2. By making them do the same work for less pay.
The first of these modes is what is technically termed “driving,” especially when effected by compulsory “overwork;” and it is called the “economy of labour” when brought about by more elaborate and refined processes, such as the division of labour, the large system of production, the invention of machinery, and the temporary, as contradistinguished from the permanent, mode of hiring.
Each of these modes of making workmen do more work for the same pay, can but have the same depressing effect on the labour market, for not only is the rate of remuneration (or ratio of the work to the pay) reduced when the operative is made to do a greater quantity of work for the same amount of money, but, unless the means of disposing of the extra products be proportionately increased, it is evident that just as many workmen must be displaced thereby as the increased term or rate of working exceeds the extension of the markets; that is to say, if 4000 workpeople be made to produce each twice as much as formerly (either by extending the hours of labour or increasing their rate of labouring), then if the markets or means of disposing of the extra products be increased only one-half, 1000 hands must, according to Cocker, be deprived of their ordinary employment; and these competing with those who are in work will immediately tend to reduce the wages of the trade generally, so that not only will the rate of wages be decreased, since each will have more work to do, but the actual earnings of the workmen will be diminished likewise.
Of the economy of labour itself, as a means of cheapening work, there is no necessity for me to speak here. It is, indeed, generally admitted, that to economize labour without proportionally extending the markets for the products of such labour, is to deprive a certain number of workmen of their ordinary means of living; and under the head of casual labour so many instances have been given of this principle that it would be wearisome to the reader were I to do other than allude to the matter at present. There are, however, several other means of causing a workman to do more than his ordinary quantity of work. These are:—
1. By extra supervision when the workmen are paid by the day. Of this mode of increased production an instance has already been cited in the account of the strapping-shops given at p. [304], vol. ii.
2. By increasing the workman’s interest in his work; as in piece-work, where the payment of the operative is made proportional to the quantity of work done by him. Of this mode examples have already been given at p. [303], vol. ii.
3. By large quantities of work given out at one time; as in “lump-work” and “contract work.”
4. By the domestic system of work, or giving out materials to be made up at the homes of the workpeople.
5. By the middleman system of labour.
6. By the prevalence of small masters.