What is “The Iron Law of Wages”? It is, as already stated, only Lassalle’s statement and interpretation of Ricardo’s “Law of Wages.” Ricardo expresses his law in these words: “The natural price of labor is that price which is necessary to enable the laborers, one with another, to subsist and to perpetuate their race, without either increase or diminution.” Ricardo has previously explained what is to be understood by market price and what by natural price. Market price is the price actually obtained for an article; the natural price is that which pays labor and the profits of capital. Through miscalculation, too much or too little of a commodity is at times offered on the market, and it departs from its natural price. If too little is offered, profits will be too high, and capital will rush to the production of the commodity in order to gain the unusual profits, until competition forces them down to the usual rate, or, very likely, below it, when capital will be withdrawn from the production of said commodity. So the market price fluctuates about the natural price with a continual tendency to return to it. Now, labor is a commodity, and may be increased or diminished in quantity like other commodities. In an advancing state of society the market price will be above the natural price, and may continue so for a long time; but early and frequent marriages and large families will produce all the labor required, and reduce it to its natural price eventually. In a declining state of society, on the other hand, labor would sink below its natural price, and the supply would diminish on account of frequent deaths, few marriages, and small families.