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 families.
 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 condition
 of the wage-earner clearly shows that a practical and
equitable method for wage fixation and for the participation
 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 onward
 development of industry itself.
Since the new industrial order was inaugurated in 1923
there has been too great emphasis placed upon wage principles
 and theories and too little attention given to their
actual, practical application. Industrial leadership has accepted
 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 unreservedly
 advocated high wages as an economy, and as the
underlying basis of continued industrial achievement because
 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

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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.”