AGRICULTURAL WAGES 805 



in rearing children, those too old to support themselves. The wage 

 which affords the means of attaining to the standard of living of the 

 class is the supply-price of the labor of that class, and the preceding 

 remarks have reference to this fact rather than to anything specifically 

 stated in the words "standard of living." 



If wages, then, fall below the amount needed to maintain the class 

 standard, the supply of labor will be reduced, either in amount, or in 

 efficiency, or in both. Privation may render the members of the 

 class more liable to attacks of disease, increasing the loss of work- 

 ing time from that cause, and resulting in earlier death or incapa- 

 city. Reduction of the more essential parts of consumption reacts 

 on the efficiency of labor, which is also affected by the moral or 

 intellectual attitude of workmen in reference to work which they 

 regard as inadequately remunerated. 



In addition to these influences on the working efficiency of the 

 living, it is necessary to consider the influence of reduced means on 

 the natural increase of numbers. Though it may be true that some 

 classes are reckless in regard to the responsibilities of parentage, and 

 that, in consequence, their birth-rate shows no response to decreasing 

 prosperity, the more intelligent members of the wage-earning classes, 

 perhaps all except the very lowest grades, are influenced in this 

 respect by adversity. A fall in earnings operates to retard mar- 

 riage, since the class standard of family, life cannot be supported 

 on the reduced earnings. 1 How general this influence is can be 

 seen by comparison of the marriage-rate in prosperous and dull 

 times. 



Wages cannot permanently exceed the value of the net product 

 of labor at the margin of employment, and competition tends to make 

 the two coincide. Wages, too, cannot permanently fall below the 

 amount needed to maintain the standard of living of the class to which 

 the labor belongs, and competition tends to make these two also 

 coincide. As, in the general problem of value, utility and cost of 

 production each tends to equality with exchange value, so too in this 

 special case. The utility here is measured by the value of the 

 product of labor at the margin of employment, while the cost of 

 production includes the cost of the necessaries and comforts of life 

 usual in the class to which the workman belongs, together with 

 such luxuries as are also customary, the workman's family as well 

 as himself needing support as a condition of the continuity of thf 

 labor supply. 



