CHAPTER XI.[ToC]
SOME EFFECTS OF MODERN INDUSTRY UPON THE WORKERS AS CONSUMERS.
§ 1. How far the different Working Classes gain from the Fall of Prices.
§ 2. Part of the Economy of Machine-production compensated by the growing Work of Distribution.
§ 3. The Lowest Class of Workers gains least from Machine-production.
§ 1. In considering the effect of machine-production upon a body of workers engaged in some particular industry we are not confined to tracing the effects of improvements in the arts and methods of that single branch of production. As consumers they share in the improvements introduced into other industries reflected in a fall of retail prices. Insomuch as all English workers consume bread they are benefited by the establishment of a new American railway or the invention of new milling machinery which lowers the price of bread; as all consume boots the advantage which the introduction of boot-making machinery confers upon the workers is not confined to the higher wages which may be paid to some operatives in the boot factory, but is extended to all the workers who can buy cheaper boots.
How far do methods of modern capitalist production tend to benefit the labourer in his capacity as consumer?
Economic theory is in tolerably close accord with experience in the answer it gives to this question. Each portion of the working classes gains in its capacity of consumer from improved methods of production in proportion to the amount by which its income exceeds the bare subsistence wage of unskilled workers. The highly-paid mechanic gains most, the sweated worker least. The worker earning forty shillings per week gains much more than twice as much as the worker earning twenty shillings from each general cheapening in the cost of production. There are several reasons why this is so.
1. Where there exists a constant over-supply of labour competing for what must be regarded at any particular time as a fixed quantity of employment, wages are determined with tolerably close reference to the lowest standard of living among that class of workers, and not by any fixed or customary money wage. This is particularly the case in the "sweating" trades of large towns. Here such improvements in machinery and methods of industry as lower the price of articles which fall within the "standard of living" of this class are liable to be speedily reflected in a fall of money wages paid for such low-skilled work. In other words, a "bare subsistence wage" does not gain by a fall in the price of the articles which belong to its standard of comfort.