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:: The static state and the technology of economic reform / Thomas Nixon Carver

Collection:: Economics Books

36 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK a previous page, induce earlier marriages and larger families, (even assuming that immigration is restricted so that it cannot merely induce a larger immigration); and in the course of time the labor supply will be so great as to make it increasingly diffi- cult to maintain the high wage level. The difference between these two methods is really the differ- ence between applying the remedy at the source and applying it to the symptom. One method proceeds by removing, first, one of the causes of low wages, and then leaving economic forces to effect a cure. The other method proceeds directly, leaving the causes out of account and trying to correct the resulting low wages by artificial means. This does not mean that it is never desirable to treat symptoms. It is sometimes necessary, but only as a temporary expedient to meet an acute situation. It is, for example, sometimes necessary to reduce the temperature of a sick person by ice packs and other devices, though no physician would be content with this as a method of curing, much less of preventing a fever. It is necessary to remove, or prevent the occurrence of the factors which cause the temperature to rise. In the economic field, it is also necessary sometimes, to resort to unemployment doles, employment of the “out of work” on unprofitable public works, or even wholesale deportations, and other drastic measures to meet an acute state of unemployment, but no economist would be content with such measures as a permanent cure for low wages or unemployment. On the subject of the standard of living and postponement of marriage and the limitation on the size of families, it seems that the employing classes have generally been able to out-maneuver the laboring classes. While carefully limiting the size of their own families by late marriages and other prudential policies, many of them, either themselves or through their spokesmen, deliberately advise working men to do the opposite. Small families among the employing classes mean small numbers of employers, or would mean that if it were not for a system of popular education which tends to recruit the employing classes from below. Small numbers of employers give each employer a great advantage. At the same time, large families among wage workers tend to increase their number, which is bad for them and cood for the employers. If wage workers were as clear in their thinking as are these representatives of the employing classes,

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