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[V.
1.]
....An
increase in wages arouses in the worker the same desire to get rich as
in the capitalist, but he can only satisfy this desire by sacrificing
his mind and body. An increase in wages presupposes, and brings about,
the accumulation of capital, and thus opposes the product of labour to
the worker as something increasingly alien to him. Similarly, the division
of labour makes him more and more one-sided and dependent, introducing
competition from machines as well as from men. Since the worker has been
reduced to a machine, the machine can confront him as a competitor. Finally,
just as the accumulation of capital increases the quantity of industry
and, therefore, the number of workers, so it enables the same quantity
of industry to produce a greater quantity of products. This leads
to overproduction and ends up either by putting a large number of workers
out of work or by reducing their wages to a pittance.
Such are the consequences of a condition of society which is most favorable
to the worker -- i.e., a condition of growing wealth.
But, in the long run, the time will come when this state of growth reaches
a peak. What is the situation of the worker then?
....(3)
"In a country which had acquired that full complement of riches...both
the wages of labour and the profits of stock would probably be very low...
the competition for employment would necessarily be so great as to reduce
the wages of labour to what was barely sufficient to keep up the number
of labourers, and, the country being already fully peopled, that number
could never be augmented." [Smith I, p. 84]
....The surplus population
would have to die.
So, in a declining state of society, we have the increasing misery of
the worker; in an advancing state, complicated misery; and in the terminal
state, static misery.
[VI. 1.]
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[V.
2.]
and the different
values which it may add to the annual produce of the land and labour of
the society, according as it is employed in one or other of those different
ways, never enter into his thoughts." [Smith, p. 355]
...."The most useful employment of capital
for the capitalist is that which, with the same degree of security, yields
him the largest profit; but this employment is not always the most useful
for society... the most useful is that which... stimulates the productive
power of its land and labour." [Say, II, pp. 130-31]
...."The plans and projects of the employers
of stock regulate and direct all the most important operations of labour,
and profit is the end proposed by all those plans and projects. But the
rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity
and fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally
low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in countries
which are going fastest to ruin. The interest of this third order [those
who live by profit], therefore, has not the same connection with the general
interest of the society as that of the other two.... The interest of the
dealer, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is
always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of
the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always
the interest of the dealers... and order of men whose interest is never
exactly the same as that of the public, who have generally an interest
to decisive and even to oppress the public..." [Smith I, pp. 231-2]
4. The Accumulation of Capitals and the Competition among the
Capitalists
...."The
increase of capitals, which raises wages, tends to lower profits, as a
result of the competition among capitalists. [Smith, p. 78]
If, for example, the capital which is necessary for the grocery trade
of a particular town is divided between two different grocers, their competition
will tend to make both of them sell cheaper than if it were in the hands
of one only; and if it were divided among 20,
[VI.
2.]
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[V.
3.]
in the crop."
[Smith, I, p. 153 ]
...."Rent is seldom less than a fourth,
and frequently more than a third of the whole produce." [Smith, I,
p. 325 ]
...."Ground rent cannot be paid in the
case of all commodities. For example, in many districts no rent is paid
for stones.
Such parts only of the produce of land can commonly be brought to market
of which the ordinary price is sufficient to replace the stock which must
be employed in bringing them thither, together with its ordinary profits.
If the ordinary price is more than this, the surplus part of it will naturally
go to the rent of the land. If it is not more, though the commodity may
be brought to market, it can afford no rent to the landlord. Whether the
price is or is not more depends upon the demand." [Smith, I, p. 132
]
...."Rent, it is to be observed, therefore,
enters into the composition of the price of commodities in a different
way from wages and profit. High or low wages and profit are the causes
of high or low prices; high or low rent is the effect of it." [Smith,
I, p. 132 ]
....Among the products
which always yield a rent is food.
...."As
men, like all other animals, naturally multiply in proportion the means
of subsistence, food is always, more or less, in demand. It can always
purchase or command a greater or smaller
[VI. 3.]
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