Migration and business cycles

Die österreichisch-rumänische Zollfrage

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1736236210

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-111544

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Jerome, Harry

Title:: Migration and business cycles

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: National Bureau of Economic Research

Year of publication:: 1926

Scope:: 256 S.

Digitisation:: 2020

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter VIII. The influence of economic conditions in the countries of emigration

Collection:: Economics Books

8 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES strained competition, such as prevailed in the coal-mining industry before 1900; price-wars in iron and steel manu- facturing, and other basic industries, or the creation of a constant over-supply of unskilled and semi-skilled workers by an unrestricted immigration policy, as well as recurrent industrial depressions or collapses from whatsoever causes, up to the time of the World War, were imposed upon the wage-earner by invoking the so-called immutable and inex- rable “laws of economics.” It is no cause for wonderment that industrial workers, under the influence of these conditions and pronounce- ments, came to look upon theoretical and practical eco- nomics, especially in relation to wage-fixing, as “the dismal science of despair.” According to its principles, as prac- tised prior to the war, they were without hope, or without any rational basis of procedure. Theoretically, their only opportunities for advancing their well-being lay (1) in reducing competition so as to permit the accumulation of a greater volume of profits and capital for future indus- trial expansion, (2) in producing goods faster than the labor supply increased, (3) in reducing the birth-rate, or (4) in the fortuitous advent of some pestilence, earth- quake, or other natural catastrophe, or even war itself, any of which chance happenings would decimate the labor supply and thus give to wage-earners afterward a greater advantage in fixing the price for their labor. Free Pray oF SupPLY AND DEMAND OFFSET BY ORGANIZATION Altho these theoretical contingencies as well as vigorous adherence to prevailing theories of wages might have been of great benefit ultimately to the wage-earning classes, they were too remote to be of any practical significance in the work-a-day world. Quite naturally, therefore, they

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