Richard Schüller’s German-language study examines the structure of labour demand and its consequences for wages and employment. Its central distinction is between the wage employers actually pay and the higher wage some could afford. A common market wage does not imply that workers have equal economic value for every employer. Explaining wage changes therefore requires examining the distribution of demand across enterprises, not simply identifying the least profitable firm still employing workers.
Die Gesamtnachfrage nach den an einem Orte vorhandenen Arbeitskräften — ihr Markt — setzt sich aus der Nachfrage aller Unternehmer zusammen, in deren Betrieben diese Arbeiter Beschäftigung finden können.
English translation: The total demand for the labour available in a given place — its market — is composed of the demand of all entrepreneurs in whose enterprises these workers can find employment.
This definition makes access to alternative employers fundamental to the relevant labour market. Demand aggregates differently situated enterprises, whose capacity to pay depends on profitability, capital requirements, and alternative investment opportunities. Schüller separates demand’s intensity—the wage an employer can sustain—from its extent—the number of workers sought at a given intensity.
Ebenso ist die Nachfrage einer 30% vom Umsatz verdienenden Weberei nach Arbeitskräften viel intensiver, als die einer anderen, die keinen Gewinn erzielt.
English translation: Likewise, the demand for labour of a weaving mill earning 30% on turnover is much more intense than that of another which makes no profit.
Such differences need not appear in actual wages. A profitable enterprise need not reveal its maximum willingness to pay while it can recruit at the prevailing rate. Competition does not necessarily erase its advantage: expansion is constrained by resources, markets, and the limited reproducibility of favourable conditions. Even equal profit rates on capital would not equalize profits per worker where industries employ different proportions of capital and labour.
Schüller criticizes earlier theory for flattening these differences. Treating demand merely as a larger or smaller quantity obscures employers’ unequal capacities to absorb wage increases.
Es wird deshalb von der Nachfrage schlechthin und von ihrem größeren oder geringeren Umfange, nicht aber von den Abstufungen ihrer Intensität gesprochen.
English translation: One therefore speaks of demand simply and of its greater or lesser extent, but not of the gradations of its intensity.
He credits Thünen and Thornton with investigating demand’s internal structure, but argues that marginal-value analysis alone cannot explain it. Knowing the wage sustainable by the marginal employer does not establish how many workers occupy that margin or how much stronger demand exists above it. Markets with the same marginal wage may consequently respond differently to an increase. Against Clark’s account of diminishing valuations of successive workers, Schüller emphasizes the collective organization of production and the complementary capital, materials, space, and sales required for expansion. Nor does identifying a marginal valuation establish that the resulting wage is morally just.
The constructive argument distinguishes the vertical gradation of demand intensities from the horizontal distribution of employment among them. Evidence concerning capital per worker, agricultural returns, and company earnings supports substantial differences across enterprises and industries, although averages and comparisons between wage labour and family labour impose limits. Schüller represents aggregate demand as a double pyramid: relatively few workers occupy the weakest and strongest strata, while most belong to intermediate levels.
This model gives wage increases different consequences according to how far they penetrate the distribution. Moderate increases may remove only narrow lower strata; increases reaching the broad middle can affect much more employment. Substitution of machinery for labour likewise generally requires more substantial wage differences than minor changes produce. The argument is conditional, not a claim that higher wages never reduce employment.
National resources, productivity, occupational opportunities, and mobility modify this structure. Workers confined to a poor locality and a single low-profit industry may face uniformly weak demand, whereas access to more employers broadens their alternatives. Relocation can diminish local employment without an equivalent reduction in aggregate demand. Capital accumulation and business cycles also change demand’s intensity and extent, making wage effects difficult to isolate.
Schüller concludes that practically relevant wage changes often have limited immediate employment effects. Adjustment may instead involve the eventual closure of weaker enterprises, replacement by more efficient competitors, productivity improvements, or cost reductions; increased purchasing power may also offset adverse effects. His contribution connects employer heterogeneity with wage bargaining without treating prevailing wages as technically inevitable or ethically authoritative. Demand structure nevertheless remains only one component of wage theory: labour supply and the organized or unorganized interaction of both sides require further analysis.
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