The new industrial revolution and wages

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1804651486

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-193069

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Lauck, William Jett http://d-nb.info/gnd/173237126

Title:: The new industrial revolution and wages

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: Funk & Wagnalls

Year of publication:: 1929

Scope:: ix, 308 S.; graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter VIII. Acceptance and general application of the theory of productive efficiency

Collection:: Economics Books

THEORY OF PRODUCTIVE EFFICIENCY 163 point of enabling them to sell at lower prices, and to dislodge the English manufacturer from all markets in which he is not artificially protected. Before examining this opinion on grounds of principle, it is worth while to bestow a moment’s consideration upon it as a question of fact. Is it true that the wages of manufactur- ing labor are lower in foreign countries than in England, in any sense in which low wages are an advantage to the capitalist? The artisan of Ghent or Lyons may earn less wages in a day, but does he not do less work? Degrees of efficiency considered, does his labor cost less to his employer? Tho wages may be lower on the Continent, is not the Cost of Labor, which is the real element in the competition, very nearly the same? That it is so seems the opinion of com- setent judges, and is confirmed by the very little difference in the rate of profit between England and the Continental countries. But, if so, the opinion is absurd that English pro- ducers can be undersold by their Continental rivals from this cause. It is only in America that the supposition is prima facie admissible. In America wages are much higher than in England, if we mean by wages the daily earnings of a laborer; but the productive power of American labor is so great—its efficiency, combined with the favorable circum- stances in which it is exerted, makes it worth so much to the purchaser—that the Cost of Labor is lower in America than in England; as is proved by the fact that the general rate of orofits and of interest is very much higher. General low wages never caused any country to undersell its rivals, nor did general high wages ever hinder it from loing so. Henry Fawcett, Professor of Political Economy in the University of Cambridge, in discussing the same subject more than fifty years ago, pointed out the relatively higher productiveness of labor in the United States :! . . . The difficulty arises from confusing wages with cost “1 “Manual of Political Economy,” Henry Fawcett, M.P.; Macmillan. Lon- don. 1876: pp. 173-174. 231.

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: The new industrial revolution and wages

Monograph

Chapter

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

Chapter

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation