry, which, like every other human quality, improves in proportion to the encouragement it receives. A plentiful subsistence increases the bodily strength of the labourer, and the comfortable, hope of bettering his condition, and of ending his days perhaps In ease and plenty, animates him to exert that strength to the utmost. Where wages are high, accordingly, we shall always find the workmen more active, diligent, and expeditious, than where they are low; in England, for example, than Scotland; in the neighbourhood of great towns, than in remote country places. Some workmen, indeed, when they can earn in four days what will maintain them through the week, will be idle the other three. This, however, is by no means the case with the greater part. Workmen, on the contrary, when they are liberally paid by the piece, are very apt to overwork themselves, and to ruin their health and constitution in a few years.” 54

Overpopulation is an evil both in a savage and civilized society.

It would be unjust to suppose it a creature of social institutions, and a mere fallacy to hold out the prospect of a complete remedy; and, however it may merit the thanks of mankind to study the means of palliation, we must be cautious not to give a ready ear to expedients that can have no good effect, and must prove worse than the disease itself.

A government should protect the interests of the labouring classes without deranging the course of human affairs, or cramping the freedom of individual dealings.

A wise ruler will equally protect the master and the labourer from the effects of combination. The masters have he advantage of smaller numbers and easier communication. The labourers can scarcely combine, without assuming the air of revolt and disaffection, which the police is ever on the watch to repress.

The partisans of the exporting system have gone so far as to consider the combinations of the journeymen as injurious to national prosperity because they raise the price of their exports. But what must be the character of that policy, which aims at national prosperity through the impoverishment of a large proportion of the home producers, with a view to supply foreigners at a cheaper rate, and give them all the benefit of the national privation and self-denial?