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 IX. Increased consumption and prospertity accepted as an outgrowth of lower costs and higher wages

Collection:: Economics Books

LOWER COSTS AND HIGHER WAGES 20% suyer, the worker, in the market at home, which provides us with all but a fraction of our national wealth and prosperity. No matter how large the population, we know that no low- wage country is prosperous, and we also have it proved in figures and facts that no low-wage industry in the United States is prosperous to-day. No low-wage section of the country to-day is as prosperous as are the sections where higher wages prevail. The employer, therefore, who reduces wages, whether from a selfish motive or because he thinks it good business, is not a good business man and is hurting himself. He may for a time succeed in paying a wage below the cost of living, but he is only throwing on the community at large the expense of paying, in the form of unpaid grocery and clothing bills, the wages which he himself should pay. To be very frank, he is stealing from the public. This ap- plies to any industry as a whole, as it does to any individual employer. The time has passed when any industry or any employer who seeks to break down wage scales will be looked upon by the community as shrewd or clever in busi- ness. Such employer is not clever in business, but a parasite on the community, and public opinion will eventually force him to pay a decent wage or get out of business. . . . With his good wages the worker has, as I say, contributed a tremendous new buying power to the American market. This not only enlarges business for the entire country, it not only keeps the mills busy and their workers employed fully and at good wages; it brings the worker himself new and larger enjoyments in life. To mention only one such enjoy- ment, the automobile, once a luxury for the well-to-do, is now in the hands of thousands upon thousands of the workers, and the time may come when not a worker in the and will be without one. A thousand similar enjoyments are now within the reach of all, because machinery and mass production have cheapened their cost. . . . My only concern is that we shall study to see this greater wealth as evenly distributed as it should be. . . . We must guard against the general economic loss we shall

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