_The Static Standard of Wages of Unorganized Labor._--In that static
state toward which society is always tending, and in which the normal
standard of wages is completely realized, men are supposed to get all
that they produce. The law of marginal productivity of labor works, as
it were, _in vacuo_, and gives an ideally perfect result. Every unit
of labor receives what a marginal unit produces.

_Actual Pay of Unorganized Labor._--A static assumption excludes
enforced idleness on the part of able-bodied men. The changes which
throw such men out of employment are not taking place, and there is no
reserve of efficient but idle labor. In the actual state, which is
highly dynamic, such a supply of unemployed labor is always at hand,
and it is neither possible nor normal that it should be altogether
absent. The well-being of workers requires that progress should go on,
and it cannot do so without causing some temporary displacements of
laborers. Though no individual were long out of employment,--though a
particular man were in this condition only briefly and during the
period occupied by a transit from one occupation to another,--there
would always be in the general market some unemployed men. If we throw
out of account those who are idle because of personal disabilities, it
will remain true that really efficient men can nearly always be had,
if only a few are at one time needed. The presence of even a few men
able to do good work and not able to get employment is often
sufficient to make individual bargaining work unfairly to the laborer.
When the employing of one man is in question, the employer has other
alternatives, and the man may not have them. The employer may much
more readily set men bidding against each other for a vacant place
than any of the men can set employers bidding against each other for
an idle man. This strategic inequality between the parties in the wage
contract becomes greater as the supply of unemployed men becomes
larger. At some times and places it may force the pay of many workmen
downward toward a minimum set by what the unemployed will consent to
take.

_The Effect of Local Organization._--Organization means collective
bargaining and tends to equalize the strategic positions of men and
employers. Where an entire force of workers must be dealt with at a
time, the employer has not the alternative ready to his hand which he
would have if he had only to employ a single one. If his employees
strike