The theoretical mobility of labor rests upon the assumption that
laborers of every order will in all ways and at all times pursue their
economic interests; but the actual fact is that so far from seeking
labor under the most perfect conditions for obtaining it, nearly half of
all humankind are "bound in fetters of race and speech and religion and
caste, of tradition and habit and ignorance of the world, of poverty and
ineptitude and inertia, which practically exclude them from the
competitions of the world's industry."

"Man is, of all sorts of luggage, the most difficult to be transported,"
was written by Adam Smith long ago; and this stands in the way of really
free and unhampered competition. Mr. Frederick Harrison, one of the
clearest thinkers of the day, has well defined the difference between
the seller and the producer of a commodity. He says:--

"In most cases the seller of a commodity can send it or carry it
from place to place, and market to market, with perfect ease. He
need not be on the spot; he generally can send a sample; he usually
treats by correspondence. A merchant sits in his counting-room, and
by a few letters and forms transports and distributes the
subsistence of a whole city from continent to continent. In other
cases, as the shopkeeper, the ebb and flow of passing multitudes
supplies the want of locomotion for him. This is a true market.
Here competition acts rapidly, fully, simply, fairly. It is totally
otherwise with a day laborer who has no commodity to sell. He must
himself be present at every market, which means costly, personal
locomotion. He cannot correspond with his employer; he cannot send
a sample of his strength, nor do employers knock at his cottage
door."