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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Document type:: Monograph

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

Collection:: Economics Books

170 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES processes of manufacture, through standardization of product and simplification of distributive machinery. In other words, better management has, where possible, taken up the slack and effected necessary economies without intervention with wage levels in any serious way. Of course, wage adjustments be- come necessary or advisable from time to time, but industry appears to have departed from the practise, prevalent during the chaotic war and post-war years, of raising or lowering wage scales in establishments throughout an entire industry almost simultaneously and in a drastic way. Such departures from the accepted wage level as have occurred during recent years, with few exceptions have been the result of individual plant action, dictated by circumstances obtaining in that particular establishment or locality, and have not reflected a general policy for the industry as a whole. Wages and Productive Efficiency The question naturally suggests itself as to how long new efficiencies in operation can compensate for the maintenance of high wages in periods of depression or permit the increase of wages without a corresponding increase in prices. It may be that industry has so far accomplished only the most obvi- ous improvements in process and shortening of operations; that this movement, only in its infancy, may be developed far beyond what can be imagined at the present time. On the other hand, it may be that, particularly in certain types of industries, the limit of possible improvement is already in sight, and that beyond this point the best scientific effort will be helpless before physical laws which cannot be circum- vented. The future alone will hold the answer, but it is cer- tainly too soon to doubt that substantial increase in the effi- ciency of operation in some fields is still to be made. Labor's Share in Increased Efficiency Another aspect of this same question relates to the right of labor to share in the fruits of these economies. Labor's argu- ment, briefly stated in general terms, holds that since, in the final analysis, it is labor which applies and makes effective

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