“Professional” services, such as those of Economists, Engineers, Architects, Clergymen, Lawyers, Physicians and Teachers are in the Economic domain of Trade. Not only are they exchanged for tangible commodities, but they contribute to the production of such commodities by conserving, and it may be by increasing the efficiency of more obvious producers. The Economist studies productive relationships for the purpose of securing harmonious industrial adjustments; and so vital is his function that righteous social relationships are imperiled, and righteous readjustments obstructed, if he mistakes chaos for order. The Engineer designs, plans and directs; and so important is his function that the work of hosts of producers depends upon it. If he mistakes, great structures may fall. The Architect is an Engineer in a special sense: if he makes mistakes, buildings may lack stability or beauty or both. The Lawyer may disentangle societary complications that would operate as a check upon production and Trade. The Clergyman may discourage obstructive conduct; the Physician may conserve the health of more direct producers so as to increase their efficiency; the Teacher may increase their efficiency by instruction. And so of personal services of the Personal Servant type. Whatever a Personal Servant may do for a commodity specialist which otherwise the specialist must do for himself at the cost of contributing less to the production of tangible commodities, is to that extent a contribution to the production of those commodities. Interchanges of human service, if the interchangers act in freedom, each getting from the channels of Trade the equivalent in service of the service he renders, are contributions to Economic production.
The relative desirability of human services rendered in promoting production, whether directly or indirectly, is commonly as well as commercially and Economically known as Value, which, as already explained, is expressed in Money terms and compared by Money measurements.
To receive a share in the continuous distribution of commodities through Trade is the human motive for all Economic activity, from leadership in Economic service to service for “wages.”
A “wage-worker,” for illustration, lends a hand—becomes “a hand,” if you please,—at harvesting wheat. His compensation is to be, let us assume, his food and lodging during harvest and twenty dollars in Money at the end of his job. The work being done, his food and lodging having been meanwhile supplied to him, and the twenty dollars in Money having been duly paid him, what has been the Economic nature of his transaction? Has not this “harvest hand” exchanged his contribution of service to the production of wheat, for his living while helping to produce it and for a twenty-dollar measurement of any commodity or commodities he may wish to draw from the channels of Trade?
Assume now that he draws from those channels a pair of shoes, a hat and other commodities at the village store, including, perhaps, some tobacco for his pipe and a bit of candy for a little friend. As matter of Economics, then, what has he done but Trade his service at harvesting for his living while at work and some service-produced commodities for still further satisfying his desires?
And the Economic leader in that connection, the farmer who hired the “harvest hand,” what has been his part in the transaction? In the last analysis has he not for harvest service traded food, house accommodations, household service, and his Money title to twenty dollars’ worth of any commodity or commodities that may be flowing through the channels of Trade—a title for which he presumably has given, or through debit and credit adjustments must in the future give, his own service or the service of others which he may naturally and justly or only customarily and unjustly command as his own?
When an employer in any branch of Economics pays an employee “wages” or “salary” or other compensation for service, he buys his employee’s service by an interchange, through Trade, of human service for human service.
Nor are interchanges of service limited to employers and employees.
The point of final interchange is almost invariably like the illustrative instance of the “harvest hand” at a retail store. Through the processes of Trade, myriads of commodities for the satisfaction of human wants, commodities produced by human service to the point of delivery to ultimate consumers, flow to ultimate consumers out of retail stores. These depots for final delivery in Trade are the customary terminals of production, where certifications of service in terms of Money are usually exchanged for products of service in the form of commodities.
Although such exchanges, like other exchanges throughout the processes of Trade, are made in Money terms and by Money measurements, these terms and measurements testify, as explained in the preceding Lesson, only to the relative values which govern the exchangeable relations of any commodity or commodities with any other commodity or commodities.