[Letter] June 12,1891,Smith College [to F.H. Giddings]

June 12, 1891, Smith College.

Dear Friend,
       I am at work on
Gunton. Have you read
his last book? I want to
do him justice. I know
he meant to do me justice,
for he wrote a letter asking
whether I still held the
views published two years
ago. I said I did, and he
then replied that he would
have to criticise them.
He has done it and has
shown a misconception of
my meaning that is
exasperating in proportion
to his honesty of purpose.
I think this misconception
of the views of others runs
entirely through his work.
I said wages are determined
at a certain "no-rent point,"
by which I meant not a
point at which labor
itself gets no rent - for
that by my formulae would
make wages = 0, a severely
simple law - but the point
at which labor takes the
entire product and makes over
no part of it as rent to
the owners of land etc. Wages
equal the product of labor
using no-rent instruments.
He thinks, in so far as I can
see, that I mean the wages of
labor equal the earnings of
no-rent labor.
 What I would most like
to know is whether when he
says "wages are determined by
the cost of labor" he means
anything else than that wages
are determined by wages.
What a necessary worker will
have because he sets for
himself a high standard of
living represents the cost of
labor. Of course that is
the wages of labor. The real
law is that the cost (or
wage) of every man equals
the cost (or wage) of the
logically final man; a
position that in itself
most of us agree with.
 Am I right or am I
wrong? Do not read the
book or any part of it to
answer this question; unless
you have already done it let
the answer wait.
 I have just said "no"
to an invitation to the Northwestern
University - $3000, per annum - lots of
endorsement - many students - new school
of Political Science. Kindly regard this news as
not public.

         Yours Very Truly,
              J. B. Clark