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 Full contents

List of contributors xiii

Acknowledgements xiv

Introduction: the need for a heterodox approach to

economic analysis 1
Louis-Philippe Rochon and Sergio Rossi

PART I ECONOMICS, ECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND

ECONOMIC SYSTEMS

1 What is economics? 21
Louis-Philippe Rochon and Sergio Rossi
Introduction 21
The role of ideology in economics 25
Is economics a science? 28
The use of models and of mathematics 30
Economics and the social sciences 33
What then is economics? 36
Micro- versus macroeconomics 38
A portrait of Adam Smith (1723–90) 41

2 The history of economic theories 42

Heinrich Bortis
Why are these topics important? 44
Two broad groups of economic theories 44
The history of economics 46
The history of political economy 54
Neoclassical–Walrasian economics and classical–Keynesian
political economy assessed 72
A portrait of David Ricardo (1772–1823) 75

3 Monetary economies of production 76

Louis-Philippe Rochon
Why are these topics important? 77
The neoclassical/mainstream view 77

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 viii · An introduction to macroeconomics

The heterodox view 80

Conclusion 90
A portrait of John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) 93

PART II MONEY, BANKS AND FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES

4 Money and banking 97

Marc Lavoie and Mario Seccareccia
Why are these topics important? 98
Money, banks, and their origins 98
Understanding the heterodox approach to banks
and the modern payment system from a simple
balance-sheet perspective 107
Concluding remarks 114
A portrait of Alain Parguez (1940–) 116

5 The financial system 117

Jan Toporowski
Why are these topics important? 118
Mainstream economic theory 119
What is wrong with the textbook approach? 123
The financing needs of modern capitalism 126
The economic consequences of long-term finance 128
Finance in Keynes’s analysis 130
A portrait of Hyman Philip Minsky (1919–96) 133

6 The central bank and monetary policy 134

Louis-Philippe Rochon and Sergio Rossi
Why are these topics important? 135
The mainstream perspective 136
The heterodox perspective 141
A portrait of Alfred S. Eichner (1937–88) 148

PART III THE MACROECONOMICS OF THE SHORT

AND LONG RUN

7 Aggregate demand 151

Jesper Jespersen
Why are these topics important? 152
The National Accounting System: some principles
and definitions 152
From statistical concepts to macroeconomic theory 154

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 Full contents · ix

The neoclassical theory of aggregate demand 156

The Keynesian theory of aggregate demand and
output 159
The income multiplier 164
Expected aggregate demand and supply: effective demand 166
Demand management policies 168
A portrait of Richard Kahn (1905–89) 171

8 Inflation and unemployment 172

Alvaro Cencini and Sergio Rossi
Why are these topics important? 173
Inflation 174
Unemployment 180
Towards a monetary macroeconomic analysis of
inflation and unemployment 183
A portrait of Bernard Schmitt (1929–2014) 192

9 The role of fiscal policy 193

Malcolm Sawyer
Why are these topics important? 194
Is there a need for fiscal policy? 194
The role of automatic stabilizers 200
Functional finance and the post-Keynesian
approach to fiscal policy 201
Conclusion 207
Appendix A 208
Appendix B 209
A portrait of Michał Kalecki (1899–1970) 210

10 Economic growth and development 211

Mark Setterfield
Why are these topics important? 212
Economic growth: the statistical record 213
Supply versus demand in the determination of
long-run growth 218
What forces shape demand formation and growth
in the long run? 220
Keynesian growth theory 222
Properties of Keynesian growth theory 225
A portrait of Nicholas Kaldor (1908–86) 232

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 x · An introduction to macroeconomics

11 Wealth distribution 233

Omar Hamouda
Why are these topics important? 234
Some introductory remarks 235
Mainstream economic theory of wealth distribution 236
States of income distribution: a description 241
Heterodox perspectives 246
A new macroeconomics approach: stock of wealth
and social well-being 250
Some concluding remarks 254
A portrait of Karl Marx (1818–83) 256

PART IV INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY

12 International trade and development 259

Robert A. Blecker
Why are these topics important? 260
The orthodox approach: the theory of comparative
advantage 261
The heterodox alternative: imbalanced trade,
unemployment, and absolute competitive
advantages 267
Long-run development and infant-industry
protection 271
Trade liberalization and trade agreements 273
Manufactured exports and the fallacy of
composition 276
Conclusions 278
A portrait of Joan Robinson (1903–83) 281

13 Balance-of-payments-constrained growth 282

John McCombie and Nat Tharnpanich
Why are these topics important? 283
The determination of the balance-of-payments
equilibrium growth rate 284
The Harrod foreign trade multiplier and the Hicks
supermultiplier 286
Price and non-price competitiveness in
international trade 288
The role of the growth of capital flows 290
Resource-constrained, policy-constrained and
balance-of-payments-constrained growth 292

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 Full contents · xi

Structural change and the multi-sectoral Thirlwall’s

Law 294
Tests of the model and empirical evidence 294
A portrait of Paul Davidson (1930–) 299

14 European monetary union 300

Sergio Rossi
Why are these topics important? 301
The mainstream perspective 301
The heterodox perspective 306
A portrait of Robert Triffin (1911–93) 315

PART V RECENT TRENDS

15 Financialization 319
Gerald A. Epstein
Why are these topics important? 320
What is financialization? 320
How old is financialization? 322
Dimensions of financialization 322
Impacts of financialization 327
Conclusion 331
A portrait of Karl Paul Polanyi (1886–1964) 334

16 Imbalances and crises 336

Robert Guttmann
Why are these topics important? 337
The mainstream view of a self-adjusting economy 337
Overproduction versus underconsumption 338
Growth and distribution 342
Cyclical growth dynamics 343
External imbalances and adjustments 349
Concluding remarks 354
A portrait of Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky
(1865–1919) 358

17 Sustainable development 359

Richard P.F. Holt
Why are these topics important? 360
The neoclassical model of economic growth and
development 361
The debate over ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ sustainability 362

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 xii · An introduction to macroeconomics

Growth versus development 365

Heterodox economics and true economic
development 367
Investments for sustainable development 371
Measuring a new standard of living for sustainable
development 374
Conclusion 376
A portrait of Amartya Sen (1933–) 380

Conclusion: do we need microfoundations for

macroeconomics? 381
John King
Why are these topics important? 382
The mainstream perspective 383
A heterodox critique 388
Why it all matters 395
A portrait of Robert Skidelsky (1939–) 398

Index 399

ROCHON 9781782549369 PRINT (M3984).indd xii 23/06/2016 13:59

 Contributors

Robert A. Blecker, American University, Washington, DC, United States

Heinrich Bortis, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
Alvaro Cencini, University of Lugano, Switzerland
Gerald A. Epstein, University of Massachusetts Amherst, United States
Robert Guttmann, Hofstra University, New York, United States and CEPN–
Université Paris XIII, France
Omar Hamouda, York University, Canada
Richard P.F. Holt, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, United States
Jesper Jespersen, University of Roskilde, Denmark
John King, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia and Federation
University Australia
Marc Lavoie, University of Ottawa, Canada
John McCombie, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Louis-Philippe Rochon, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Canada
Sergio Rossi, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
Malcolm Sawyer, University of Leeds, United Kingdom
Mario Seccareccia, University of Ottawa, Canada
Mark Setterfield, New School for Social Research, New York and Trinity
College, Connecticut, United States
Nat Tharnpanich, Trade Policy and Strategy Office, Ministry of Commerce,
Thailand
Jan Toporowski, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of
London, United Kingdom

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 Acknowledgements

The editors would like to thank all the contributors to this book for their
collaboration in preparing this volume to enhance the understanding of eco-
nomic analysis in a pluralistic perspective. They also wish to express their
gratitude to Edward Elgar Publishing for their enthusiastic and professional
support during the development of the book. Finally, they are most grateful
to Amos Pesenti for his excellent research assistance, to Denise Converso–
Grangier for her contribution in preparing the full typescript for the pub-
lication process, and to Dee Compson for her professional efficiency in
copy-editing the whole book.

Louis-Philippe Rochon and Sergio Rossi

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 Introduction: the need for
a heterodox approach to
economic analysis
Louis-Philippe Rochon and Sergio Rossi

This textbook explains that there is an urgent need to consider a heterodox

approach to economic analysis, as regards macroeconomic theory as well as
policy. To be sure, the global financial and economic crisis that erupted in
2007–08 illustrates this need; this crisis is eventually a crisis of economics,
since it originates in an essentially wrong approach to the working of our
economic systems. Hence, it does not come as a surprise that the majority
of economic policy actions taken in the aftermath of this crisis do not work
as expected by their proponents. In fact, neither ‘fiscal consolidation’ (that
is, austerity) measures nor ‘quantitative easing’ policies can live up to their
promises, which amount to wishful thinking (to jump-start the economic
engine dramatically hit by the crisis). A fundamentally different approach to
economic analysis is actually necessary in order to understand and eventually
solve this crisis for good.

In this introduction we provide a detailed overview of the contents of this

volume, and point out its distinguishing features with respect to ortho-
dox thinking. We thereby show that another, largely different perspective
is required to avoid the fundamental flaws of orthodox economic analyses.
This allows us also to point out the need for pluralism in economic research
and education, because the lack of it led the economics profession astray
under the neoliberal regime that has been increasingly dominating the global
economy since the demise of the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s.

