Economic essays

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Monograph

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

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Title:: Eight-hour theory in the american federation of labor / Henry Raymond Mussey

Collection:: Economics Books

EIGHT-HOUR THEORY IN THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR 239 The next stage in the growth of eight-hour theory marks a further step in the direction of reconciliation with the economists. McNeill and others in the early days touched on high wages as a stimulus to the invention of machinery, but the emphasis dur- ing the years down to 1892 was rather on the effect of shorter hours on employment, consumption, extension of the market, and wages. During the nineties, after the movement had lost its early fervor, we find the machinery argument increasingly empha- sized. The productivity camel has got his nose well inside the labor tent. Testifying before the House Committee on Labor in 1900, for example, Mr. Gompers declared: “There has never been a reduction in the hours of labor of the working people but it has been followed by the introduction of a new machine, a new tool and the appliance of a new and swifter propelling force.” * After developing this idea at length and justifying the shorter workday on the ground of increased production, the Federation leader does indeed add an argument on consumption, but manifestly con- sumption has lost the well-nigh exclusive importance of the earlier years of the eight-hour gospel. “It is the co-relation between the producer and the consumer, the producing power and the consuming power of the wageworker,” we read; “and in the same measure that you give the larger opportunities for the con- sumption of goods, in the same measure do you give that greater impetus to industry.” * An admirable article by George A. Schilling on “Less Hours, Increased Production—Greater Progress,” published in the American Federationist for October, 1900, completely sums up this newer eight-hour philosophy. Says Mr. Schilling: An increased production always follows shorter hours. This result, of course, does not follow at once; but as soon as the shorter work day is established two forces are immediately set in motion, each of which tends toward an increased production and the cheapening of the commodity. First, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” and the great pressure felt in the industrial world by the sudden arrest of the volume of production and its increased cost as a consequence of the reduction of time stimulates a thousand minds to overcome the difficulty by labor-saving inventions and devices. Associated with this activity in the inventive world, greater man- " American Federationist, June, 1900, p. 166. Ibid.

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