Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/782

 768 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

and render the service of the laborer smaller by encouraging production under such conditions. If any large number of per- sons are so employed, there must follow a very much lower pro- ductive effort in that community. This in turn affects the amount of goods produced and influences the prices and the pur- chasing power of the consumer. So, as a consequence, the whole matter comes back upon the consumer, who, through the very fact that he sanctions employment at low wages and long hours, makes it quite possible that production will be lower and pur- chasing power limited thereby. There is no mistaking this point : although opposed most decidedly by certain individuals, the wages of the worker depend in the long run upon his producing power. Such economists as Walker, Marshall, and Clark have accepted this as a fact. Acknowledging it, then, as one of the laws of economics, it would follow that where low actual wages are paid (and we are to distinguish here between money wages and real wages) the vitality and the working power of the laborer are lessened. If this be true, then the number of commodities which are actually produced by workers is reduced, and as a con- sequence the cost of each commodity must be increased. This means in the long run (and there are some immediate exceptions which for the time being may be made to this statement) that the community will be compelled to pay more for its commodi- ties than when the various workers received adequate wages and were able to produce under the best of conditions.

Occasionally there will be found certain trades, such as the clothing trade, where the statement just made is constantly vio- lated. This has been due in one sense to a very severe competi- tion which takes place between the sellers of clothing, and also calls many workers into this form of industry because they feel that they can make clothing and do sewing more easily and to better advantage than anything else. Hence low wages have prevailed on the ground that they mean a lower cost of produc- tion. Undoubtedly this is true for the time being. Certainly it means that less capital is required to produce commodities under such conditions. But to say that poorly paid and unskilled work- ers can compete with laborers who are producing in well-equipped