ABSTRACT
“Relative wages and profits” thus follow the same laws which govern the exchange value of commodities. “Rate of wages” and “value of labor,” “rate of profit” and “value of abstinence,” are no doubt equivalent expression. The problem of the general rate of wages, after being the occasion of perhaps more bitter controversy than any other within the field of social inquiry, seemed some years ago to have received, so far as the essentials of the matter went, its definitive solution. A general rate of wages is neither more nor less easy to conceive, neither more nor less absurd, than general prices. The demand for labor as measured by the amount of wealth applied to the direct purchase of labor, might more correctly be said to be, than to determine, the Wages-fund.
