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§ 13

With the truth revealed in this regard, as to whether obligatory annual service contracts may be beneficial for the kingdom, it now seems appropriate for us to examine whether fixed and prescribed annual wages for servants would be advantageous to the kingdom or not.

I can assert with full conviction in that regard that all tariffs, even the most essential ones, are nothing but unfortunate consequences of aristocratic combinations, which combinations, as long as they are protected by the laws and the governing power, would in the absence of tariffs be able to tax their fellow citizens excessively and without limits.

In most of the European states the governments have favoured such associations and have granted them exclusive privileges to provide the state and its citizens with certain necessities, by which they have eliminated all their rivals and are able under the protection of their rulers to act as arbiters of the prices of their commodities, to their own advantage and the oppression of their fellow subjects.

For that reason the tariffs have in turn become indispensable in order, on the other hand, to curb their selfishness, from which humankind may nonetheless suffer greatly, in so far as such associations are able to influence those who issue such tariffs. That is, one first establishes an aristocratic ascendancy and is then obliged to conduct an everlasting war against it.

But with the servants the issue is of quite a different nature. They are the most defenceless group among the subjects of a state, dispersed around the whole kingdom, without any guild ordinance, without spokesmen or any specific protection. No combinations are formed here, but each individual in his freedom simply follows his natural instinct to promote his own welfare. Just as the price of a commodity necessarily increases when a general shortage arises, the same happens with servants’ wages: if there is a general shortage of servants, so that there are more who need them than will allow all to obtain as many as they desire, then they are eagerly sought after and bargained with, and then he who wishes to meet his requirement must offer a larger hiring fee and higher wage than the others. But the need for servants also depends on a number of accidental circumstances; if the masters have large incomes or are planning profitable land reclamations, they would rather pay high wages than forgo real profits from their labour.

In circumstances like these, such an increase in wages is not unreasonable, and, rightly, the poor worker is also able to enjoy some of the agreeable crumbs that fall from his master’s table. Nor can it be harmful to the kingdom, as increased wages attract more workers to it, where, with improved earnings, they engage in work that manifestly contributes to the profit and power of the realm, rather than in less productive occupations.

It may well be the case, someone will say, that a few individuals in some rural area make a very good living and are thus able with their reasonable income to pay high wages. But there may be several hundred apart from them who possess neither the wealth nor an income that enables them to do so, and consequently all of these must suffer because of the others and pay as much as the wealthy ones if they are to obtain any servants, once the wealthy man has increased the wages. But I reply: no, they need not do so at all; and you will say: how, then, will the others obtain any, when he offers more? I answer: as long as he is making an offer, they cannot, but once he has fulfilled his requirements, they will obtain enough at the price that they can reasonably offer. But, the argument continues, they cannot avoid making an offer for fear of being left without; thus, the shortage is again the true cause of the increase, and that can only be remedied by a superfluity of people but in no way by means of tariffs, which, when the shortage is so severe, mean less than nothing.

On the other hand, however, if there is again an abundant supply of people and few who need their labour or consider it worth providing them with food and wages, then their remunerations and annual wages will fall in the absence of tariffs and regulations, of which we have the clearest evidence in the occasional years of general crop failure, when it may often happen that one has more workers than one is able to feed and set to work for their food alone, and there again no master is likely to be willing to pay according to the tariff.

 

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