The first chapter, written by the co-editors of this textbook, explains the
meaning and purpose of economic analysis. In the first section, the authors
present and criticize the mainstream definition of economics, which aims at
the ‘efficient allocation of scarce resources’. This definition includes three
main concepts, each with very specific and powerful meanings in economics,

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 2 · An introduction to macroeconomics

namely, efficiency, allocation and scarcity. In this view, the main issue to
address thereby is how to allocate a given supply of resources. The first
section also briefly discusses the differences between microeconomics and
macroeconomics, emphasizing how mainstream macroeconomics is cru-
cially built on the key assumption of aggregating individuals’ behaviour, that
is, on microeconomic foundations. Rochon and Rossi also point out that
there is no need for money to exist in mainstream models. Indeed, orthodox
models explaining consumption, investment, and economic growth contain
no money essentially. Money is introduced much later, as part of a discus-
sion about the banking system, as an afterthought, or as an attempt to make
these economic models appear more realistic. This is the reason why the
first chapter offers an alternative interpretation of the scope and contents of
economics.

First, the authors argue that macroeconomics should not be a simple aggre-
gation of individual behaviour and microeconomic magnitudes, that there
are characteristics special to macroeconomics, and that social classes (or
macro-groups) play an important role in determining economic outcomes.
Based on macro-groups, economic dynamics become very important in
explaining consumption, investment, prices and economic growth. Further,
by emphasizing groups, one can ask a different set of questions and cast these
questions within the framework of political economy rather than econom-
ics, as clearly explained in Chapter 2. The first chapter shows thereby that
markets are not free, but governed by laws and institutions that play a central
role in any economic activity. Moreover, in casting this view with regard to
social groups, the importance of power becomes paramount, notably, the
power over the determination of wages, the power over access to credit, and
the power of the state. Ultimately, we live in a money-using economy, so, as
Schumpeter argued, money should be introduced at the beginning of the
discussion of economics (Chapter 3 delves into this subject matter in more
detail). That is why this textbook, in contrast to all other macroeconomics
textbooks, begins with an explanation of money (Chapter 3) and the banking
system and finance (Chapters 4, 5 and 6) after a survey chapter on the history
of economic theories, which is required in order to understand the general
framework of any economic analysis, be it theoretical or policy oriented.

Chapter 2, contributed by Heinrich Bortis, therefore presents the bigger

picture within which economic theories have developed, ranging between
two camps, namely, economics and political economy. The first section of
this chapter provides the essential reason for studying the history of eco-
nomic thought – dealing with differing or even contradictory theories of
value, distribution, employment and money induces one to independent and

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 Introduction · 3

open-minded thinking, that is, what John Maynard Keynes (1926) called
the ‘emancipation of the mind’. This should enable students of the history of
economic thought to distil the most plausible theoretical principles, which
are the grounds on which policy proposals may be eventually made. Indeed,
economic theorizing must be based on the history of economic thinking
to have an informed broader picture of the state of the art. In light of this,
the second section presents two broad groups of theories – economics and
political economy – to bring into the open the fundamental differences in
economic theorizing. In economics, the great problems (value and price,
distribution and employment) are market issues essentially, and money is
neutral. By contrast, the starting point of political economy is the social and
circular process of production: the fundamental prices are the prices of pro-
duction, not market prices; income and wealth distribution are governed by
social forces, and employment by effective demand; money and finance play
an essential role. The third and fourth sections sketch the historical develop-
ment of economics and political economy respectively. Economics starts with
Adam Smith, who conceived of the economy and society as a self-regulating
system. Jean-Baptiste Say (a follower of Adam Smith) claimed therefore that
there can be no unemployment. The great systems of economics were then
created in the course of the Marginalist Revolution (1870–90). Léon Walras
worked out the general equilibrium model; Alfred Marshall the partial equi-
librium approach. Both became constitutive of contemporary mainstream
economics. By contrast, the French surgeon François Quesnay is at the origin
of the political economy line. He considered the flows of goods and money
within the social and circular process of production to produce the net
output at the free disposal of society. As regards production, David Ricardo
worked out the labour value principle and the surplus principle of distribu-
tion. Piero Sraffa revived the classical (Ricardian–Marxian) approach, which
had been submerged by the Marginalist Revolution. John Maynard Keynes
elaborated the principle of effective demand, represented by the multiplier
relation, implying the existence of involuntary unemployment. At the time of
writing, the post-Keynesian and classical–Keynesian followers of Sraffa and
Keynes form, together with Marxists, the core of modern political economy,
representing an alternative to the neoclassical mainstream. The last section
of Chapter 2 discusses the plausibility of these two approaches. The capital-
theory debate emerges thereby as the theoretical watershed between eco-
nomics and political economy.

The third chapter focuses on monetary economies of production. Everybody

knows the old song, ‘Money makes the world go round’. In reality, this is
a good approximation of how our economic system operates. Indeed,
as Louis-Philippe Rochon explains in this chapter, we live in a monetary

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 4 · An introduction to macroeconomics

economy. This means that we cannot purchase goods without money; we

cannot invest without money; we cannot hire workers without paying them a
wage in money. Money is indeed at the core of our economic system. While
this may be quite apparent to many, money does not feature in neoclassical
economics, or if it does, it is merely there to give some semblance of reality
to an otherwise unrealistic view of the world. This chapter first discusses
the barter view of money in neoclassical analysis, and how in this view what
serves as ‘money’ has evolved through time. In this framework money is
introduced to facilitate trade and has no other purposes. In this sense, there
is no need for money in discussing employment, wages, supply and demand,
investment, and economic growth. In fact, there is no need for money even to
discuss prices in neoclassical analysis. This chapter offers a criticism and an
alternative view, which is focused on the creation and circulation of money,
and its relationship with debt, which characterizes a ‘revolutionary’ approach.
To be sure, money is necessary to explain production, employment as well as
economic growth.

Chapter 4, written by Marc Lavoie and Mario Seccareccia, elaborates on this.

It provides a brief analysis of the historical evolution of money and recalls
some debates about it. Since money, in its essence, is merely the outcome of
a balance-sheet operation, banks play a key role in any monetary economy.
The purpose of this chapter is to describe why all aspects of macroeconomic
analysis in a modern economy must necessarily involve the monetary system.
Monetary relations result from the existence of a group of key institutions in
a monetary economy, namely banks, which, together with the central bank,
are crucial in the modern payment system and are the purveyors of liquidity
to the whole economy. This chapter starts therefore with an explanation of
how banks are the principal creators of money in nearly all modern econo-
mies, and why, by their very nature, they are private–public partnerships,
especially evident at times of crisis when the public ‘trust’ that is so critical to
their existence is broken, therefore requiring a regulatory framework within
which the activity of creators of money is severely circumscribed. Lavoie
and Seccareccia consider the composition of this creation of money by the
banking system, including the central bank, and show why it varies with the
performance of the economic system. This is followed by an investigation of
the logic of money creation in the traditional analysis of the monetary circuit
and how this has been transformed somewhat under the so-called regime of
financialization (which is discussed in Chapter 15), especially with the per-
verse incentives generated by off-balance-sheet operations via securitization.
As in most first-year textbooks, Lavoie and Seccareccia begin by discuss-
ing the specifics of bank balance-sheet operations and how bank money is
created endogenously either to finance productive activity, as in the tradi-

ROCHON 9781782549369 PRINT (M3984).indd 4 23/06/2016 13:59

 Introduction · 5

tional circuit model of financing production, or more recently through the

financing of household consumption spending. They thus consider how dif-
ferent forms of spending behaviour by either the private or public sector lead
to the creation or destruction of money. They thereby comment on the role
that the public sector plays on the asset side of banks’ balance sheets, which
is also critical to how the banking sector’s net worth is usually re-established
after recessions. Finally, this chapter provides a discussion of payment and
settlement systems and of the role played by the interbank market, where
the central bank can set the overnight rate of interest and thus largely control
interest rates in the economy. The interbank rate of interest is a critical
instrument for the conduct of monetary policy. This discussion establishes
a bridge with Chapters 5 and 6 (on the financial system and monetary policy
respectively).

Chapter 5, by Jan Toporowski, explains notably that the financial system

emerges out of the financing needs of production and exchange in a capital-
ist economy. A special role is played by the financing needs of the state, for
which are created the institutional foundations of the long-term debt markets
that characterize the modern capitalist economy (that is, stock markets,
insurance, and investment funds). These markets develop further with finan-
cial innovations that provide new scope for financial operations alongside
production and exchange. Financial operations are a distinguishing feature
of Marxist political economy – in the case of Hilferding’s Finanzkapital
(Hilferding, [1910] 1981) and the financial theories of Kalecki and Steindl
derived from Hilferding’s work – as well as Keynes’s macroeconomics and
post-Keynesian theories. By way of contrast, consistently with the irrelevance
of money in neoclassical economics as explained in Chapter 3, mainstream
macroeconomics and portfolio theory do not integrate the financial sector
within a theory of how a capitalist economy operates with a complex finan-
cial system. The mainstream view also confuses saving with credit, exem-
plified in the theory of interest. The financial approach to macroeconomic
theory is developed, by way of contrast, in the ‘financial instability hypoth-
esis’ of Hyman Minsky, considering how debt changes over a business cycle.
Minsky’s view is distinguished from post-Keynesian theories by Minsky’s
denial of Keynes’s interest rate theory of investment, but has contributed the
notion of usury (due to excessive debt) common in post-Keynesian theories
of financialization, as explained in Chapter 15.

