1. _Under the wage contract the worker gets in a definite sum at once the market value of his services._ Under the wage contract the employer takes the risk as to the future selling price of the product. That he is the one best prepared to assume the risk will be made clearer in the discussion of the employer's function. Wage payment, therefore, is a form of insurance to the workingman; he gets something definite instead of taking chances he is ill prepared to take. Wage payment is a form of credit to the laborer whose labor has not yet produced the distant gratification. The employer advances to the workman the value of the future gratification, discounting it at the prevailing rate of interest. The darker side of the wage bargain is that the "cash nexus," as Carlyle expressed it, is too often the only bond between the parties. When the wages are paid, the employer considers his obligations discharged. There is a lack of fellowship and sympathy in it all. Work should be a bond of communion between men, but as it is, the laborers in some great factories and their employers live in entirely different worlds. The great inequality of their condition makes mutual understanding difficult. They are master and man, "boss" and hireling, not co-workers, each with a worthy part in the noble tasks of industry. [Sidenote: Strength and weakness of the worker in competition] 2. _The wage-earner gets the competitive value of his services, securing in most cases much more than a bare subsistence._ At the present time competition is in a large measure active among employed as well as among employers. A believer in the subsistence theory of wages must, under these conditions, expect wages to fall to the starvation level. But according to the law of wages here presented, it is to be expected that wages can and will remain indefinitely above that level, falling or rising as conditions change. The increase in material wealth of itself tends to increase the wages of the workman. The laborer, though without resources and even though not contributing to the increase of capital by saving, thus shares in the benefit of increasing capital. It is true that under some conditions the workman is at a disadvantage in making the wage contract; labor must be applied from day to day or it is lost, and the laborer must work to live. While this does not determine the rate of wages in the long run in any occupation nor to any great extent except among the lowest grades of labor, it does give an advantage for the moment to the employer, and enables him to exercise at times a harsh power over the workmen in his immediate neighborhood. A single workman is thus very often at a disadvantage, but it must not be overlooked that in a large degree the competition for good workmen is effective between employers in different trades and in distant localities. [Sidenote: Wages as affecting the ambition of the worker]