THEORY OF PRODUCTIVE EFFICIENCY 173
FRANK TRACY CARLTON, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS IN
DE PAUW UNIVERSITY!"®
Preceding the nineteenth century and the use of natural
power and machinery, leisure and comfort were considered
to be the birthright of only a few. Hard and almost continuous
toil on the part of the multitude was necessary to eke
out an existence. With the enormous increase in the productive
capacity of the world has come the possibility of a
shorter working day and of a rising standard of living for
the mass of toilers. Modern unionism has for its direct aim
the betterment of working conditions; and such betterment
has been made possible through the technical advances consummated
during recent generations.
The maximum amount which an employer can afford to
pay an employee is the equivalent of the increased productivity
of the plant because of the employee’s efforts. But the
productivity of the employee depends not merely upon his
skill and efficiency but also upon the manner in which his
labor is directed and correlated with that of others.
The existing industrial order must prove its right to continued
life by efficiency in the production of the necessities
and comforts of life for the great drab mass of working human
beings instead of the mere piling up of profits.
J. NOBLE STOCKETT, JR., ECONOMIST, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO? :
By increased productive efficiency is meant solely participalion
in revenue gains according to specific contribution to increased
output.
In conclusion, then, a permanent wage advance may be
based upon the principle of increased productive efficiency,
not because of the existence of a definite measurable relation
between labor and the increased output arising from the
introduction of more efficient machinery, but because it is
socially expedient to better the conditions of labor, when
such betterment may be effected with the least friction between
"1 From “History and Problems of Organized Labor,” D. C. Heath & Co.,
(920, pp. 4, 5, 11.
2 “The Arbitra] Determination of Railway Wages.” 1918: pp. 136-57.
