Die Social-Demokratie

Festschrift für den 3. Internationalen Petroleumkongreß (Bukarest, September 1907)

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 826719449

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-30888

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Schuster, Richard

Title:: Die Social-Demokratie

Place of publication:: Stuttgart

Publisher:: Steinkopf

Year of publication:: 1875

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (XII, 236 S.)

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

ACCEPTANCE OF NEW THEORY 11g wage-earner must not only be sufficient to provide the material necessities of life, such as food, clothing and shelter ; he must also get a sufficient wage to obtain a mod- est degree of comfort, to make “his house a home,” to insure him “the things truly worth living for.” The specific “things” mentioned were: 1. Provision for education. 2. Provision for recreation. 3. A margin for savings. 1. Freedom of action to insure full play to the individual's abilities. This conception was further elaborated and advocated by James J. Davis, Secretary of Labor, in a number of articles and addresses. The following quotation may be taken as representative of his attitude :? War first gave us the living wage as a thing to think about. Since then it has stayed with us as a phrase, a label for the amount of money that it was supposed to represent. We still hear much about it, with a good deal of confusion as to what is meant by a living wage. The trend of events since the war has put the employer in the position of clinging to the original meaning of the term, as a wage adjusted to the actual cost of living. But to the wage-earner himself, the living wage has come to mean something more definite. If it means anything to him the living wage means a wage on which he can really live—that is, a pay envelop that will per- mit him to do a little more than merely meet the day-to-day cost of his necessities, and enjoy something of life in addition. To my mind one of the significant developments of human society since the war is this frame of mind on the part of the worker. In his view living has become something above meeting the bare necessities of life. In his thoughts the merely living wage, in its original meaning, is something 1 “The Saving and Earning Wage,” by James J. Davis, Secretary of Labor.

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: The new industrial revolution and wages

Monograph

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

Chapter

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation