Capital and Labor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 17, 1889

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 4, No. 13.

Capital and Labor.

THE fallacy which is common to almost all labor organizations, and which the leaders and “walking delegates” of these organizations generally do their utmost to propagate among workingmen, and that, too, for selfish purposes, consists in the assumption that there is a real conflict between the two classes represented by the terms “capital” and “labor.” The term “capital” means those who have an accumulated capital, and are engaged in some form of business that makes it necessary for them to become the employers of others, paying them wages for their labor. The term “labor” means those who, not having capital which they can invest in any branch of business, have nothing to sell but their labor, and support themselves and their families out of the wages paid to them by their employers. The one class want and need to buy labor, and the other class just as much want and need to sell labor. Both classes, so far from being arrayed against each other, are supplementary to each other and mutually dependent upon each other. Neither can get along without the other. There is no just occasion for any war between them any more than between the buyers and sellers of commodities. Their interests are not conflicting but coincident and mutually contributory.

What is the rate of compensation that capital ought to pay to labor? How much shall the seller of labor receive from the employer for the service rendered by the former to the latter? There is only one practical answer to this question; and that answer, in the long run, and as a general rule, will be more equitable than any other which it is possible to give, where buyers and sellers are left free to make their own bargains. The law of supply and demand, under free competition, will fix the price of labor as between buyers and sellers of labor, just as it fixes the price of all commodities that come into the market to be bought and sold. When the demand exceeds the supply of labor, wages will rise; and when the supply exceeds the demand, wages will just as naturally fall to a lower mark. When buyers compete with each other, prices necessarily advance; and when sellers compete with each other, they as necessarily go down. This has been the history of the world ever since men began to buy and sell; and it will continue to be its history through all time. The result is an average market price, which the buyer must pay and the seller must accept.

All the labor organizations that were ever gotten up by men cannot repeal this law, or put in its place any other law that would, on the whole, work better for the interests of human society, including all classes. Such organizations may for a short period force prices out of their natural course; but in the end they will come back again under the general law of supply and demand. Such has been the fact in the past, and we conclude that it will be so in the future.

The plain truth is, that capital and labor are naturally and necessarily co-operative and not antagonistical. They have common interests, and work together, and must work together. All that capital needs is a free market in which to buy, and all that labor needs is a free market in which to sell. Give to both a free market without any coercion or constraint on either side, and each in serving itself will, under the natural laws of trade, serve the others. “Walking delegates” and labor “strikes” are a very poor remedy for regulating the rate of wages. They produce far more harm than good, and are a general curse to the best interests of society.—Independent, N. Y., Jan. 3, 1889.