Labor.—Labor-Power Of Individuals.
The average labor-power of individuals varies very much in different nations.[255] The reason of this is, in part, doubtless a difference in natural endowments. Thus, for instance, no people surpass the English and Anglo-American in energy, none the German in intelligence in work or the French in taste. Where we can assume that the same meaning is attached to the expression, “military capacity,” by the different recruiting bureaus, important conclusions as to the physical labor-power of different localities may be drawn from the ratio existing between [pg 146] the number of those fit for military service and those who are legally liable to military duty.[256]
But these conclusions are greatly modified by the state of civilization and that of society. Where the laboring classes are despised and paid in a manner unworthy of human beings, the badness of their work will be in keeping with the estimation in which it is held. The reverse of this, also, is usually true under different circumstances. (§ 173.) Thus, it has been noticed in France, that native workmen, provided with as substantial food as English workmen, are scarcely inferior to the the latter in the technic value of their labor.[257] A Mecklenburg day laborer eats almost twice as much as a Thuringian workman, but then he accomplishes almost twice as much. Hence, employers gain in the long run by paying their workmen well. As civilization advances, the same number of workmen become, not only more industrious and more capable, but the same quantity and quality of labor becomes, as a rule, cheaper.[258]
The moral culture of a people exerts the greatest influence here. In every private undertaking, a great part of the expense attending it, and in every state, a great part of the expense of its police system, and of its system of administering justice, is occasioned only by the dishonesty of men. If all this expense could be dispensed with, and full confidence placed in individuals, it would be possible to devote much more time and energy to positively useful labor.[259] In estimating the labor-power of different nations or different periods of time, the division of population according to age is also of importance. As a rule, the labor-power of males is greatest from the age of twenty-five to the age of forty-five. The more numerous, therefore, the class of the population between these ages is, the more favorably, other things being equal, is it situated as regards labor.[260][261] But, as a rule, the relative number of full-grown people is greatest in highly civilized nations. (§ 248.)[262]
Section XLI.
Labor.—Effect Of The Esteem In Which It Is Held.
As civilization advances, labor becomes more honorable. All barbarous nations despise it as slavish. Pigrum et iners videtur sudore adquirere quod possis sanguine parare: has been the motto of all medieval times. In heathen Iceland, the owner of a piece of land might be deprived of it by an adversary who could overpower him in single combat. This mode of acquisition was considered more honorable than purchase. It was Thor's own form of investiture. The ideas of the Romans on rightful acquisition may be inferred from the word mancipium (manu capere).[263] Pure Christianity, on the other hand, preached the honorableness of labor from the first (Thess. 4, 11; II. Thess. 3, 8 seq.; Eph. 4, 28). And so in the time of the Reformation,[264] when Christendom was returning to its primitive purity.
In keeping with this is the fact, that the most cultivated [pg 149] nations, and the same may be said of individuals, value time most highly. “Time is money.” (Benjamin Franklin.) An English proverb calls time the stuff of which life is made.[265] While in negro nations, individuals do not even know their own age; while in Russia, there are very few clocks to strike the hours, even in the towers of churches, in England, a watch is considered an indispensable article of apparel, even for very young people and for some of the lower orders of society.[266] Railroads operate in this respect as a kind of national clock. The introduction of machinery and the more minute division of labor, make punctuality a necessity. While South Americans and West Indians are frightfully careless in their every movement, a carelessness which betrays itself even in their drawling speech,[267] the life of a New Englander has been compared to the rush of a locomotive. In the markets of Central Asia, nothing strikes the European with so much surprise as the little value put upon time by the merchants of India and Bucharia, who are fully satisfied when, after endless waiting, they succeed in obtaining a somewhat higher price for their wares.[268]