If, in contrast with this, one's efforts are given to managing a business, devising the ends to be accomplished as well as planning for their accomplishment, he is said to have entire responsibility for results and to receive what he can make out of the business. His exertion is chiefly speculative labor, and the returns for his _speculation_ or foresight--often effort of the severest kind--are termed profits. Such efforts have already been illustrated in Chapter III, page 35. No generally accepted name has been given to the one who thus carries the entire responsibility of the business, but the word manager conveys to most people the general idea involved. While it is true that a manager may sometimes work for a salary, in general the very inventive ability required for success makes the stimulant of profits the most natural means of securing higher effectiveness. Most managers, even of stock companies, must from the nature of the case be at least sharers in the profits. Farmers easily distinguish between those who work for stipulated wages, often called farm hands, and the farmer himself, who gets the pay for all his endless variety of labor, including his constant planning, in the shape of profits.
_Wages defined._--Hence it is fair to define wages as a stipulated sum, paid at stipulated times, for stipulated services, measured either by the number of distinct services or by the time of service. A wage-earner must therefore be one who sells his powers, whatever they may be, for the use of another, bringing his own services rather than the products of those services to the best market he can find. In general, he prefers the definite promise of another to the indefinite chances that he may produce what is to be wanted in the future market. Very often he considers the bird in the hand worth any number in the bush, and is satisfied to take a certain living from day to day rather than risk his ability by his own contrivance to meet larger wants. Among the wage-earners we necessarily find all individuals of undeveloped powers of body or mind, dependent upon the rest of the community for both tools and task; also all who render personal services, and most of the laborers of all sorts in every kind of factory.