Political Economy (Thoemmes Press - Thoemmes Library of Economics) [Hardcover]

Nassau William Senior (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2003 | ISBN-10: 1843714272 | ISBN-13: 978-1843714279 | Edition: Revised

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1872. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... It must be admitted, however, that the workman does not retain the whole of this apparent pecuniary advantage. The wife is taken from her household labours, and a part of the increased wages is employed in purchasing what might otherwise be produced at home. The evils to the children are still greater. The infants suffer from the want of maternal attention, and those who are older from fatigue and confinement, from the want of childish relaxation and amusement, and, what is far more important, from the deficiency of religious, moral, and intellectual education. The establishment of infant and Sunday schools, and laws regulating the number of hours during which children may labour, are palliatives of these evils, but they must exist to a certain degree whenever the labour of the wife and children is the subject of sale; and though not all of them, perhaps, strictly within the province of political economy, must never be omitted in any estimate of the causes affecting the welfare of the labouring classes. Difference between the Amount of Wages and the Price of Labour.--The last preliminary point to which we have to call the reader's attention is, the difference between the Amount of Wages and the Price of Labour; or, in other words, between the earnings of a labourer during a given time and the price paid for the performance of a given quantity of work. If men were the only labourers, and if every man worked equally hard, and for the same number of hours, during the year, these two expressions would be synonymous. If each man, for instance, worked three hundred days during each year, and ten hours during each day, one three-thousandth part of each man's yearly wages would be the price of an hour's labour. But neither of these propositions is true. The yearly wages...

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 440 pages
• Publisher: Thoemmes Continuum; Revised edition (August 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1843714272
• ISBN-13: 978-1843714279
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,185,072 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)