capitalist. There are no conceivable means by which he can shake it off. It may be said—it used formerly to be said—that he will get rid of it by raising his price. But this opinion we have already, and more than once, fully refuted.294
The doctrine, indeed, that a rise of wages causes an equivalent rise of prices, is, as we formerly observed, self-contradictory: for, if it did so, it would not be a rise of wages; the laborer would get no more of any commodity than he had before, let his money wages rise ever so much; a rise of real wages would be an impossibility. This being equally contrary to reason and to fact, it is evident that a rise of money wages does not raise prices; that high wages are not a cause of high prices. A rise of general wages falls on profits. There is no possible alternative.
Having disposed of the case in which the increase of money wages, and of the Cost of Labor, arises from the laborer's obtaining more ample wages in kind, let us now suppose it to arise from the increased cost of production of the things which he consumes, owing to an increase of population unaccompanied by an equivalent increase of agricultural skill. The augmented supply required by the population would not be obtained, unless the price of food rose sufficiently to remunerate the farmer for the increased cost of production. The farmer, however, in this case sustains a twofold disadvantage. He has to carry on his cultivation under less favorable conditions of productiveness than before. For this, as it is a disadvantage belonging to him only as a farmer, and not shared by other employers, he will, on the general principles of value, be compensated by a rise of the price of his commodity; indeed, until this rise has taken [pg 471] place, he will not bring to market the required increase of produce. But this very rise of price involves him