THE TIME-LABOUR SYSTEM 123 



is the famine and pestilence of trade. Even famine and pesti- 

 lence serve useful ends, and so does a strike ; but instead of 

 submissively accepting strikes as the only means by which, in the 

 present state of the body politic, wages can be determined, let us 

 examine carefully how prices of other commodities are determined 

 by nature, with the hope that when the special difficulty in the 

 case of labour is clearly understood, we may find the means of 

 evading or overcoming that difficulty. 



The price of any one article, say eggs, in a given market is 

 that at which the number of eggs required by the buyers is 

 equal to the number offered by the sellers ; there is no such 

 thing as a definite demand or a definite supply irrespective of 

 price. We can only think of demand as definite when we name 

 a given price : at that price buyers would be willing to take, 

 say 100,000 eggs ; but perhaps at this price sellers would only 

 supply 90,000 ; if so, the given price is below the true market 

 price. At some higher price 100,000 eggs may be ready for 

 sale, but at this price buyers decline to take more than 90,000 ; 

 this price then is above the market price. 



There is some intermediate price afe which perhaps 95,000 

 could be disposed of by sellers and 95,000 also bought by the 

 buyers. This price would be the market price and this number 

 the number sold on that market day provided and this is a 

 very material point, buyers and sellers could accurately ascertain 

 one another's minds. But there is no mysterious law of nature 

 bringing this price to light without visible agency an approxi- 

 mation to this theoretical market price is actually formed by a 

 tentative process. Some one offers eggs at what he guesses or 

 wishes the market price to be. Then one of two things happens ; 

 either this offer is snapped up at once, and buyers crowd round 

 him, or buyers shake their heads, and say that they will wait. 

 If sales at this price are numerous the market is said to be brisk 

 and the sellers raise their prices ; if there are few transactions 

 the sellers lower their prices. By this power of trial they find 

 out roughly a price at which the number of eggs for sale and 

 the number required are about equal. This process of deter- 

 mining the price of an article will hereafter be called the market 

 process, and the price thus ascertained, the market price. 



Price in a market varies in a manner so resistless as to 



