AGRICULTURAL WAGES 797 



Selection 266 gives actual figures for farm labor hired on a strict 

 wage basis and 267 presents generalizations for all farm workers. In 

 this connection a difficulty presents itself. Logically we must define 

 wages as the return to the labor factor in production and, under such 

 definition, there is a wage for the self-employed farmer as well as for 

 his hired man. Since the amount of this wage, however, is a question 

 of accounting rather than of bargaining, it becomes a difficult matter 

 to get at the precise figure of the employer's labor income. Particu- 

 larly are we puzzled to say what is truly wages and what should 

 properly be known as profits. The present discussion, therefore, 

 merges into that of chapter xvii. 



A. Some Points of Theory 



254. THE NATURE AND RATE OF WAGES 1 

 BY EDWIN R. A. SELIGMAN 



Wages are the remuneration of labor. They are paid for the 

 services of human beings, as rents are paid for the services of things. 

 If by price we mean value in the market, wages are a price just as 

 rent and interest are prices. The law of wages must be like that of rent 

 and interest, for the law of all price is the same. Wages, however, 

 differ in some respects from rent and interest. Net interest is always 

 the same in a given market, being the price paid for the use of an 

 aliquot part of a homogeneous fund. Wages, however, vary with 

 the kind of labor. The wages of the skilled workman are higher than 

 those of the unskilled; the wages of the foreman shade into the salary 

 of the manager. On the other hand, wages differ from rents. Rents 

 vary from zero to prodigious sums. Human beings, on the other 

 hand, must live. The recompense of labor must be large enough to 

 enable the workman at least to exist. Wages therefore cannot fall 

 below a positive minimum which is absent in the case of commodities. 



Wages, although they are undoubtedly prices, may yet be usefully 

 contrasted with the prices of things. Labor is a commodity in the 

 sense that everything which has a price is a commodity. Labor, 

 however, is a peculiar kind of commodity. The chief peculiarities 

 are four in number, (i) Commodities are produced for the services 

 which they render. The increased supply of human beings is not 

 due to any such consideration. (2) A commodity once in existence 



' Adapted from Principles of Economics (ad ed.), pp. 411, 416-20. (Copy- 

 right by Longmans, Green, & Co.) 



