du salaire de travail; mais que ce dernier était compris dans une gravitation constante autour de ce point central; qu'il peut très bien monter pour un temps par suite de la hausse de la demande, mais que par l'accroissement des mariages et du nombre des travailleurs, il retombe toujours à ce point central de l'entretien nécessaire en usage chez le peuple (my italics).[1]
Marx goes further, and anticipates more recent 'historical' conceptions by introducing the idea of hstorical development:—
His (the labourer's) means of subsistence must therefore be sufficient to maintain him in his normal state as a labouring individual. His natural wants, such as food, clothing, fuel and housing, vary according to the climate and other physical conditions of his country. On the other hand, the number and extent of his so-called necessary wants, as also the modes of satisfying them, are themselves the product of historical development, and depend therefore to a great extent on the degree of civilisation of a country, more particularly on the conditions under which, and consequently on the habits and degree of comfort in which, the class of free labourers has been formed. In contradistinction therefore to the case of other commodities, there enters into the determination of the value of labour-power a historical and moral element. Nevertheless, in a given country, at a given period, the average quantity of the means of stbsistence necessary for the labourer is practically known.[2]
Like Ricardo, indeed, Lassalle and Marx frequently speak as if wages were 'fixed to the level of the bare necessaries of life': and, under the excitement of propaganda, their followers have preached the doctrine in its most unqualified form, much in the same way as the middle-class 'hangers-on and parasites' of the Ricardian school enunciated its doctrines 'without the conditions required to make them true.'[3] But if in judging the Ricardian school we must go to its founder and interpret him 'generously,' it is clearly none the less desirable to do the same with scientific Socialism. It is surely possible to do this, and yet, like the present writer, to think no better of Socialism because it can fairly claim Ricardo's authority, and to think no worse of Ricardo because his teaching received so unexpected an application.
↑Capital et Travail, ou M. Bastiat-Schulze (de Delitzch), pp. 231, 316. I have not access to the German original, and therefore quote from the French translation by B. Malon.
