Labour Cost Quotes

The value of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities. The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.

The prices of raw materials do not fluctuate directly with the labour cost of producing them.

Paying good wages is not in opposition to good productivity.

I've never believed in lower wages. Never. Never believed in lower wages, I've never believed in lower wages as an economic instrument.

A rise of wages from this cause will, indeed, be invariably accompanied by a rise in the price of commodities; but in such cases, it will be found that labour and all commodities have not varied in regard to each other, and that the variation has been confined to money.

There can be no rise in the value of labour without a fall of profits.

Possessing utility, commodities derive their exchangeable value from two sources: from their scarcity, and from the quantity of labour required to obtain them.

When you raise the price of employment, guess what happens? You get less of it. Why do we want to make it harder for small employers to hire people?

In Great Britain the price of food is at a higher level than in any other country, and consequently, the British artisan labours at a disadvantage in proportion to the higher rate of his food.