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By Root 962 0

“Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities. The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.”14 Smith believes that a market economy will allow self-interest to allocate resources in the best way, and describes an “invisible hand,” which is not really a hand at all but the sum total of myriad individual selfish transactions that together guide a society to produce just the right quantity and variety of goods. “By pursuing his own interest he [every individual] frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.”15

How should we divvy up all of these bucks?

And what of those folks who are down on their lucks?

But of course the free market can lead to injustices. Sylvester McMonkey McBean, the Fix-It-Up Chappie, is able to make off with every last cent of the Sneetches’ money by promoting an artificial demand for the latest Star-Belly fashions, which in no way promotes the interests of society (except, perhaps, by teaching the Sneetches a costly lesson). With a monopoly on belly stars and their removal, the greedy McBean can charge whatever he likes; there is no competition to keep the prices down. McBean engages in price gouging and market manipulation to exploit the star-stricken creatures. Indeed, some such business transactions that are now being called “antisocial” (in the sense that they produce no real goods or jobs for society but just move money around) may be partly responsible for the recent worldwide economic crisis. But while there may well be individual instances of injustice and transactions that are detrimental to society, Smith contends that in the long run the “invisible hand” of the free market will promote society’s overall interest.16

However, such injustices may be enough to trigger a revolution. In Seuss’s I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew, the narrator falls in with a chap with a One-Wheeler Wubble, who offers him a ride. But when the Wubble needs pulling the narrator is stuck doing all the work while the Wubble chap sits back with nothing to do but to pick which road to take.

“Now, really!” I thought, “this is rather unfair!”

But he said, “Don’t you stew. I am doing my share.

This is called teamwork. I furnish the brains.

You furnish the muscles, the aches, and the pains . . .”

Then he sat and he worked with his brain and his tongue

And he bossed me around, just because I was young. (Trouble)

Alhough this seems to the narrator to be rather unfair, there may be an excellent reason why some jobs that appear to be much less work get much more pay (or in this case, better perks, like being able to ride in the Wubble instead of pulling it). The “brain and tongue” work that the Wubble chap does may require certain skills that are in high demand but short supply. It may have taken the Wubble chap years of training to learn the safe paths through the steep mountain trails. Because it took a great deal of time and hard work to learn the highly skilled profession of Wubble driving, it may indeed be fair for the chap to ask the narrator, in return, to furnish the muscles, aches, and pains. After all, muscles, aches, and pains are probably in much more plentiful supply than highly skilled brains, and hence would be cheaper in the free market. Plus, the chap owns the Wubble, presumably having bought it as an investment hoping to gain some return from it. By risking his own capital, he deserves to make a profit if he can. Indeed, a capitalist economy can’t function without such entrepreneurs.

Still, inequalities like this can lead to a disgruntled labor force. If labor, according to the labor-mixing theory, is what produces property, then it would seem the labor force should wind up quite wealthy as a result. However, due to unfair exploitation by those like McBean and the Wubble-chap, property may wind up being distributed quite differently. If the people doing the largest share of the work,