#disutility

The impossibility of testing the response of a man in respect of “disutility of labour” and “utility of income arises from two factors: 1) the two curves are not independent. 2) we have no stable unit for the measurement: we cannot know (we cannot even ideally or logically make the distinction: it is inconceivable) whether the response is due to a variation only in utility or only in disutility or in both and in which proportions ‒ we can only see (and think of, in any non arbitrary way) a total result, a balance. If we find that to an increase of 10% in wage rates (piece or time rates) a workman responds with an increase of 5% in labour, we can obtain from this fact absolutely no information as to the shape of his utility & disutility curves, or as to their elasticity: we cannot even infer wether he has two distinct curves or one only: we fancy a priory that his [marg] utility decreases and his [marg.] disutility increases, but that observation would not even allow us to learn this if we ignored it. There are infinite combinations in the shape of the two curves from which that result might arise (??). Even if instead of uniform wages for every hour we discriminated as monopolist does (trying to see what additional payment is required to call forth an hour's labour) we would learn not much more. We would learn only the shape of the function representing how the difference between utility and disutility changes as a function of labour done [would it not be also a function of income? i.e. would it not depend on how much we have paid the first increments of labour? and would not this be an infinitely small one, on the procedure described, as the first increments of income have infinite utility, and the first inc. of labour no disutility? so that, (vide Jevons curves) we might actually obtain a “negative wage” from the workman?]

But would not the two methods of payment of wages, combined, enable us to find out the shape of the two curves?

Even if it is true that in most cases an infinite number of combinations would give the same result (which has to be carefully ascertained) in extreme cases would there not be only two possible combinations? (when supply of labour remains constant, when it grows in exact proportion to wage rates, when income is kept constant through diminution of labour in proport. to wage rate)

In one sense utility and disutility are different: but I value in a different way a thing which I have and am proposed to part with, and a thing I have not and propose to buy

(ex, my A. Young)

But how far is this connected with labour and consumption?

Util. ‒ Disut.