24 POLITICAL ECO1\OMY 



large macs, acting in concert, finds support in the mutual ap- 

 proval of its members. Joint action also causes greater incon- 

 venience to the capitalists, and forces them to make up their 

 mind at one given time. This point requires no elaboration. 

 Many persons think the unions ought not to be allowed to 

 exercise the powers they possess, but few, if any, will deny 

 that if wages can be altered by bargaining, unions can drive 

 the harder bargain. 



We have so far, with Mill, assumed that labour is on the 

 same footing as to value as commodities of which the quantity 

 cannot be increased ; but the grounds of that assumption should 

 be understood. The cost of articles which can be multiplied 

 at will is rightly supposed to depend ultimately on the cost of 

 production. Why ? Because there is no room for the exercise 

 of any unwillingness to sell, such as may occur in the case of 

 holders of a monopoly. If one set of holders will not sell 

 without a profit above the average, new makers will produce, 

 and by their competition soon reduce the cost to that which 

 represents an ordinary profit on outlay. 1 



The primd facie reason why labour cannot be included in 

 this category of objects is, that the quantity for sale cannot 

 be increased or diminished quickly enough. The cost of manu- 

 facture of labour is (neglecting previous outlay on education) 

 the cost of the weekly sustenance of the labourer, who has to 

 go on producing himself, and however small his profits on his 

 absolutely necessary outlay may be, he is forced to sell or die ; 

 but then he has the great advantage that by eating twice as 

 much he cannot do twice as much work, so that at any time when 

 he is all wanted, he gets the benefit of being a limited article, 



1 Returning to our equation, there is no room for B ; the number supplied 

 can only depend on f\x~) ; but if the variable B disappears, A , as an independent 

 variable, disappears too ; for A could only vary in our equation without a 

 change in /(#) or F(x~) by the variation of B. We then find that the price of a 

 commodity such as this is absolutely fixed once for all, so long as the relation 

 bet ween /and F remains constant. Now, the number supplied at a given 

 price will increase precisely as the number wanted increases, so long as the 

 profit remains unaltered in other words, F=fz, where z is a factor or func- 

 tion depending on the cost of manufacture hence the relation between /''and 

 / can vary only from a variation in the cost of manufacture, in which one 

 possible variation is a change in the average rate of profit expected by the 

 maker. 



