It was necessary in order to complete our study of the second class of material commodities, namely, those produced from valuable and rentful lands, to glance in passing at the frequently disturbing effect on these, aside from their cost of production, of sinister laws plausibly imposed upon an unsuspicious people in the interest and at the instance of a privileged few.
3. It only remains in this chapter, devoted to the discussion of material Commodities in their three economic classes, to conclude with a glance at the third class, namely, those material valuables that are obtained from free and unowned sources, such as masts cut in the wilds of America on both oceans two and three hundred years ago, and fish caught on the Banks of Newfoundland, and furs gathered to such profit in the north by the Hudson's Bay Company, and salt evaporated in the tropics by a free sun from old ocean's brine.
These, and all such things as these, have a cost of production determined only by the cost of present labor and capital, and consequently a grade of value determined only by present Demand and Supply, unentangled for the most part by questions of rent and prior claim and taxation and nationality. All these things, accordingly, are relatively cheap, except as the element of Scarcity, and on that account of strong Desire, may sometimes come in to enhance the value. No man can tell the time exactly when French fishermen from the coasts of Brittany ventured over to the Banks of Newfoundland in their frail barks for the abundant cod in those waters, and went back home again at the close of the season freighted with plenty of a free and cheap food for their families and countrymen; or when it was that rude men calling themselves English followed these in their western track for the same general purposes, to become thereby hardy seamen on deeper seas, such as those who gained long afterwards the naval victories of Nelson; and we have all read in the fascinating pages of Irving the ventures and adventures of John Jacob Astor, the attraction of free furs in the Northwest of America, the hazards and the history incident to obtaining them, and the immense profits gained by their sale in the markets of the old world.
CHAPTER III.
PERSONAL SERVICES.
There are three kinds of things only ever bought and sold in this good world of ours. In the preceding chapter we have conned carefully the first kind, material commodities, in their three subdivisions of land-parcels and products of such parcels and products of free land and sea. In the present chapter we come to study the second kind of valuable things, personal services, which we shall also find subdivisible into three classes. We have treated of Commodities first, because their value in its grounds and changes is more easily understood than that of the other two kinds, while in point of time Services might well enough have been considered first, since it is these that manipulate into value the originally rude forms of Nature. The main difference between the two is this: in Commodities the attention is naturally drawn to tangible things offered for sale, such as lands and wheat and fish; while in Services the attention is strongly drawn to persons offering them for sale, such as the common laborer and the skilled artisan and the professional artist. This distinction, though obvious and useful as between commodities and services, is not after all radical; because Economics is a science of Persons from beginning to end; inasmuch as the services precede and are merged in the commodities, and inasmuch as the Desires (personal) of some men for the renderings of other men antedate and underlie all exchanges whatsoever.
Personal Services are technically named Labor in the science of Political Economy. This nomenclature is old and familiar, and will probably always persist on that account, but it is not of itself of the happiest, and it gives birth to some ambiguities and many fallacies. Let us look at these for a moment, before we pass to the definition and discussion of what is commonly called Labor, but what is better described by the term, Personal Services.
Contrast will help us a little here. Commodities can always be measured by some Standard outside of themselves: for example, land-parcels are measured into acres and fractions thereof by a surveyor's compass and chain; metals and cereals are weighed into centners and parts thereof by scales of some sort; and sugar is not only weighed at the custom-house, but tested as to other qualities by the polariscope. Now land, wheat, sugar, and all other commodities, have an existence separate from the standards that measure them, and whether they are bought or not they continue for a time essentially the same. They exist per se. They were indeed brought into existence on purpose to be sold, and if they cannot be sold, similar things additional will not then and there be brought into the market, but these things themselves are there separate from the seller and separate from the buyer. Not so with personal services. They do not exist per se. They are not separate from the seller, and they cannot come into existence without a buyer. Skill is something the artisan cannot part with, nor can he sell the service to which the skill gives rise till the buyer be present with the return-service in his hands. The Laborer of any class cannot put his "service" on exhibition, and then wait for a buyer, as the commercial drummer sells goods by sample. The doctor, for example, must have his patient before he can show his skill. The buying and selling of personal services, accordingly, is more intimate and ultimate than the buying and selling of commodities: it brings people more closely together: it depends much more on traits of character and on acquired skill.
Right here we may see clearly the main objection to the term, "Labor," as commonly used, and the bad fallacy to which it gives birth. "Labor" is indeed in form and origin an abstract term as much as "service" is, with this difference, that the word "service" radically implies the person serving and another person served at the same instant; but the term "Labor" has long been taking on itself in the mouths of men a concrete meaning, as if it might be something separate from the laborers, as in the common phrase "Labor and Capital," which has already done a world of mischief and is likely to do a good deal more, because it seems to imply, that the two are alike in independent self-existence, and that they stand over against each other on equal terms for a fair bargain or for a free fight. This is not the case, as we shall see more fully later; since capital is something separable from the capitalist, always a commodity or a claim, always transferable, always valuable or else it will not be "Capital." Some of the German economists, and particularly John Conrad of Halle, have avoided this difficulty by a clean nomenclature. They say "Labor-givers" and "Labor-takers," instead of Laborers and Capitalists, and especially instead of "Labor and Capital," thus emphasizing the personal element in both terms, and also leaving themselves free to define and use the term "Capital" as distinct from any particular capitalist, while the term "Labor" cannot be defined and used as distinct from any given laborer. This precise point, though probably new, is of very considerable consequence in the true doctrine of Wages.