Chapter 6, written by Louis-Philippe Rochon and Sergio Rossi, points

out the specific role of the central bank in domestic payment and settle-
ment systems – as money and credit provider. It focuses on the emission
of central bank money as the means of final payment for every transaction

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 6 · An introduction to macroeconomics

on the interbank market. It thereby distinguishes between the monetary

intermediation carried out by the central bank as a matter of routine – and
necessity – and the financial intermediation that it carries out, as a lender
of last resort, when its counterparties are not in a position to obtain enough
credit on the interbank market. The authors show thereby that the central
bank is crucial for financial stability, thus introducing the reader to the need
to go much beyond price stability (particularly as measured on the goods
market) for monetary policy-making. This chapter then focuses on mon-
etary policy strategies, instruments and transmission mechanisms. Two
major strategies (monetary targeting and inflation targeting) are discussed,
criticizing their conceptual framework, and observing their macroeconomic
costs as measured by so-called ‘sacrifice ratios’ with respect to output and
employment losses. As the authors explain, monetary policy must contribute
to macroeconomic stabilization and not just worry about price stability on
the goods market. This discussion is elaborated on to present traditional as
well as ‘unconventional’ monetary policy tools, critically considering their
consequences on the whole economy. This framework is further expanded to
present the ‘transmission channels’ of monetary policy, considering also the
ongoing discussion about regulatory capital and financial reforms as well as
banking supervision at national and international levels that aim to influence
aggregate demand and thus achieve the relevant monetary policy goals.

Chapter 7, contributed by Jesper Jespersen, explains that aggregate demand

comprises private consumption, private investment, government expendi-
ture and net exports. Connected with this, it points out that neoclassical
economists consider aggregate demand as rather unimportant. They argue
that output (gross domestic product – GDP) is determined mainly by the
supply of labour and capital, quite independently of demand. They consider
the market system as self-adjusting, which leads them to conclude that, in
the long run, ‘the supply of goods creates their demand’. By contrast, accord-
ing to heterodox economists and Keynesian macroeconomic theory, aggre-
gate demand is an important analytical concept: it is the major driving force
behind the level of output and employment in the short and longer run.
This consideration makes demand management policies instrumental for
creating macroeconomic stability and economic growth. Richard Kahn was
notably one of the first Keynesian economists who contributed to the theory
of aggregate demand: he invented the analytical concept of the investment
multiplier as a short-run dynamic phenomenon. This chapter expands on
this, presenting Keynesian demand management policies, notably in periods
where aggregate demand is lower than potential GDP: fiscal policy, mon-
etary policy, and exchange rate policy should be expansionary in recessions,
and might be restrictive in boom periods. Demand management policies can

