why I said that the Academy of Moral Sciences, in offering for
competition the question of the relation of profits and wages,
spoke unconsciously, spoke prophetically.

But it will be said, Is it not true that, if labor is in great
demand and laborers are scarce, wages will rise, while profits on
the other hand will decrease; that if, in the press of
competition, there is an excess of production, there will be a
stoppage and forced sales, consequently no profit for the manager
and a danger of idleness for the laborer; that then the latter
will offer his labor at a reduced price; that, if a machine is
invented, it will first extinguish the fires of its rivals; then,
a monopoly established, and the laborer made dependent on the
employer, profits and wages will be inversely proportional?
Cannot all these causes, and others besides, be studied,
ascertained, counterbalanced, etc.?

Oh, monographs, histories!--we have been saturated with them
since the days of Adam Smith and J. B. Say, and they are scarcely
more than variations of these authors' words. But it is not thus
that the question should be understood, although the Academy has
given it no other meaning. The RELATION OF PROFITS AND WAGES
should be considered in an absolute sense, and not from the
inconclusive point of view of the accidents of commerce and the
division of interests: two things which must ultimately receive
their interpretation. Let me explain myself.

Considering producer and consumer as a single individual, whose
recompense is naturally equal to his product; then dividing this
product into two parts, one which rewards the producer for his