This law of competition and supply and demand applies as well to the wages of labor and to the rent of capital, etc., as to any other articles having any price or exchangeable value whatever. But in regard to these, as, in fact, in regard to many other articles, there is often a force of custom or habit that retards the ready conformity of prices to the conditions of the law. If wages, for example, are fixed at one dollar per day, for a certain season of the year and a certain kind of labor, they are likely to remain at that price for some time after the law of supply and demand have been calling for a change. Bye-and-bye, however, the employers begin to think that they are paying too much for their labor, and propose a reduction of wages, and will hire no new hands at the old prices; or, on the other hand, the laborers, if they are free and intelligent, begin to find that they might as well get more than they are receiving, and rise in their prices, or possibly combine in what is called a "strike." If they are right in their estimate of the fact they will succeed. But whenever a change is proposed by either party, or in either direction, its success is certain if the amount be in accordance with the laws above stated. If labor be scarce in comparison with the demand, wages will rise; if it

be more abundant than the demand, it will fall; rise in the one case and fall in the other, until the equilibrium is attained.

121. The law of supply and demand will produce a supply.

We may trust the law of supply and demand for these two results.

(1) It will provide for a supply, whenever there is a demand, unless the possibility of supply is limited by nature, as in case of the metals, etc.

For under this influence the price will rise, either to the intrinsic value of the article in market, or until it is so great that somebody can afford to produce it at the price offered.

122.

Will distribute laborers to the various callings.

(2) The law will distribute population among the various callings and kinds of labor, as they are needed in such proportions to each, as will best secure a supply of whatever is wanted.

For, if at any time there are not enough engaged in any particular kind of productive labor, the few who are so engaged will be making more than the average rate of profit, and others will rush into that occupation.

And conversely if there be too many

in any occupation, their rate of profit will be below the average, and people will leave it.

And thus we have a law that will solve for us practically, if we will let it have its course, some of the greatest problems in social science.

We are often obliged to contemplate man, not only as acting in regard to self interest alone, but sometimes even as acting selfishly. Still, even this has its good results. Suppose a large city, and a community of people around it devoted to raising supplies. Each man goes out in the morning to buy what he wants for the day, and cares for nobody else. His purchases affect the state of the market, the supply and demand. Each man living in the neighborhood goes into market either to sell or to learn what is wanted. The traders are prepared to buy only what they can sell, and care for nothing else. The countryman thus learns what he can sell, and goes home to produce that article, or rather, the one of those that are wanted that he can produce to the best advantage, and cares for nothing else. But in this way the wants of the consumer are made known; the supplies are calculated and provided for, as no Commissary or Political Economist on earth could compute and provide for them.

123.

Will regulate wages among the different employments.

Let us now proceed to consider the facts that de

termine the rate of wages and rent, separately, before we make any effort to determine their relation to one another.

While both parties are desiring to get as much as they can, there is this difference between them; the laborer must have some capital or he can do but little work, and can, of course, provide no adequate supply for his most imperious wants; the capitalist can live for a while on his capital, without rents. But while so doing he is using it up, and has poverty before him, and himself fast and inevitably approaching it; the laborer sees this and knows that of course the capitalist dreads poverty more than he does, and fears a diminution of his capital, as a general thing, more than the laborer does the hardships that will result from being out of employment. He can always do something.

Hence, in any contest, although the capitalist may often get an apparent triumph, it can only be apparent; it must be short-lived, and the laborers will inevitably get the advantage, and control affairs in their own way, in the end. This, however, can be

laborers are intelligent

the case only when the enough to manage affairs for themselves, and when they have the right of elective franchise, so as to prevent any laws being made, or other interference by way of force, on the part of the capitalists to prevent it.

Wages is always expressed by a number, which denotes a product into which time enters as a factor. It is so much per month, per year, etc., and as the time per day, as well as the effective force of labor, varies somewhat with the season of the year, there is an advantage in speaking of it as so much per year; and then, dividing that amount by the number of working days in a year, or about three hundred, we obtain a uniform average for a day's wages, which, however ideal it may be in some respects, is important as a means of calculation.

A laborer may be regarded as a machine-his body-if we regard him as a workman earning wages for himself; and the entire man-soul and body-if we regard him as producing value for another.

Considering him now in the former light, his body is a tool, or machine, by which he utilizes the spiritual force that is in him, and constitutes his personality. In this respect he is analagous to a steamengine.

(1) It cost a certain definite sum to raise him from infancy, up to the time when he could work, just as it cost a certain definite sum to build the steam-engine, and get it ready for work.

(2) And, as in the case of the steam-engine, it