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 200 heing equal, result in higher profits to him because of reduced expenses. Since the war, however, a new theory has been more and more often advanced, which may be briefly stated as follows: [f wages are reduced, the purchasing power of wage-earners is reduced with them. Therefore, considering the industry of the country as a whole, lower wages mean smaller sales, higher wages mean larger sales. In order to find a market for their products, industrial managers must maintain a wage- scale which will permit wage-earners in general to buy those products. . . . As a very intelligent lady of my acquaintance remarks, the joke seems to be on the capitalist. After sup- posing for a century or more that his profits were being cut down by the increasing demands of his workmen, who by trade unions, “soldiering,” and other devilish devices com- pelled him to pay them more and more compared to the work done, the capitalist has now discovered that the workmen were right after all, and that the road to bigger profits lies through higher wages. 1f this be true, it would indeed seem that the millennium is at hand. Quite naturally, the workmen want a high wage- scale. It now appears that the employer wants the same thing. What could be more sweetly harmonious? . .. Will the present new era, in which the capitalist lion and the wage- carning lamb are to lie down together under the spreading branches of the high-wage tree, likewise prove to be the old era after all? Will the slogan “high wages and big con- sumption” prove permanent, or is it one of those business shibboleths which run from mouth to mouth until their. career s cut short by the merciless logic of events? . .. We have >efore us certain patent and incontrovertible facts: First, wages in general are higher than ever before, not only in cash but in purchasing power, have been higher for half a dozen years, and, aside from minor reactions, appear to be still on a slow up-grade. Second, the total volume of production in the United States is far greater than ever before. Third, prices

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