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

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter XII. Labor and the new industrial revolution

Collection:: Economics Books

LABOR’S NEW STATUS 271 EXECRATED PRE-WAR WAGE THEORIES HAVE BECOME PosT-WAR REALITIES The free play of the forces of supply and demand, for instance, in fixing rates of pay of industrial workers, was formerly looked upon as an expression of the so-called ‘mmutable laws of economics which it would be almost sacrilegious to attack. Conditions which all too frequently resulted from the interplay of these forces were in many cases, it is true, thought to be deplorable, but such condi- tions were condoned or accepted with resignation on the ground that they were the outgrowth of “inexorable” economic laws. It would be as futile, it was assumed, to play with the forces of supply and demand as it would be to attempt to mitigate the operation of the law of gravita- tion. Within a few years, however, this more-than-a- century-old theory has been cast aside. It has been recog- nized that the human element in production should not be purchased on the same basis as raw materials or capital equipment. Whatever the condition of the labor supply might be, it has also been agreed that the minimum wage paid should be sufficient to maintain the industrial worker and his family in health and modest comfort. This has been a concession to society and to humanity. Industries which may have adhered to the old standards are now condemned as parasitic, and in a constantly growing number of States they are restrained by minimum wage legislation. Moreover, as time has passed, industry itself has become convinced that to adhere relentlessly to the forces of supply and demand in fixing wage rates has been unprofitable and an unwise policy from a purely selfish standpoint. The principle of basing wages upon the productive effi- ciency of labor also passed through a similar experience. Before the war, when this theory was first brought for-

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