Now is this so? When we see
an important firm representing a large capital and employing many hands,
paying a wage barely sufficient for the maintenance of life, we are apt
to accuse the employers of meanness and extortion: we say this firm
could afford to pay higher wages, but they prefer to take higher
profits; the necessity of the poor is their opportunity. Now this
accusation ought to be fairly faced. It will then be found to fall with
very different force according as it is addressed to one or other of two
classes of employers. Firms which are shielded from the full force of
the competition of capital by the possession of some patent or trade
secret, some special advantage in natural resources, locality, or
command of markets, are generally in a position which will enable them
to reap a rate of profit, the excess of which beyond the ordinary rate
of profit measures the value of the practical monopoly they possess. The
owners of a coal-mine, or a gas-works, a special brand of soap or
biscuits, or a ring of capitalists who have secured control of a market,
are often able to pay wages above the market level without endangering
their commercial position. Even in a trade like the Lancashire cotton
trade, where there is free competition among the various firms, a rapid
change in the produce market may often raise the profits of the trade,
so that all or nearly all the employing firms could afford to pay higher
wages without running any risk of failure.
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