ROCHON 9781782549369 PRINT (M3984).indd 6 23/06/2016 13:59

Another random document with
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books. A blank page is filled out by the police, giving a description of
the person about to enter service. When the first engagement is
made, the name of the employer and the date of beginning service
are entered in the book and it receives the official stamp. When an
employee leaves a place, the date with the reason for leaving and a
statement in regard to the character and efficiency of the servant
must be entered in the book by the employer and the book then
returned to the police. No domestic employee can secure a position
in Germany without one of these service books—it is a passport that
must be viséd by the government officials and previous employers
before he can enter or leave a position, and no passport regulations
in any country are more stringent than are these service-book
requirements in Germany. It would seem, therefore, that this public
statement concerning an employee and the official recognition of it
by the police authorities ought to be an unimpeachable
recommendation. That this is not the case, however, seems to be
the all but universal testimony. The service book is of value in
weeding out inefficient employees, whose inefficiency, however,
would often be self-evident without the aid of a service book. It is
not only true that in this, as in every other form of recommendation,
the mistress is anxious to say the best thing possible for a maid to
help her in securing another place, but the law compels an employer
to go still farther and to say nothing that will prevent an employee
from finding employment. If an employer suspects the honesty of an
employee, he is not free to state that suspicion in the service book;
if he has positive proof of his dishonesty, he must enter legal
complaint against the employee; if he has no such evidence, he
must not even hint at his suspicions. Moreover, the law goes yet one
step farther and compels every employer to believe an employee
innocent in every respect until he is proved guilty. Not only is he not
free to say that he suspects the honesty of an employee, or to leave
out the word “honest,” but he must state positively that the
employee is honest.[343] This policy is justified on the ground that it
is a necessary protection to the weaker class, but it of necessity
impairs the absolute reliability of the testimonials given, and it
lessens materially the value of the service book as far as it concerns
the employer. Even in Germany with the aid of the strong arm of the
law it seems as impossible as it is in other countries to devise any
system of recommendations that will tell the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth, and that will at the same time satisfy the
desire of an employer to secure a place for an employee he can
himself no longer tolerate and also the claims of an employee to the
right to turn a fresh page and try once more to give satisfaction to a
new employer. The recommendations of the previous employers of
would-be employees must be discounted in Germany as well as in
America.
This government regulation of domestic service in Germany is
acquiesced in because government regulation extends to other
industries and because obedience is man’s first law throughout the
empire. In so far as the conditions can be reached by law this
regulation seems to be successful. But there are many factors in the
problem that cannot be so reached,—infirmities of temper, the
visiting soldier, the preference for an easy place, the desire for city
life. Here the German housekeeper must depend on her own
resources, and her problem is the same as that in every other
country.
Another advantage domestic service in Europe has over service in
America lies in the large number of men engaged in the
employment.[344] The reasons for this are not indeed perhaps
directly apparent. But domestic service as an occupation for men
must command a higher respect in Europe than in America for two
reasons: first, the competition with those belonging to a foreign, or
to a so-called inferior race is reduced to a minimum.[345] Household
service is performed in France by Frenchmen, in Italy by Italians,
and in Germany by Germans. In England it is given in part by
Englishmen, but also to a great extent by foreigners, and the
invasion of the occupation by those not English by birth may be one
explanation why the occupation is falling into ill repute among
native-born Englishmen. That the service is better performed by the
foreigner than it is by the Englishman explains why employers seek
the services of the former rather than those of the latter,[346] and
perhaps incidentally why the native-born servant so readily leaves
the field to his rival.
Another explanation why domestic service as an occupation for
men commands a higher respect in Europe lies in the relatively
higher qualifications that men must have. Not only must a man in
domestic service have the same qualifications as would be
demanded of him in the same occupation here, but he must be able
to speak from one to half a dozen languages in addition to his own.
[347] Domestic service is for men an occupation, and they make
preparation for it as for any other technical trade. They must spend
from one to two years in other countries learning the language[348]
in order to increase their market value; the position they can
command and the wages they can earn depend, other things being
equal, on the amount of capital they have invested in themselves.
The social restrictions placed on women prevent their going from
one country to another in a similar way, and thus men, for this and
other reasons, command everywhere the best places, and they
probably occupy a relatively higher social position than do men in
the same occupation in America.
From the standpoint of the employer one advantage domestic
service in Europe has, is that it apparently costs less than it does in
America. The money wages paid domestic employees are nominally
much lower than in America, apparently ranging from about three
dollars a month for an ordinary housemaid to eight dollars a month
for an excellent cook,[349] in addition to board and lodging.[350] But
these wages are supplemented in a score of ways. A present in
money of from five to eight dollars is often given at Christmas or
New Year’s, another is given at Easter, and a third on birthdays,[351]
while at all times the temper of the cook must be propitiated with
gifts of clothing and the housemaid remembered in a similar way.
[352] Not only are members of the family expected to make these
additions to the nominal wages given, but guests and transient
visitors pay similar tribute.[353] Moreover, the butcher, the baker, and
the candlestickmaker all increase the monthly stipend of servants by
frequent fees given in return for trade secured through them,[354]
while no inconsiderable part of the wages received—or taken—
comes in the form of profits,[355] perquisites and
“gratifications.”[356] Still another factor must be added, the daily
allowance for wine or beer, or its money equivalent.[357] In France,
according to Weber, men-servants are paid while performing military
service,—“it is an act of patriotism and of social solidarity.”[358] In
Germany girls in the country sometimes receive part of their wages
in the use granted of a small piece of land where they can raise flax.
This they spin, weave, and sell, adding thus something to their
wages. Compulsory insurance in Germany and in Belgium materially
increases the cash wages paid by the employer.[359] It is thus
extremely difficult to state with even approximate exactness the
amount of wages received by domestics in Europe, since the total
amount is affected to such an extent by the variable factors of fees
and outside perquisites.[360] It is still more difficult to compute the
variations that wages have undergone from a past to the present
time.[361]
That the cost of domestic service is in many places in excess of
what it should be is indicated by the growing custom among certain
classes of employers of demanding as their right a percentage of the
fees received,[362] and the protests, as yet unavailing, on the part of
the public against the exactions of these fees by either employer or
employee.[363] It seems not unreasonable to conclude, in view of all
the various ways by which wages are augmented, that they are in
reality much greater than their face value indicates, and in many
parts of the service greatly in advance of wages in other
corresponding occupations.
The question naturally arises whether the value of the service
rendered is commensurate with its cost, but it is a question that
must remain unanswered in default of any common standard by
which service can be gauged.[364] Figaro has answered the question
theoretically in the other question put to Count Almaviva, “Measured
by the virtues demanded of a servant, does your excellency know
many masters worthy of being valets?”[365]
But the wage received sums up as little in Europe as it does in
America the subject of domestic service. Even good wages do not
altogether compensate for long hours of service,[366] hardness of
work[367] and of life,[368] and entire lack of social intercourse.
It is undeniable that the social conditions that surround domestic
servants in Europe are harder than in America. They are the
survivals of the condition of serfdom, as this was in turn the survival
of a preëxisting state of slavery.[369] Literature everywhere testifies
to the social chasm that has at all times existed between master and
slave, master and servant, mistress and maid, and employer and
employee, as it also does to the manifold imperfections of both
parties to the domestic contract,[370] while on the stage as well as in
the daily press it has been the domestic servant who has always
been made the butt of jest and ridicule.[371] “Now, as before and
during the Revolution,” says M. Salomon, tersely, “it (the occupation)
remains under the ban of society; customs are not changed with
laws.”[372] It is true that the domestic servant is often apparently
unconscious of the existence of this social ban, and that even when
he is conscious of it, he acquiesces in it and accepts it as a part of
the social order that he cannot and perhaps would not change, yet
this unconsciousness of it does not alter the fact of its existence.
The social disadvantages of domestic service show themselves
under the same guise as in America, though often in a much more
exaggerated form. In England the existence of a tax on men-
servants puts at once a social chasm between the master who pays
a tax on luxuries and the servant who is an outward manifestation of
that luxury, while the servility of manner that an American finds so
exasperating in an English servant is encouraged and even
demanded as the birthright inheritance of a well-born Englishman.
[373] The servants in their turn enforce among themselves similar
social distinctions and the recognition by their fellows of the various
grades of social superiority or inferiority[374]—a condition that has its
origin partly in a desire to imitate the customs and manners of those
above them in the social scale,[375] and partly in the extreme
specialization of every form of household work and the resulting
inflexibility of all parts of it.[376] It follows that in England “domestic
service provides no general bond—perhaps, indeed, rather
accentuates class indifferences,” and that, as an occupation, for this
and other reasons, “domestic service, though lucrative and in many
ways luxurious, is not popular.”[377]
In France, while the relations between employer and employee are
much more democratic than in England, the social stigma is put on
the household servant, in part because of the traditional character
given servants in French literature, in part because the construction
of the French apartment house places the rooms of all the servants
in the mansard story and thus draws a line of social demarkation
between those served and those serving, in part because of the
bureaucratic character of society.
In Italy, domestic servants have apparently no social life whatever.
This is partially explained by the long hours of work that leave them
no opportunity for it; it is in part because women servants never go
out in the evening, receive no callers, and are, as it is often
explained, “really servants,” in the sense of having no social
ambitions; and it is also because manual work in every form is
considered degrading, and those who engage in it are under the
social ban—a condition that is apparently accepted without outward
protest.
Yet much is done to mitigate some of the hard features in the lot
of the domestic servant. One of the interesting features in the
condition of domestic service in Germany is the large number of
benefactions organized for the benefit of domestic employees. There
are everywhere homes for aged servants,[378] homes for servants
out of work,[379] unions for providing servants with recreation,[380]
and schools and homes where they are taught household
employments.[381]
Yet when all has been said the fact remains that even in Germany
the lot of a household employee is a hard one. “Servants hate a dull
place worse than a hard one,” and when a place is both dull and
hard it has indeed little to commend it. Women in Europe as in
America enter domestic service by the line of least resistance, and
this explains why in both countries so many are found in the
occupation and why so many of these are incompetent in their work
and unhappy in their lives.
In one important respect the condition of domestic service in
Europe is immeasurably behind that in America. Even more than
here domestic service and domestic servants are the targets at
which are aimed the satire and the ridicule of literature and the
press, and this is not counterbalanced by earnest study of the
subject as is the case with us. The question is everywhere discussed
in America, not because the difficulties here are greater than they
are elsewhere, but because it is coming to be recognized as a part of
the great labor problem of the day. If the future holds for us a
solution of the problem, it is because we believe it is worthy of
historical study and of scientific investigation, and in giving it this
recognition we have put it on a higher plane than the one it as yet
occupies in Europe.[382]
 FOOTNOTES
[1] These schedules are given in Appendix I.
[2] Partial discussions of the subject can be found in the First
Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of Minnesota, pp.
131-196; First Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of
Colorado, pp. 344-362; Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of
Labor and Industrial Statistics of Kansas, pp. 281-326; Third
Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the State of
California, pp. 91-94; Fifth Biennial Report of the Department of
Statistics, State of Indiana, pp. 173-229. The last is especially full
and excellent.
[3] The total number of domestic servants is given as
1,454,791. This does not include launderers and laundresses, paid
housekeepers in private families and hotels, or stewards and
stewardesses. It excludes also the very large number of persons
performing the same duties as domestic servants, but without
receiving a fixed compensation.
[4] This estimate is based on the supposition that the average
wages paid are $3.00 per week, and that two weeks’ vacation is
given with loss of wages. Both of these are probably
underestimates, as will be seen farther on. If the wages paid
launderers and laundresses are included, and also the fees paid
for hotel and restaurant service, $300,000,000 seems a fair
estimate for the annual cash wages paid for domestic service.
[5] This estimate supposes the actual cost of board for each
employee to be $3.00 per week, which is probably less than
would be paid by each employee for table-board of the quality
furnished by the employer. It excludes the cost of house-rent
furnished, and also fuel and light, all of which are factors to be
considered in computing the cost of service received.
[6] It is difficult to estimate the value of the materials of which
domestic employees have the almost exclusive control. If the
number of domestic servants and launderers and laundresses in
private families, hotels, and restaurants is placed at 1,700,000,
the number of employees in each family as two, and the number
of persons in each family, including servants, as seven, it will be
seen that at a rough estimate the food and laundried articles of
clothing of six million persons pass through the hands of this
class of employees. It was formerly a common saying, “a servant
eats her wages, breaks her wages, and wastes her wages.” If this
verdict of experience is taken as approximately true rather than
as scientifically exact, it will be seen that the actual expense
involved in domestic service is probably double that included
under the items of wages and support.
[7] The Factory System, Tenth Census, II., 533-537.
[8] A. E. Kennelly, “Electricity in the Household,” Scribner’s
Magazine, January, 1890; E. M. H. Merrill, “Electricity in the
Kitchen,” American Kitchen Magazine, November, 1895.
[9] In Massachusetts, in 1885, the number of women employed
in manufacturing industries exceeded the number of men in eight
towns. These were Dalton, Dudley, Easthampton, Hingham,
Ipswich, Lowell, Tisbury, and Upton. Census of Massachusetts, II.,
176-187.
A weaver in Lawrence, Massachusetts, reported in 1882: “One
of the evils existing in this city is the gradual extinction of the
male operative.” Fall River, Lowell, and Lawrence, p. 10. Reprinted
from Thirteenth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of
Statistics of Labor, p. 202.
In Massachusetts, in 1875, women predominated in fifteen
occupations, eleven of them manufacturing industries. In 1885
there were also fifteen occupations in which women exceeded
men in numbers, twelve of them manufacturing. These were
manufacturers of buttons and dress-trimmings, carpetings,
clothing, cotton goods, fancy articles, hair work, hosiery and knit
goods, linen, mixed textiles, silk and silk goods, straw and palm-
leaf goods, and worsted goods. Report of the Bureau of Statistics
of Labor, 1889, pp. 556-557.
[10] George Eliot in Felix Holt speaks of Mrs. Transome as
engaged in “a little daily embroidery—that soothing occupation of
taking stitches to produce what neither she nor any one else
wanted was then the resource of many a well-born and unhappy
woman.”
[11] Eddis, p. 63.
 [12] DeFoe, Moll Flanders, Colonel Jack; Mrs. Alpha Behn, The
Widow Ranter.
[13] Sir Joshua Child, pp. 183-184.
[14] Charles Davenant, II., 3. Velasco, the minister of Spain to
England, writes to Philip III. from London, March 22, 1611: “Their
principal reason for colonizing these parts is to give an outlet to
so many idle and wretched people as they have in England, and
thus to prevent the dangers that might be feared from them.”
Brown, p. 456.
[15] Force, Tracts, I., 19.
[16] Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1661-1668.
Abstracts 101, 772, 791, 858. An admirable discussion of “British
Convicts Shipped to American Colonies,” by James D. Butler, is
found in The American Historical Review, October, 1896.
[17] Eddis says, p. 66, that Maryland was the only colony
where convicts were freely imported; but Virginia seems to have
shared equally in the importation.
[18] In Pennsylvania and Virginia transported criminals were so
numerous that laws were passed to prevent their importation.
[19] William Smith, History of the Province of New York from its
Discovery to the Appointment of Governor Colden in 1762, pp.
207-210. John Watson, pp. 485-486, quotes from
contemporaneous writers in opposition to the practice in
Pennsylvania, circa 1750; Hening, II., 509-511.
[20] “It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of
people and wicked, condemned men, to be the people with whom
you plant; and not only so, but it spoileth the plantation; for they
ever live like rogues, and not fall to work; but be lazy, and do
mischief, and spend victuals, and be quickly weary, and then
certify over to their country to the discredit of the plantation.”
Bacon, Essays, Of Plantations.
[21] Bruce, I., 606, says that the order of the General Court of
Virginia prohibiting the introduction of English criminals after
January 20, 1671 (Hening, II., 509-511), was confirmed by a
royal order announcing that the importation of Newgate criminals
was to cease, and that this rule was to apply to all the Colonies.
But the frequent protests against the practice found in other
Colonies at a much later date would seem to show that it could
not have been generally observed.
 [22] Eddis, pp. 71-75.
[23] Ibid., pp. 69-71.
[24] Berkeley’s Report, Hening, II., 515. Brantly, in Winsor, III.,
545.
[25] “In the year 1730 ... Colonel Josiah Willard was invited to
view some transports who had just landed from Ireland. My uncle
spied a boy of some vivacity, of about ten years of age, and who
was the only one in the crew who spoke English. He bargained
for him.”—“Mrs. Johnson’s Captivity” in Indian Narratives, p. 130.
[26] Hildreth, III., 395.
[27] Samuel Breck writes under date of August 1, 1817, “I went
on board the ship John from Amsterdam, ... and I purchased one
German Swiss for Mrs. Ross and two French Swiss for myself.”
Recollections, pp. 296-297.
[28] Winthrop Papers, Pt. VI., p. 387, note.
[29] Barber, Connecticut Collections, p. 166.
[30] Scharf, p. 209.
[31] Some improvement was soon seen in Virginia. “There
haue beene sent thither this last yeare, and are now presently in
going, twelue hundred persons and vpward, and there are neere
one thousand more remaining of those that were gone before.
The men lately sent, haue beene most of them choise men, borne
and bred vp to labour and industry.” Declaration of the State of
the Colonie and Affairs in Virginia, 1620. Force, III., 5. Hammond
in Leah and Rachel, p. 7, also speaks of the improvement.
[32] A well-known case was that of Thomas, son of Sir Edward
Verney, who at the age of nineteen wished to marry some one of
lower rank than himself. He was sent to Virginia to prevent the
marriage, not, however, as himself a servant. Verney Papers,
Camden Society Publications, vol. 56, pp. 160-162.
A niece of Daniel DeFoe is said to have been sent to America as
a redemptioner for the same reason.
The Sot-Weed Factor says of a maid in a Maryland inn,

