different from those which are opposed to the legal regulation of wages. But we are now considering
how the matter appears to the many, what regime they can be got to accept. It seems not to be
competition pure and simple.110
Are we, then, to abandon the guidance of competition, and follow a higher, an ethical,
standard? Does the theory of distribution require a definition of distributive justice? What is justice?
The result of Plato's prolonged inquiry would not be satisfactory to the modern asserter of the rights
of labour. If a new Socrates were to go about inquiring, what is the ideally just distribution between
the employing and employed classes, he would probably find the wisest to be those who confessed
their ignorance. As Jevons says, nothing at first sight can seem more reasonable and just than the
“favourite saying that a man should have a fair day's wages for a fair day's work.... But, when you
examine its meaning, you soon find that there is no real meaning at all. There is no way of deciding
what is a fair day's wages.”111 It has been well observed that an intuition as to the just rate of wages,
the labourer's share of the total product, involves an intuition as to the capitalist's share,—a share
which depends on the rate of interest.112 Can any one seriously pretend that the dictates of a moral
sense are clear and decisive in such a matter?
Let it be remembered also that the path of justice is not only dark, but dangerous. Striving
to secure the rights of labour, you are very likely to hurt the interests of labour. The action of trade
unions by lowering interest and harassing employers may result, as pointed out by Professor
Marshall,113 in checking the accumulation of capital and the supply of business power. The increase
in personal capital may indeed compensate for this check, but also it may not. Greater efficiency
does not follow higher wages as the night the day.114
In view of these considerations it is doubtful whether in the near future an influential
majority will aim at setting aside competition. Moreover, even if this consummation were aimed at,
it is not likely to be attained. So invincible in human nature is the “propensity to truck,”115 so true
is it that, “when one person is willing to sell a thing at a price which another is willing to pay for it,
the two manage to come together in spite of prohibitions of King or Parliament, or of the officials
of a Trust or Trade Union.”116 Competition is like the air we breathe, which it is not only dangerous,
but difficult to exclude.
Between two guides, of which neither can be followed implicitly, let us walk warily. On the
one hand, let us not aim at impossible ideals. But, on the other hand, let us not deserve the criticism
110. It is possible that competition purified in the manner suggested below might be accepted by
moderate trade unionists of the type of Applegarth and Dunning, as to whom see History of Trade
Unionism, S. and B. Webb.
111. Scientific Primer, chapter on “Wages.”
112. Margaret Benson, Capital, Labour, and Trade, chap. xvi.
113. Elements of Economics of Industry (1892), Book VI. chap. xiii.
114. See the careful statement of the relations by Mr. Pierson in his Principles of Economics.
115. Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book I, chap. ii.
116. Marshall, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. XI, (1897) p. 129.