Wages._--Even though labor creates the amount _ABDE_, it
is not yet perfectly clear that it will be able to get that amount.
For aught we now know the _entrepreneur_ may keep some of it, and for
aught we know he may keep some of the quantity _BCD_ which is
distinctly the product of capital. Let us see whether he can in
reality withhold any part of _ABDE_, which is the product of labor.

[Illustration]

_Wages under Perfect Competition._--In the static state that we have
assumed, competition works without let or hindrance. It does not work
thus in the actual world, and we shall in due time take account of the
obstacles it encounters; but what we are now studying is the standards
to which such competition as there is--and it is in reality very
active--is tending to make wages conform. We want to know what would
happen in case this competition encountered no hindrance at all. This
would require that a workman should be able to set employers bidding
against each other for his services just as actively as an employer
can make laborers bid against each other in selling their services. If
this were the case, every unit of labor could get what it produces, no
more and no less. Even a single man, offering himself to one employer
after another, would virtually carry in his hands a potential product
for sale. His coming to any man's mill would mean more goods turned
out in a year by the mill; and if one employer would not pay him for
them at their market value, another one would. The final unit of
social labor can get, under perfectly free competition, the value of
whatever things that labor, considered apart from capital, brings into
existence. Moreover, each unit of labor by itself alone now produces,
as we have seen, the same amount of commodity as the final unit, and
can get the price of it. Now that they are all working together each
one of them can place itself in the position of the final unit by
leaving its present employment and offering its services elsewhere.

_Wages regarded as Prices of Fractional Products adjusted by Perfect
Competition._--Under the hypothesis of perfect competition, as the
term has been used in our discussion, the venders of goods can get
their market values. These values are fixed by the final utility law.
Free competition means, then, not only that any average laborer who
offers himself for hire virtually carries in his hands a potential but
definite product for sale, but that he may confidently