Schüller explains labour supply through workers’ differentiated demands rather than a fixed subsistence minimum. His argument moves from a critique of customary and subsistence-based explanations toward an account of economic calculation, unequal opportunities, and the stratification of labour supply. Its starting point is the conditional character of workers’ participation:
Der Arbeiter bietet seine Arbeitskraft in der Regel nicht bedingungslos an, sondern beansprucht bestimmte Arbeitsbedingungen.
English translation: As a rule the worker does not offer his labour power unconditionally, but claims particular conditions of work.
An Anspruch is an effective condition of accepting employment, not simply a wish for improvement or the wage ultimately received. Migration, occupational changes, strikes, and negotiated improvements demonstrate workers’ pursuit of better conditions. Custom influences expectations but cannot alone explain their formation or transformation. Schüller distinguishes having needs from actively seeking to satisfy them:
Jetzt strebt, wer nicht genug zu essen hat, aktiv nach besserer Ernährung; wer heiraten will, beruhigt sich nicht dabei, daß er warten muß, ob und wann es ihm möglich wird.
English translation: Now whoever has not enough to eat actively strives for better nourishment; whoever wishes to marry does not resign himself to having to wait and see whether and when it will become possible for him.
Against the subsistence theories associated with Ricardo and Lassalle, Schüller develops Smith’s attention to alternative employment and Marshall’s analysis of economic calculation. Rational conduct means purposeful comparison, not complete information or infallible judgment. Labour’s personal character matters: workers consume to live, not to manufacture labour-power, and their sacrifice lies in working itself. Necessity nevertheless limits their discretion:
Sie haben nicht die Wahl, ob sie arbeiten wollen, und können auch nicht frei bestimmen, welche Arbeit und wie sie sie vollbringen wollen.
English translation: They do not have the choice whether they wish to work, nor can they freely determine what work they wish to perform and how they wish to perform it.
Calculation therefore usually concerns available occupations rather than an unrestricted choice between working and not working. Workers weigh real earnings, security, advancement, hours, exertion, health, location, treatment, and social standing. Additional income becomes less important as needs are satisfied, whereas additional effort may impose increasing costs. Existing wages inform demands without mechanically determining them; household work, self-employment, uncertain prospects, and nonmonetary considerations also shape judgments.
Schüller locates this agency within unequal resources. Poverty restricts training, information, mobility, and the ability to wait. Education, political rights, protective legislation, qualifications, labour demand, and consumer prices modify these constraints. Unions disseminate information, finance resistance and travel, and sustain collective minimum conditions, while employers’ associations narrow alternatives. Custom operates indirectly when threatened losses of an accustomed standard of life intensify resistance.
Mobility is neither frictionless nor determined by wage differences alone. Workers must assess unfamiliar opportunities, and uncertainty raises the remuneration needed to induce a move:
Je unsicherer er hierin ist, desto größer muß der Abstand der Lohnverhältnisse sein, um die erforderliche Anziehung zu üben.
English translation: The more uncertain he is in this respect, the greater must be the gap between wage levels in order to exert the requisite attraction.
Language, local customs, family obligations, savings, debts, and personal connections further differentiate workers’ demands. Dangerous employment need not carry a wage premium when workers lack alternatives; skilled workers in declining occupations may fare worse than unskilled labourers. Married workers may accept less despite greater needs because family responsibilities restrict mobility and endurance. Alongside these institutional explanations, Schüller employs racial and national hierarchies, climatic generalizations, and colonial stereotypes that mark the historical limitations of his comparative analysis.
The concluding argument treats labour supply as a succession of strata with different conditions of acceptance. Higher wages can attract additional workers and effort; supply is therefore not a quantity independent of remuneration. Where comparable workers receive common time or piece rates, the decisive demands belong to the highest-demand stratum still required for production, not to the poorest workers or an average worker. Cheaper entrants depress wages insofar as they replace labour previously indispensable at higher rates. Unions can thus influence wages without organizing everyone, since employers lack an unlimited reserve of interchangeable substitutes.
The composition of supply matters as much as its size. Broad upper strata make wage reductions costly through the loss of substantial labour services, while organization can strengthen workers’ conditions of acceptance. Higher-paid, more capable workers may nevertheless cost less relative to their productive contribution. Better nutrition, housing, health, morale, and stability can themselves improve performance. Schüller does not derive wages from supply alone: their formation depends on its interaction with demand. His contribution is to make workers’ demands economically consequential while explaining how their force depends on constrained alternatives, collective organization, and productive capacity.
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