“Kidnap’d and Fool’d, I hither fled,

To shun a hated Nuptial Bed,
And to my cost already find,
Worse Plagues than those I left behind.
 These are the general Excuses made by English Women, which
are sold or sell themselves to Mary-land.” p. 7.
[33] James Annesley when twelve years old was transported to
Pennsylvania. His father died soon after, and his uncle succeeded
to the peerage. The boy was sold to a planter in Newcastle
County, but his title to the peerage was subsequently proved.
Anglesea Peerage Trial, Howell, State Trials, XVII., 1443-1454.
[34] Neill, Virginia Carolorum, p. 108; The Verney Papers,
Camden Society Publications, vol. 56, pp. 160-162, give a long
and detailed account of the method of obtaining and transporting
servants.
[35] Neill, Terra Mariæ, pp. 201, 202,

“In better Times, e’re to this Land,

I was unhappily Trapann’d.”

Sot-Weed Factor, p. 6.

A young woman in search of employment was told that by

going on board ship she would find it in Virginia, a few miles
below on the Thames. Another young woman was persuaded to
enter the ship, and was then sold into service. Cited by Bruce, I.,
614, from Interregnum Entry Book, vol. 106, p. 84, and British
State Papers, Colonial, vol. XIII., No. 29, 1.
The evil of “spiriting away” both children and adults became so
great that in 1664 the Committee for Foreign Plantations
interposed, and the Council created the office of Register, charged
with the duty of keeping a record of all persons going to America
as servants, and the statement that they had voluntarily left
England. This act was soon followed by another fixing the penalty
of death, without benefit of clergy, in every case where persons
were found guilty of kidnapping children or adults. But even these
extreme measures did not put an end to the evil; and it is stated
that ten thousand persons were annually kidnapped after the
passage of the act. Bruce, I., 614-619.
[36] “The Forme of Binding a Servant” is given in A Relation of
Maryland, pp. 62-63, and reads as follows:

This Indenture made the ____ day of ____ in the yeere

of our Soveraigne Lord King Charles, &c. betweene ____ of
the one party, and ____ on the other party, Witnesseth,
 that the said ____ doth hereby covenant promise, and
grant to, and with the said ____ his Executors and
Assignes, to serve him from the day of the date hereof,
untill his first and next arrivall in Maryland; and after for
and during the tearme of ____ yeeres, in such service and
imployment as the said ____ or his assignes shall there
imploy him, according to the custome of the countrey in
the like kind. In consideration whereof, the said ____ doth
promise and grant, to and with the said ____ to pay for his
passing, and to find him with Meat, Drinke, Apparell and
Lodging, with other necessaries during the said terme; and
at the end of the said terme, to give him one whole yeeres
provision of Corne, and fifty acres of Land, according to the
order of the countrey. In witnesse whereof, the said ____
hath hereunto put his hand and scale, the day and yeere
above written.
Sealed and delivered in the presence of ____

