Definition of "wage-fund" [wage-fund]

• In political economics, that part of the total productive capital of a country or community which is employed in paying the wages of labor, as distinguished from the part invested in buildings, machinery, raw materials, etc See the quotations. (noun)

The Century Dictionary (Public Domain)

• "Yet it was only from that point of view that he considered every laborer, though in many points he differed from the economists and had his own theory of the wage-fund, which he expounded to Levin."
• "It is not necessary to subscribe to the old discredited wage-fund theory, in order to agree with this."
• "However that may be, the important point for the working men of England to mark is, that every loss of rich men resident, every loss of tribute, every reduction of the wage-fund, every pressure on the population to emigrate, everything that leads in the direction of a self-supporting England, means immediate pressure on the poor, with reduction of wages."