282 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES 
were inadequate as measured by proper living standards. 
In general, it is indisputable that the greater number of 
industrial workers are not earning sufficient to provide 
proper standards of living for themselves and their fami- 
lies. The great mass of unskilled laborers are practically 
on, or very little above, a bare subsistence level of living.? 
A PracticaL, CoNsTRUCTIVE METHOD OF WAGE 
FixatioN NECESSARY 
The foregoing brief outline of the actual economic con- 
dition of the wage-earner clearly shows that a practical and 
equitable method for wage fixation and for the participa- 
tion of wage-earners in productive gains should be quickly 
developed. This is not only necessary from the standpoint 
of industrial equity, but also essential to the continued on- 
ward development of industry itself. 
Since the new industrial order was inaugurated in 1923 
there has been too great emphasis placed upon wage prin- 
ciples and theories and too little attention given to their 
actual, practical application. Industrial leadership has ac- 
cepted in principle the “living wage,” the theory that the 
increased productive efficiency of labor should be rewarded 
by a participation in net revenue gains, and has unre- 
servedly advocated high wages as an economy, and as the 
underlying basis of continued industrial achievement be- 
cause of the dependence of mass production upon increased 
domestic purchasing power and consumption; but on the 
other hand, very few industrial leaders have given thought 
to a concrete method for working out this program. They 
have either voluntarily made advances in rates of pay, or 
have responded wholly or in part to demands made upon 
————— i —————. 
1 Statement in New York Times, November 26, 1927. 
2 “American Labor Dynamics,” edited by J. B. S. Hardman; Harcourt, 
Brace & Co., New York, 1928; Part One, Ch. III, by Lewis Corey, entitled 
“The New Capitalism.”