Neill, Virginia Carolorum, pp. 5-7, gives a similar copy. Bruce,

II., 2, gives the indenture of one Mary Polly whose master was to
“maintain ye sᵈ Mary noe other ways than he doth his own in all
things as dyett, cloathing and lodging, the sᵈ Mary to obey the sᵈ
John Porter in all his lawful commands within ye sᵈ term of years.”
[37] Hening, I., 257, 1642.
[38] Hening, I., 411, 1655.
[39] Ibid., I., 441-442, 1657.
[40] Ibid., I., 538-539, 1659.
[41] Ibid., II., 113-114, 1661.
[42] Ibid., II., 240, 1666.
[43] Ibid., 1705, 1748, 1753.
In North Carolina no “imported Christian” was to be considered
a servant unless the person importing him could procure an
indenture. Iredell, 1741, chap. 24.
In West New Jersey servants over twenty-one without
indenture were to serve four years, and all under twenty-one to
serve at the discretion of the Court. Leaming and Spicer, 1682,
chap. XI.
 In Maryland servants without indenture of over twenty-one
years of age were to serve five years; if between eighteen and
twenty-two, six years; if between fifteen and eighteen, seven
years; if under fifteen, until twenty-two years old. Browne, 1692.
[44] Alsop, pp. 57-58.
[45] Leah and Rachel, pp. 12, 14.
[46] Neill, Terra Mariæ, pp. 201-202.
[47] Howell, State Trials, XVII., 1443-1454.
[48] Eddis, pp. 69-70.
[49] Neill, Virginia Carolorum, p. 58. Neill adds: “While some of
these servants were treated with kindness, others received no
more consideration than dumb, driven cattle.”
[50] P. 7.
[51] A negro servant in the family of Judge Sewall died in 1729,
and the latter writing of the funeral says: “I made a good Fire, set
Chairs, and gave Sack.” Diary, III., 394. The New England Weekly
Journal, February 24, 1729, has a detailed account of the funeral:
“A long train followed him to the grave, it’s said about 150 black,
and about 50 whites, several magistrates, ministers, gentlemen,
etc. His funeral was attended with uncommon respect and his
death much lamented.”
[52] She complains of the great familiarity in permitting the
slaves to sit at table with their masters “as they say to save time”
and adds, “into the dish goes the black hoof, as freely as the
white hand.” She relates a difficulty between a master and a slave
which was referred to arbitration, each party binding himself to
accept the decision. The arbitrators ordered the master to pay 40
shillings to the slave and to acknowledge his fault. “And so the
matter ended: the poor master very honestly standing to the
award.”—The Journal of Madame Knight.
[53] John Winter writes from Maine, “I Can not Conceaue
which way their masters Can pay yt, but yf yt Continue this rates
the servants will be masters & the masters servants.” Trelawny
Papers, p. 164. John Winthrop makes a similar comment in
narrating “a passage between one Rowley and his servant. The
master, being forced to sell a pair of oxen to pay his servant his
wages, told his servant he could keep him no longer, not knowing
how to pay him the next year. The servant answered, he would
serve him for more of his cattle. But how shall I do (saith the
master) when all my cattle are gone? The servant replied, you
shall then serve me, and so you may have your cattle again.”
Winthrop gives as a reason for high wages the fact that “the wars
in England kept servants from coming to us, so as those we had
could not be hired, when their times were out, but upon
unreasonable terms, and we found it very difficult to pay their
wages to their content, (for money was very scarce).”—History of
New England, II., 219-220.
[54] Lechford, Note-book, p. 107.
[55] Lechford, Note-book, p. 81.
[56] Bruce, II., 2.
[57] Travels, I., 303-304.
[58] Recollections, p. 297.
“Before the Revolution no hired man or woman wore any shoes
so fine as calf-skins; course neats leather was their every day
wear. Men and women then hired by the year,—men got 16 to
20l., and a servant woman 8 to 10l. Out of that it was their
custom to lay up money, to buy before their marriage a bed and
bedding, silver teaspoons, and a spinning-wheel, &c.”—Watson,
Annals, p. 165.
[59] Hening, III., 451.
[60] Ibid., V., 550.
[61] Ibid., VI., 359.
[62] Trott, 1736.
[63] Purdon, Act of 1700; Carey and Bioren.
[64] Body of Liberties, chap. 88, Laws of 1672; Laws of the
Duke of York.
[65] Iredell, Acts of 1741, chap. XXIV.
[66] Leaming and Spicer, Acts of 1682, chap. VIII.
[67] Ibid., chap. X.
[68] Browne, 1692.
[69] Bacon, 1715.
[70] Force, Tracts, III.: “Articles, Lavves, and Orders, Diuine,
Politique, and Martiall, for the Colony in Virginea Brittania.”
 [71] “All such Bakers as are appointed to bake bread, or what
else, either for the store to be giuen out in generall, or for any
one in particular, shall not steale nor imbezell, loose, or defraud
any man of his due and proper weight and measure, nor vse any
dishonest and deceiptfull tricke to make the bread weigh heauier,
or make it courser vpon purpose to keepe backe any part or
measure of the flower or meale committed vnto him, nor aske,
take, or detaine any one loafe more or lesse for his hire or paines
for so baking, since whilest he who deliuered vnto him such
meale or flower, being to attend the businesse of the Colonie,
such baker or bakers are imposed vpon no other seruice or
duties, but onely so to bake for such as do worke, and this shall
hee take notice of, vpon paine for the first time offending herein
of losing his eares, and for the second time to be condemned a
yeare to the Gallies, and for the third time offending to be
condemned to the Gallies for three yeares.” The same penalties
are attached in case cooks or those who dress fish withhold any
part of the provision given them. Every minister was to read
these laws publicly every Sunday before catechising. Force,
Tracts, III.: “Articles ... for the Colony in Virginea.”
[72] Trelawny Papers, Collections of Maine Historical Society,
III., 166-168.
[73] Ibid., 169.
[74] Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Fifth Series, I., 64-67.
[75] Ibid., 68.
[76] Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Fifth Series, VIII., 427.
[77] Winthrop Papers, Pt. VI., 353-354, note.
[78] Trumbull, Blue Laws, p. 155.
[79] Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Sixth Series, II., 112.
[80] Purdon, Digest.
[81] Purdon, Digest, Act of 1700. In East New Jersey the
privilege was restricted to white servants. Leaming and Spicer,
Acts of East New Jersey, 1682. In Massachusetts no servant was
to be put off for more than a year to another master without the
consent of the Court. Body of Liberties, § 86, Act of 1672. In New
York no servant, except one bound for life, could be assigned to
another master for more than one year, except for good reason.—
Laws of the Duke of York.
 [82] Iredell, Acts of 1741, chap. XXIV., § 4; Leaming and Spicer,
Acts of East New Jersey, 1682, chap. XXVI. Any white servant
burdened beyond his strength, or deprived of necessary rest and
sleep, could complain to the justice of the peace. This officer was
empowered, first, to admonish the offending master; second, to
levy on his goods to an amount not exceeding ten pounds; and
third, to sell the servant’s time. Trott, Act of 1717. In New York
and Massachusetts servants were to have convenient time for
food and rest.—Laws of the Duke of York; Massachusetts, Act of
1672. In Maryland the penalty for insufficient meat, drink,
lodging, and clothing, burdens beyond their strength, or more
than ten lashes for one offence, was for the first and second
offence a fine of not more than a thousand pounds of tobacco,
and on the third offence the servant recovered his liberty.
Permission to exceed ten lashes could be obtained from the
Court, but the master could not inflict more than thirty-nine
lashes.—Dorsey, Laws of 1715, chap. LXIV.
[83] Trumbull, Public Records, p. 263; Massachusetts, Act of
1700; Iredell, Acts of 1741, chap. XXIV. In North Carolina if a
master did not use means for the recovery of a servant when ill,
and turned him away, he forfeited five pounds for each servant so
turned away, and if this was not sufficient the Court was
empowered to levy an additional amount. Such servants on their
recovery were to have their freedom, provided they had not
brought the illness on themselves. In Connecticut if the injury
came at the hands of the master or any member of his family, the
master was obliged to provide for the maintenance of the
servant, even after the expiration of his term of service, according
to the judgment of the Court. But if the injury “came by any
providence of God without the default of the family of the
governor,” the master was released from the obligation of
providing for him after his term of service expired. In South
Carolina masters turning away sick or infirm servants were to
forfeit twenty pounds.
[84] Leaming and Spicer, East New Jersey, 1682; Body of
Liberties, § 87, Act of 1672; Laws of the Duke of York. In
Maryland the Act of 1692 freed a mulatto girl whose master had
cut off both her ears.
[85] Body of Liberties, § 85, Act of 1672; Laws of Connecticut,
1673.
[86] Laws of the Duke of York.
 [87] Iredell, 1741, chap. XXIV.
[88] Leaming and Spicer, East New Jersey, 1682, chap. VIII.
[89] Instructions of the Crown, November 16, 1702.
[90] Iredell, 1741, chap. XXIV.
[91] Carey and Bioren, chap. 635.
[92] Trott, Act of 1717.
[93] Act of 1673.
[94] Leaming and Spicer, Act of 1682. This is practically the re-
enactment of a similar law in Carteret’s time, 1668, and of the
law of 1675.
[95] Iredell, Act of 1741.
[96] Trott, Act of 1717.
[97] Browne, 1692; Dorsey, 1715, chap. XLIV.
[98] Leaming and Spicer, Act of 1682. The Acts of 1682 and
1675 had similar provisions.
[99] Act circa 1784; Trumbull, Public Records, 1665-1678.
[100] Trott, Act of 1717.
[101] Laws of the Duke of York.
[102] Purdon, Digest, Act of 1700.
[103] Act of 1704.
[104] Browne, 1692; Dorsey, 1715.
[105] Bacon, 1748.
[106] Browne, 1692; Dorsey, 1715.
[107] Bacon, 1748.
[108] Iredell, Act of 1741.
[109] Carey and Bioren, Act of 1700.
[110] Trumbull, Public Records.
[111] Acts of 1692 and 1715.
[112] Act of 1692.
[113] Connecticut, circa 1784; New York, Act of 1672;
Maryland, Acts of 1692, 1715.
 [114] Iredell, Act of 1741.
[115] Act circa 1784.
[116] Act of 1646.
[117] Trott, 1717; Massachusetts, Act of 1698.
[118] Act of 1646.
[119] Act of 1728.
[120] Iredell, Act of 1741. But corporal punishment was not to
deprive the master of such other satisfaction as he might be
entitled to by the Act.
[121] Act of 1717.
[122] Body of Liberties, § 88, Act of 1672; Laws of the Duke of
York.
[123] Iredell, 1741.
[124] Leaming and Spicer, Act of 1682.
[125] Purdon, Digest, 1700.
[126] Act circa 1784.
[127] Laws of 1672.
[128] Act governing white servants, 1717.
[129] Laws of the Duke of York.
[130] Browne, 1692; Dorsey, 1715.
[131] Leaming and Spicer, Acts of 1668, 1675; Trott, Act of
1717.
[132] Massachusetts Bay, Act of 1636.
[133] Carey and Bioren, Act of 1721.
[134] Iredell, 1741.
[135] Ibid.
[136] Laws of 1672.
[137] Ibid.
[138] Iredell, 1741.
[139] Act of 1636.
[140] Act of 1784.
 [141] Neill, Founders of Maryland, pp. 77-79, gives the names
of eighty servants brought over by Cornwallis between 1634 and
1651; and of these, five became members of the Assembly, one
became a sheriff, and two were signers of the Protestant
Declaration. Other noteworthy instances are found in Virginia.
Neill, Virginia Carolorum, p. 297. Sometimes, however, the trail of
the serpent remained. R. G., in a treatise published about 1661,
says of the burgesses that they “were usually such as went over
servants thither, and though by time, and industry, they may have
attained competent estates, yet by reason of their poor and mean
condition, were unskilful in judging of a good estate, either of
church or Commonwealth, or by the means of procuring it.”—
Virginia Carolorum, p. 290. George Taylor, a Pennsylvania
redemptioner, was one of the signers of the Declaration of
Independence.
[142] The Sot-Weed Factor describes a quarrel in which one
says:

“... tho’ now so brave,

I knew you late a Four-Years Slave;
What if for Planter’s Wife you go,
Nature designed you for the Hoe.”—P. 21.

