The Ultimate Standard of Value [10]
or less by custom or law. This is true in factory and workshop, as well as in agriculture. In some countries it is the eleven-hour day, in others the ten-hour day, that prevails. If the present labor agitation should be at all successful, we may see the eight-hour day quite generally adopted. In any event, the amount of the pain of labor is more or less fixed. When changes occur in the rate of wages or in the value of the product, the laborer is not free to make a correponding change in the length of his working day, and thus restore the equilibrium between utility and disutility. If the ten-hour day prevails, we cannot say that with a wages of seven and one-half cents per quarter hour, a million laborers will work forty-two million quarter hours, and hence that forty-two million piece of commodity will be produced, while with a wages of five cents, they will labor thirty-eight million quarter hours, and produce thirty-eight million pieces of commodity. But whether the wages was five or seven and one-half cents, they would, in all probability, work forty million quarter hours and produce forty million piece of commodity. In this way the equilibrium, in the case of the individual laborer, between the wages and the disutility of labor is disturbed. With many the disutility of the last quarter hour of labor will be less than the utility of the wages received, while for others it will be in excess of the same, i.e., the laborer in this last instance, will find that the disutility of the last quarter hour of labor (or it may well be of several of the last quarter hours) is greater than the utility of the wages that he receive for it, and this whether the rate of pay is five or seven and one-half cents per quarter hour. If he were free to determine the length of his working day, he would, of course, work that many quarter hours less. But, as a matter of fact, he is not free to do this. He must either work the regular ten hours or not work at all. He naturally chooses the former, because the total utility of his entire wages (which means for him protection from hunger, etc.), is undoubtedly greater than the total disutility of the entire ten hours of labor. In this way the disutility of the labor fails to operate as a correct measure, either for the amount of the labor supply or for the quantity of the product. It also fails in the same way as a correct measure for the height of wages and the value of the product. In so far as free competition may prevail in the determination of cost, the value of the product will vary with the wages paid, but it will not vary with the disutility of the labor. A careful examination of the actual facts of life will show that the influence of this disutility or pain of labor only appears in the following special cases: (a) In the case of those goods that are produced outside of the time devoted to the regular occupation. An instance of this may be found in the making or repairing of tools during leisure time, these tools being intended, not for sale, but for home use. Their cost is the pain or disutility of the labor devoted to them, and they will be valued according to the amount of this disutility. (b) This is also true in the case of some regular occupations, in which men produce on their own account as artists and authors. It is also true in the case of industries carried on at home, where men are free to continue or to stop working as they may themselves determine. That the degree of their fatigue will exert an influence upon this determination may be granted. (c) This is likewise true in those industries in which men voluntarily work overtime and receive special payment for the same. But such overtime is neither general nor fixed. It is a more or less temporary and exceptional arrangement, which only continue during the period of special pressure. Therefore the influence of this case upon the supply of labor and the value of the product is neither deep nor lasting. (d) Differences in agreeableness or disagreeableness of the various occupations will (unless offset by