220 Evolution of the Wages System. 



person of the laborer to his labor ; thenceforth he ceased 

 to be a commodity and became a distinct social as well as 

 an economic factor, which constitutes a radical difference 

 between the two industrial systems. 



It is further urged that vmder the slave system the 

 master was compelled to give the laborer as much of the 

 product as would furnish him a living, and under the wages 

 system he does no more. This is true, with the radical 

 difference however that, under slavery, what should consti- 

 tute the laborer's standard of living was determined by the 

 arbitrary authority of the master, while under the wages 

 system his standard of living is determined by his social 

 habits and new desires, which may be and are constantly 

 increased according to the extent and complexity of his 

 social relations. Thus while under both systems the labor- 

 er's income is determined by his standard of living, in the 

 transition from slavery to wages the standard of living was 

 transferred from the sphere of rigid despotic authority to 

 that of social law, where it becomes susceptible of indefinite 

 expansion. 



THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE WAGES SYSTEM. 



If we examine the state of society in France at the 

 close of the ninth century, we find little but industrial 

 and social confusion. After the death of Charlemagne, 

 society was practically resolved into its original elements ; 

 political government and everything like social and indus- 

 trial order practically disappeared. In the reorganization 

 of society under feudalism, the center of all allegiance, 

 authority and ambition was transferred from the emperor 

 and petty king to the person of the feudal baron.* With 

 the establishment of the feudal system and its more perma- 

 nent social life, a greater desire for the display of wealth 

 and social power rapidly developed among the barons and 

 their more wealthy vassals. The ambition of every lord to 

 outdo his neighbors in pageantry and make the baronial hall 

 rival the king's castle, which was so common in the tenth 

 and eleventh centviries, naturally stimulated the growth of 

 new wants, tastes and social habits, the satisfaction of which 

 necessitated the production of more wealth. As these in- 

 fluences extended, })opulation increased, and towns began to 



* Ffallain's History of t)it' Middle Ages, Vol. I., cli. ii. Also Guizot's History 

 of Civilization. 