DeFoe says: “When their Time is expir’d, sometimes before it,

(they) get marri’d and settl’d; turn Planters, and by Industry grow
rich; or get to be Yearly Servants in good Families upon Terms.”—
Behaviour of Servants, p. 140.
[143] Elkanah Watson, writing from London in 1782, compares
the silent attention given by English servants with the volubility of
those in France, and then adds: “In America, our domestic feels
the consciousness, that he may in turn become a master. This
feeling may, perhaps, impair his usefulness as a servant, but
cannot be deprecated, whilst it adds to his self-respect as a
man.”—Men and Times of the Revolution, pp. 169-170.
[144] Numberless advertisements are found like the following:
“An Indian maid about 19 years of Age, brought up from a Child
to all sorts of Household work, can handle her Needle very well
and Sew or Flower and ingenious about her Work: To be sold on
reasonable terms.”—Boston News Letter, June 8, 1719.
“An Indian Woman Aged about 30 Years fit for all manner of
Household work either for Town or Country, can Sew, Wash,
Brew, Bake, Spin, and Milk Cows, to be sold by Mr. Henry Hill.”—
Ibid., January 4, 1720.
“A Very likely Indian Womans Time for Eleven Years and Five
Months to be disposed of; she’s a very good Servant, and can do
any Household work, either for Town or Country.”—Ibid., March
21, 1720.
“An Indian Woman aged Sixteen Years, that speaks good
English; to be sold.”—Ibid., February 20, 1715.
“A Stray Spanish Indian Woman named Sarah, Aged about 40
Years taken up, which the Owner may have paying the
Charges.”—Ibid., January 4, 1720.
[145] “A warr with the Narraganset is verie considerable to this
plantation, ffor I doubt whither yt be not synne in vs, hauing
power in our hands, to suffer them to maynteyne the worship of
the devill which theire paw wawes often doe; 2lie, If vpon a Just
warre the Lord should deliuer them into our hands, wee might
easily haue men woemen and children enough to exchange for
Moores, which wilbe more gaynefull pilladge for vs than wee
conceive, for I doe not see how wee can thrive vntill wee gett
into a stock of slaves sufficient to doe all our buisines, for our
children’s children will hardly see this great Continent filled with
people, soe that our servants will still desire freedome to plant for
them selues, and not stay but for verie great wages. And I
suppose you know verie well how wee shall maynteyne 20
Moores cheaper than one Englishe servant.”—Emanuel Downing
to John Winthrop, 1645. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Fourth Series, vol.
VI., p. 65.
[146] Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Fourth Series, vol. VI., p. 101.
James Russell Lowell commenting on this letter says, “Let any
housewife of our day, who does not find the Keltic element in
domestic life so refreshing as to Mr. Arnold in literature, imagine a
household with one wild Pequot woman, communicated with by
signs, for its maid of all work, and take courage. Those were
serious times indeed, when your cook might give warning by
taking your scalp, or chignon, as the case might be, and making
off with it into the woods.”—“New England Two Centuries Ago,” in
Among My Books, I., 263.
[147] Teele, History of Milton, Massachusetts, 1640-1887,
Journal of Rev. Peter Thatcher, Appendix B, pp. 641-642.
 [148] The Report of a French Protestant Refugee in Boston,
1687, evidently submitted to guide friends in France thinking of
coming to America, says: “You may also own negroes and
negresses; there is not a house in Boston, however small may be
its means, that has not one or two. There are those that have five
or six, and all make a good living.”—Pp. 19-20.
The New England papers, even in the first part of the
eighteenth century, are full of advertisements like the following:
“A Negro Wench with a Girl Four Years old both born in the
Country, used to all Family work on a Farm, to be sold on
reasonable Terms.”—Boston News Letter, October 5, 1719.
“A very likely young Negro Wench that can do any Household
Work to be sold, inquire of Mr. Samuel Sewall.”—Ibid., April 9,
1716.
“Lately arrived from Jamaica several Negro boys and girls, to be
sold by Mr. John Charnock & Co.”—Ibid., May 11, 1719.
Most of the advertisements describe those offered for sale as
“very likely,” and add the specially desirable qualification that he
or she “speaks good English.” Judge Sewall, in 1700, gives this
account of his first protest against negro slavery: “Having been
long and much dissatisfied with the Trade of fetching Negros from
Guinea; at last I had a strong Inclination to Write something
about it; but it wore off. At last reading Bayne, Ephes. about
servants, who mentions Blackmoors; I began to be uneasy that I
had so long neglected doing anything.”—Diary, II., 16.
[149] But it is of interest in passing to note two
contemporaneous judgments on the effect of slavery. Elkanah
Watson, writing of his journey through the South in 1778, says:
“The influence of slavery upon southern habits is peculiarly
exhibited in the prevailing indolence of the people. It would seem
as if the poor white man had almost rather starve than work,
because the negro works.”—Men and Times, p. 72.
Thomas Anburey writes, “Most of the planters consign the care
of their plantations and negroes to an overseer, even the man
whose house we rent, has his overseer, though he could with
ease superintend it himself; but if they possess a few negroes,
they think it beneath their dignity, added to which, they are so
abominably lazy.”—Travels, II., 328.
[150] A New England woman writes: “In several instances our
‘help’ was married from our parlor with my sisters for
bridesmaids. I correspond with a woman doctor in Florida whose
sister was our cook when I was a child, and who shared her
sister’s room at our home while she earned her education,
alternating work in the cotton mills and going to school.” This is
but one illustration of hundreds that have doubtless come within
the experience of most persons living in New England fifty years
ago.
[151] A visit to many New England burying grounds will
illustrate this statement. It was doubtless a survival of the English
custom. A curious and interesting collection of epitaphs of
servants has been made by Arthur J. Munby.
[152] “... Help, for I love our Yankee word, teaching, as it does,
the true relation, and its being equally binding on master and
servant.”—J. R. Lowell, Letters, I., 105.
[153] Even Americans commented on it. John Watson writes:
“One of the remarkable incidents of our republican principles of
equality is the hirelings, who in times before the war of
Independence were accustomed to accept the names of servants
and to be drest according to their condition, will now no longer
suffer the former appellation; and all affect the dress and the air,
when abroad, of genteeler people than their business warrants.
Those, therefore, who from affluence have many dependents,
find it a constant subject of perplexity to manage their pride and
assumption.”—Annals, p. 165.
[154] Autobiography, I., 331.
[155] Society in America, II., 248.
[156] Society in America, II., 245.
[157] Ibid., II., 254-255.
It is of interest to contrast this picture of service in America by
an Englishwoman with one given a little earlier of service in
England by an American. Elkanah Watson writes from London in
1782: “The servants attending upon my friend’s table were neatly
dressed, and extremely active and adroit in performing their
offices, and glided about the room silent and attentive. Their
silence was in striking contrast with the volubility of the French
attendants, who, to my utter astonishment, I have often observed
in France, intermingling in the conversation of the table. Here, the
servant, however cherished, is held at an awful distance. The
English servant is generally an ignorant and servile being, who
has no aspiration beyond his present condition.”—Men and Times
of the Revolution, p. 169.
[158] Democracy in America, II., 194.
[159] The Americans in their Moral, Social, and Political
Relations, pp. 236-237.
Thomas Grattan also says, “The native Americans are the best
servants in the country.”—Civilized America, I., 260.
[160] A Year’s Residence in the United States, p. 201.
Charles Mackay also says that “service is called ‘help,’ to avoid
wounding the susceptibility of free citizens.”—Life and Liberty in
America, I., 42.
[161] Domestic Manners of the Americans, I., 73.
[162] Society, Manners, and Politics in the United States, p.
284.
[163] He adds the interesting facts that cooks usually received
$1.50 per week; chambermaids, $1.25; gardeners, $11 per
month, and waiters $10 per month.—Recollections, pp. 299-300.
[164] The Englishwoman in America, pp. 43, 214.
[165] Civilized America, I., 256-258.
[166] Ibid., I., 259.
[167] Civilized America, I., 264.
[168] Ibid., I., 269.
[169] Views of Society and Manners in America, p. 338.
[170] Views of Society and Manners in America, pp. 338-342.
[171] Arrivals of Alien Passengers and Immigrants in the United
States from 1820 to 1890, pp. 16, 23.
By the Census of Massachusetts for 1885 it is seen that forty-
nine per cent of all women in that state of foreign birth are Irish.
I., 574-575.
[172] Ante, p. 11.
[173] Lowell says of the Irish immigration, “It is really we who
have been paying the rents over there [in Ireland], for we have to
pay higher wages for domestic service to meet the drain.”—
Letters, II., 336.
 A racy discussion of the influence of the Irish cook in the
American household is given by Mr. E. L. Godkin under the title
“The Morals and Manners of the Kitchen,” in Reflections and
Comments, p. 56.
[174] Arrivals of Alien Passengers and Immigrants in the United
States from 1820 to 1890, pp. 15, 22.
[175] Women constituted 41.8 per cent of the total number of
German immigrants arriving here during the twenty-two years
ending June 30, 1890; the Irish forming 48.5 per cent.—Ibid., p.
11.
[176] The United States Census for 1890 gives the number of
domestic servants born in Ireland as 168,993; the number born in
Germany was 95,007.
[177] The number of Chinese in domestic service in 1890 was
16,439.
[178] Walker, Wages, pp. 376-377.
[179] An illustration of these various changes is seen in the
case of one employee, who was born in Ireland, engaged in
service in New York, and afterwards drifted to Minnesota, where
the report was made.
[180] This is indicated by the various definitions given in early
dictionaries. It is a curious fact that The New World of Words or
General English Dictionary, large quarto, third edition, London,
1671, does not contain the word “servant.” Phillips’ Universal
English Dictionary, London, 1720, has “servant, a man or woman
who serves another.” Bailey’s Dictionary, London, 1721, 1737, and
1770, defines servant as “one who serves another.” The Royal
