Wages is the cost of the daily maintenance and refreshment of the laborer.

You are wrong in calling it the price of a sale.

The workingman has sold nothing; he knows neither his right, nor the extent of the concession which he has made to you, nor the meaning of the contract which you pretend to have made with him.

On his side, utter ignorance; on yours, error and surprise, not to say deceit and fraud.
Let us make this clearer by another and more striking example.
No one is ignorant of the difficulties that are met with in the conversion of untilled land into arable and productive land.

These difficulties are so great, that usually an isolated man would perish before he could put the soil in a condition to yield him even the most meagre living.