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 VI. Abandonment of the cost-of-living and supply-and-demand theories

Collection:: Economics Books

86 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES The American trade union movement believes that the lives of the working people should be made better with each passing day and year. The practise of fixing wages solely on the basis of the cost of living is a violation of the whole philosophy in progress and civilization and, furthermore, is a violation of sound economic theory and is utterly without logic or scientific support of any kind. The same attitude was taken by labor as to the fixing of wage-rates according to the so-called laws of supply and demand. This was cogently and briefly expressed in an editorial of The American Federationist in 1919, as follows 1 The workers are not interested in which particular eco- nomic theory shall be given preference. They have no faith in the theory advanced by Adam Smith that wages, like everything else, are governed by the law of supply and demand, There is at hand too much conclusive evidence that the law of supply and demand is not immutable and that it readily lends itself to manipulation and control. The wage- earners are no longer bewildered by the subtle logic of the wage-fund theory advanced by David Ricardo, James Mill or John Stuart Mill. No one in this enlightened age would attempt to advance this theory as a fitting answer to the wage-earners’ yearning and craving for a better and happier life. Neither does Labor accept the conclusion advanced by La Salle in the so-called “iron law of wages.” In addition to and entirely apart from any changes which might occur in the price level or in the supply of labor, there were certain economic and social factors, according to the attitude of labor leaders, that should be carefully studied when adjudicating any matter involving wages. When prices were stationary, and even when they were ¢ h y the Li i . wing age, in Ame ican Fed bi Nn is F 1 ‘W VV W 7 eration. t, ebruary, 1919,

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