Standard English Dictionary, first American edition, Worcester,
Massachusetts, 1788, “being the first work of the kind printed in
America,” defines servant as “one who serves.” The second
edition, Brookfield, 1804, has “servant, one who serves for
wages.”
Some interesting illustrations of this early use of the word are
found in colonial literature. Thus Thomas Morton in his New
English Canaan, p. 179, says, “In the month of June Anno Salutis,
1622, it was my chance to arrive in the parts of New England with
thirty servants and provisions of all sorts fit for a plantation.”
Governor Bradford in his History of Plymouth, pp. 235-236,
speaks of “Captaine Wolastone and with him 3. or 4. more of
some eminencie, who brought with them a great many servants,
with provisions & other implments fit for to begine a plantation.”
A “Narrative concerning the settlement of New England,” 1630,
says,
“This yeare there went hence 6 shippes with 1000 people in
them to the Massachusetts having sent two yeares before
betweene 3 & 400 servants to provide howses and Corne against
theire coming, to the charge of (at least) 10,000l., these Servants
through Idlenes & ill Government neglected both theire building &
plantinge of Corne, soe that if those 6 Shippes had not arived the
plantation had ben broke & dissolved.”—Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc.,
1860-1862, pp. 130-131.
The same use of the word is found a number of times in the list
of the Mayflower passengers.
[181] J. F. D. Smyth says, London, 1784, “However, although I
now call this man (a backwoodsman of the Alleghanies) my
servant, yet he himself never would have submitted to such an
appellation, although he most readily performed every menial
office, and indeed every service I could desire.”—Tour in the
United States, I., 356.
[182] Fanny Kemble writes, “They have no idea, of course, of a
white person performing any of the offices of a servant;” then
follows an amusing account of her white maid’s being taken for
the master’s wife, and her almost unavailing efforts to correct the
mistake.—Journal of a Residence in Georgia, pp. 44-46.
[183] An illustration of this change is seen in the different
definitions given to the word. In the Royal Standard English
Dictionary, 1813, a servant is “one who attends and obeys
another, one in a state of subjection.”
Johnson’s Dictionary, London, 1818, gives: “(1) One who
attends another and acts at his command; the correlative of
master. Used of man or woman. (2) One in a state of subjection.”
Richardson’s New Dictionary of the English Language, London,
1838, defines servant as the correlative of master.
The American usage was practically the same. The first edition
of Webster, 1828, gives: “(1) Servant, a person, male or female,
that attends another for the purpose of performing menial offices
for him, or who is employed by another for such offices, or for
other labor, and is subject to his command. Servant differs from
slave, as the servant’s subjection to a master is voluntary, the
slave’s is not. Every slave is a servant, but every servant is not a
slave.”
Worcester, 1860, says of servant: “(1) One who serves,
whether male or female; correlative of master, mistress, or
employer. (2) One in a state of subjection; a menial; a domestic;
a drudge; a slave.”
These various definitions all suggest the class association of the
terms “servant” and “slave.”
[184] A curious illustration of the social position of servants in
Europe is seen in their lack of political privileges.
The French Constitution of 1791 was preceded by a bill of
rights declaring the equality and brotherhood of men, but a
disqualification for the right of suffrage, indeed, the only one, was
“to be in a menial capacity, viz., that of a servant receiving
wages.” Title III., chap. 1, sec. 2. The Constitution of 1795, after
a similar preamble, states that the citizenship is suspended “by
being a domestic on wages, attending on the person or serving
the house.” Title II., 13, 3. The Constitution of 1799 has a similar
disqualification. Title I., art. 5. It is probable that these provisions
were intended to punish men who would consent to serve the
nobility or the wealthy classes when it was expected that all
persons would be democratic enough to serve themselves, not to
cast discredit on domestic service per se.—Tripier, pp. 20, 105,
168.
During the revolutionary movement in Austria, the Hungarian
Diet at its session, in 1847-1848, passed an act providing that the
qualification for electors should be “to have attained the age of
twenty years; Hungarians by birth or naturalized; not under
guardianship, nor in domestic service, nor convicted of fraud,
theft, murder, etc.” Act 5, sec. 2.—Stiles, II., 376.
The qualifications for suffrage in England also excluded
domestic servants, but there was no discrimination against them
as a class.
The Declaration of Independence, declaring all men free and
equal in the presence of African slavery, thus has its counterpart
in these free constitutions disfranchising domestic servants.
[185] Some of the figures given in this chapter have been
taken from advance sheets kindly furnished by the Census
Bureau, and hence it is impossible to give in every case page
references.
[186] Preface, p. 1, and Appendix I.
[187] The percentage of foreign born as given here differs
slightly from that given on page 80, as it includes a small number
of Chinese and Japanese.
[188] Arizona, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts,
Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island.
[189] Colorado, District of Columbia, Illinois, Michigan,
Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon,
Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin,
Wyoming.
[190] Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho,
Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland,
Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio,
Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West
Virginia.
[191] Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia,
Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North
Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia.
[192] Eleventh Census, Population, Part I., p. lxxxiii.
[193] Census of Massachusetts, 1885, Part II., p. 38.
[194] Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada,
New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming.
[195] Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
Rhode Island, Vermont.
[196] New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania.
[197] Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan,
Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota,
Wisconsin.
[198] Delaware, District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maryland,
Missouri, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia.
[199] Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana,
Mississippi, North Carolina, Texas.
This classification is made with reference to conditions
apparently similar as regards domestic service.
 [200] Eleventh Census, Occupations, p. 20. It is interesting to
note the increasing proportion of women of foreign birth who go
into domestic service. The Tenth Census shows that, in 1880,
49.31 per cent of all women of foreign birth employed for pay
were engaged in domestic service; thus in ten years an increase
of 10.06 per cent was made.
[201] Census of Massachusetts, 1885, Part II., pp. xxxvi,
xxxviii. In this statement only the number of women engaged in
domestic service for remuneration is considered.
[202] Eleventh Census, Population, Part I., p. lxxxix.
[203] Eleventh Census, Wealth, Debt, and Taxation, Part II., p.
16, Chart.
[204] Ibid., p. 59.
[205] Eleventh Census, Wealth, Debt, and Taxation, Part II., pp.
376-403.
[206] Brooklyn, Buffalo, Camden, Fall River, Jersey City, Lowell,
Newark, Paterson, Rochester, Trenton, Troy.
[207] P. 68.
[208] Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1885, pp.
196-312.
[209] In the classification in these two tables the employees in
several large boarding houses were omitted. All of those included
under the term “nurses” are nurse-maids, with the exception of
the few receiving the highest wages.
[210] Post, p. 136.
[211] The figures are taken from the annual reports of city
superintendents. The attempt was made to find the average
salaries in the fifty largest cities, but many cities do not publish in
detail the salaries paid. The reports used were those for the year
ending in 1889,—the year for which reports were made through
the schedules,—with the exception of Paterson, where the report
for 1890 was used. Half-day teachers are omitted as far as
known. In cities having separate schools for colored and for white
children, the teachers in colored schools are included where the
salaries paid are the same as those paid in white schools of the
same grade,—otherwise they are omitted.
[212] Fourth Annual Report, pp. 520-529.
 [213] Ibid., p. 625.
[214] Post, p. 132.
[215] Report of the Bureau, 1887, pp. 216-219, 225.
[216] United States Bureau of Labor, 1887, pp. 794-797.
[217] More definitely, it numbered 4.85 persons.
[218] Forty-six per cent had kept house longer than this,
averaging nearly thirty years; while forty-four per cent had kept
house for a shorter period, averaging about eight years and a
half. Seventeen reports came from housekeepers of fifty years or
more experience.
[219] Seventy per cent reported that they had boarded since
marriage; about one third of these had boarded less than the
average time, and one half had boarded from one to five years.
[220] This estimate is based on the supposition that a cook is
employed at $3.80 per week, a second girl at $3.04, and a man
half a week at the rate of 87 cents a day.
[221] Table II, p. 76.
[222] The place of birth of the employees represented by the
schedules included the following countries: Australia, Austria, the
Azores, Canada, China, Denmark, England, Finland, France,
Germany, Holland, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, New Brunswick,
Norway, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Poland, Prince Edward’s Island,
Russia, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Wales, the West
Indies.
[223] Eleventh Census, Occupations, p. 122.
[224] An employer in a large city where there is much
complaint of the inferior character of the foreign population
writes: “A general impression prevails in most foreign families that
any girl, no matter how stupid, dishonest, or untidy, can apply for
and rightfully accept a position as general servant or housemaid
at current prices.” A similar complaint comes from many other
employers.
[225] Tenth Census, I., 708.
[226] “I went into housework because I was not educated
enough for other work.”
“I haven’t education enough to do anything else.”