The new industrial revolution and wages

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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

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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 165 beginning to recognize the all-important and redeeming fact, that cheap labor by no means means cheap production; that, on the contrary, low cost of production and a high wage-rate go hand in hand. If a high wage-rate is an impelling cause in this country to the introduction of improvements and the adoption of labor- saving processes, the low wage-rate per diem ruling else- where is an equally strong inducement for the continuance of rusty and antiquated methods. A high rate of wages expresses a high rate of productive- ness, and its converse a high consuming power. A relatively high consuming power, high standard of living, is required to make the laborer efficient, strong in body and in mind. Without this, labor remains economically more or less sterile, for which an adequate proof will be given in the further progress of this work, treating the industries of the country seriatim. Employers can therefore under no possibility lose where a permanently high rate of wages rules. They cannot possibly lose under a rising rate of wages even, as a rise in actual wages is only possible with a rise of the productive power of labor. A higher rate of wages than the one of a previous period simply registers the change which has gone on in the direction of improvement in the economy of pro- duction. But, instead of being injured, the employer gains positively by the rise in the standard of wages through the increasing demand thereby created for the increasing product. It is then clearly evident that there is no greater fallacy than the doctrine that a low rate of wages is necessary to insure a low cost of production. In fact, the opposite is shown 0 be the true principle upon which the productive processes rf nations rest. Professor Alfred Marshall, also of the University of Cambridge, in his “Principles of Economics,” published twenty years ago, commented on the relation of productive- ness to low labor costs as follows :! ~1“Principles of Economics,” Alfred Marshall, Professor of Political Economy, University of Cambridge: Macmillan. London. 1907: p. 548.

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