Economic essays

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Identifikator:: 1753623200

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-136107

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Economic essays

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: Macmillan

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: viii, 368 S.; Ill., graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: The holding movement in agriculture / Jesse E. Pope

Collection:: Economics Books

238 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK maintain living standards and wages, so the theoretical fallacy did not trouble them. The eight-hour theorists, however, did not fail to provide a bridge whereby their followers could pass over into the prom- ised land of enhanced production so dear to the economist, as an examination of the three official eight-hour pamphlets published by the Federation in 1889, and still kept in circulation, will show. Lemuel Danryid’s History and Philosophy of the Eight-Hour Movement, number three in the series, discusses at some length the supposed overproduction of the European countries and the United States, and then goes on: The crying evil in each country is not want of productive power, but the lack of consumptive ability.! The question then is how to increase consumption, and thus furnish not only increased production, but a happier and more contented people.? Therefore we may conclude that a science of economics would see in the lessening of the hours of labor increased consumption, a vaster display of productive activity, a higher intellectual and moral devel- opment of the toiler, a wider demand for the more artistic products of our factories, an immense stimulus afforded to inventive genius, a more thorough organization of industrial functions and an almost fabulous increase of national prosperity and wealth no longer based on individual misery and want, and all proceeding pari passu with higher wages.® The lessening of the hours of labor means less idle hands, more persons profitably employed, and, hence, augmented consumption of labor products. By increasing the number of employed an increased demand will augment supply, overproduction checked, the home market enlarged, and with every added demand for labor wages rise. Danyrid’s argument ties together the doctrines of consumption and production in a way that makes Henry Ford's five-day idea look like a belated imitation. The shortening of hours, no longer just an immediate remedy for unemployment, has become a magic wand that will permanently and progressively increase produc- tion through increasing consumption and demand, will raise wages, and will usher in enduring prosperity. The economist 1s interested to discover here the source of the increased wages which are to follow the introduction of the shorter day. 1 Ibid. p. 4. 2 1bid., p. 4. 3 Ibid., p. 10. ' Ibid, p. 13.

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