i AGRICULTURAL WAGES 80 1 



the joint product, which labor makes. Then, too, different kinds of 

 labor, paid at many different rates, are employed together, and the 

 contributions of the various grades to the total result must be dis- 

 entangled from one another if we would know what each grade is 

 worth. 



Let us consider first the case of a group of laborers performing 

 similar tasks. If their numbers can be increased or decreased slightly, 

 without a change in the rest of the apparatus of production with 

 which they are associated, the consequent change in the product can 

 be directly attributed to the change in their numbers. The loss in 

 product due to a loss of a workman, or the gain due to the addition 

 of a workman represents that workman's effective product. But this 

 can only be maintained if the change of numbers does not involve 

 leaving some machinery or other productive appliances wholly or 

 partially idle, that is, if the removal of a workman simply removes 

 his own contribution to the product and not, in addition, that of a 

 machine or some part of that of other workmen. In conceiving of a 

 man's net product, we must, therefore, either conceive of a case where 

 no readjustment of appliances to numbers using them is needed when 

 one additional man is added to, or subtracted from, a working group, 

 or else we must make comparison between two cases, tlie one where 

 the available capital is given the forms needed for setting a larger 

 number of men at work, the other where the same amount of capital 

 is represented by appliances for a smaller number. When the larger 

 and smaller numbers differ by unity, the difference in the product of 

 the two groups is due, not to a difference in any other element, but 

 purely to the difference of a workman more or less, and we may, 

 therefore, reasonably call the difference the net product of that man's 

 labor. If we may assume a knowledge of the interest on capital, the 

 'conception may be made simpler. We have merely to observe the 

 difference in product due to the removal of one workman, to determine 

 further the capital rendered idle by his removal, and, after assigning, 

 from the total decrease of product, so much to capital as will account 

 for the interest and depreciation on the capital thrown idle, attribute 

 the remainder to the workman. 



In the case of the ordinary workman, whose place could be taken 

 by any one of his fellow-workmen, it will be clear that the question of 

 the amount of his net product is one which is not concerned with 

 himself personally, but that any one of those who could replace him 

 or whom he could replace must be regarded as having the same net 



