§ 1. Approach to the Disputation

403. How broadly the present question extends. Most of those who dispute concerning the present argument consider almost nothing but manual industry, as though no agreements of a similar rationale were entered into concerning nobler arts or works. It seemed better to us to embrace that entire class in words. For while we thus confess that not only labor of the body but also labor of the mind is let and hired, and show the cause of price common to both,¹ do we not thereby repel from a worker’s wage the odium by which it is held in contempt and is described by not a few as contrary to human dignity? In truth, however, all those who seek sustenance or annual returns for themselves, not from goods already possessed but from their present industry, can be distributed as it were into three classes. Some sell the fruits of their industry: thus merchants, businessmen, and many writers. Others hire another’s labor, as contractors for works, physicians, notaries, and advocates in legal causes. Finally, others let their own labor; and these are all those who bind themselves for a definite price to do certain things for another’s benefit during some period of time, not rarely under another’s guidance or direction: thus workers, servants, and even officials, including those whose office is regarded as honorable, such as teachers of the sciences and even judges themselves.

¹ Cauwès, no. 811, notes something similar concerning the economically required wage which they call salaire normal [normal wage].

404. Division of the chapter. This fuller account of the matter does not allow us immediately, as is generally done, to speak of that which is the minimum in a just wage. Besides, the whole controversy concerning a fitting recompense for labor is not placed in this. And it is of no little help to treat separately the two questions of a just wage and a minimum wage. For:

1. Formally, the rationale of each investigation is different. For: a) It is not evident that the consideration of a minimum wage pertains to every kind of labor, while all those who, apart from a partnership, furnish intellectual or bodily industry for a definite wage are manifestly concerned about just recompense. b) A just valuation must be made of all things which are exchanged, and, as we shall see, the just determination of a wage is subject to the same rules as other valuations; while, on the contrary, the investigation of a minimum wage is proper to this argument, and it is not so evident whence it is to be derived. c) Therefore, no one doubts that there is a just wage, but whether there is a minimum wage is called into controversy. d) In the general investigation of a just wage, the special circumstances of the business which the labor serves are disregarded per se; that these can be omitted when a minimum recompense is in question is far less evident.

2. Moreover, while many define the minimum recompense by the sustenance either of the worker alone or of his family and seem to pronounce it always just, what else do these writers advocate than a certain iron law of wages?² This invention of the socialist Lassalle is certainly most foreign to their studies and to their disposition favorable to men of slender means. Yet in what manner it can be conceded that the wage which is established as absolutely minimum is generally at the same time just will have to be investigated by us in its proper place; but it was not fitting thus incautiously, from the beginning and as it were a priori, to follow in the footsteps of the tenets of the adversaries by which they attack the present order.

² Unless we are mistaken, in the Roman document itself, concerning which below, some things give occasion for an understanding of this kind. For when, in the explanation of the first point, it contends that the criterion by which an equality of thing between the worker’s manual labor and the wage to be paid is established “must be sought ... from food and clothing for suitably sustaining life,” and it is added below that “while the requirement arising from the rationale of the end—namely suitable food and clothing—remains firm, a modest addition to or diminution of the worker’s wage is made, or at least can be made, from common estimation without prejudice to justice,” is there not in fact introduced the thought of some law by force of which the wage is constantly bounded by suitable sustenance?

405. On pure profit. In profitable businesses, profit, taken broadly, embraces all the fruits gathered (produit brut [gross product]); properly, however, it is that which remains after expenses are deducted:

pure profit (bénéfice net [net profit]). Moreover, among the expenses are numbered:

α) The annual interest to be paid on borrowed money, and the sum to be reserved each year by which the repayment or renewal of the capital is gradually prepared (intérêt et amortissement du capital emprunté [interest and amortization of borrowed capital]);

β) The wages of the workmen;

γ) The price of the material to be transformed (le prix de la matière première [the price of the raw material]); and the other expenditures annually necessary for maintaining the building, transporting merchandise, and so forth (frais généraux [general expenses]).

Often the remuneration of the money and labor invested or contributed by the person or persons who undertake the business is not computed, and deservedly so, since they assign their money or labor to their own business and no one pays anything to himself.³ We, however, in the present question, number these among the expenses, so that we take pure profit in a very strict sense.⁴

³ Cf. Cauwès, work cited, no. 800; Ott, Traité d’économie sociale [Treatise of Social Economy], vol. 2, pp. 170–171.

⁴ “That part of net profit which constitutes a free income.” Cauwès, place cited.

Nevertheless, we in no way number among the expenses a sum destined for enlarging the business.