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

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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 241 plexities of the later struggles. These influences, combined with the growing alienation of the “intellectuals” and the intellectually “progressive” younger element in the Federation itself, serve perhaps to explain, at least in part, the intellectual sterility of the years down to the beginning of the war. As already indicated, this dark age in Federation thought brings us definitely to the end of the early eight-hour movement, marking, as it does, the collapse of any distinctive labor theory of wages, and the actual, though not nominal, acceptance of a large part of the intellectual stock in trade of the academic economists. The eight-hour day, indeed, does not disappear from view. Mr. Gompers in 1906 called for the appointment of a spe- cial eight-hour committee, saying: “There can be neither justifica- tion nor excuse in our time for longer deferring the ideal and practical universal workday of eight hours.” * The committee on the last day of the convention dutifully brought in a report recommending that the secretary collect information and that affiliated organizations try to get shorter hours rather than increased wages *—a pedestrian recommendation in striking con- trast with the dithyrambic periods of the earlier eight-hour reports. The convention adopted the recommendation without a word of debate. The next year the Eight-Hour Committee piously reported: “We regard the reduction of the hours of labor as paramount to all other considerations, even to an increase in wages, except in such trades and callings, where the earnings are so meagre as to make it difficult to maintain a fair standard of living.” * What has become of the old consuming fire of a faith in shorter hours as the only means of raising wages? It seems to have been snuffed cut by the breath of the productivity dragon. The committee urges on affiliated organizations persistent agita- tion and effort, but never at too great cost and always on the basis of a well-filled treasury. Verily the glory is departed from [srael! This fall in the theoretical temperature does not indicate any setback in the actual eight-hour movement. Eight-hours has simply ceased to have theoretical significance, and has become one desirable end among many, to be attempted after a sober count- * Proceedings, 1906, p. 18. * Ibid., pp. 251, 252. 2 Ibid., 1907, p. 286.

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