THE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK. j 



could, if it would, make all men prosperous ; and therefore should, 

 in some way not yet clearly defined by anybody, arbitrarily in- 

 tervene and effect it. And this feeling, so far as it assumes 

 definiteness of idea and purpose, constitutes what is called " so- 

 cialism." * 



The following additional results — industrial and social — 

 which have been attendant upon the world's recent material 

 progress are also worthy of consideration by all desirous of 

 fully comprehending the present economic situation, and the 

 outlook for the future. 



Advance in Wages. — The average rate of wages, or the 

 share which the laborer receives of product, has within a com- 

 paratively recent period, and in almost all countries — certainly 

 in all civilized countries — greatly increased. The extent of this 

 increase since 1850, and even since 1860, has undoubtedly ex- 

 ceeded that of any previous period of equal duration in the 

 world's history. 



Mr. Giffen claims as the result of his investigations for Great 

 Britain, that " the average money-wages of the working-classes 

 of the community, looking at them in the mass, and compar- 

 ing the mass of fifty years ago with the mass at the present 



068 of a cent in 1885), which have reduced the prices of the common articles of food to 

 the masses to the extent of substantially one half, did not involve in their conception and 

 carrying out any idea of benefiting humanity ; but on the contrary those immediately 

 concerned in effecting the improvements that have led to such results, never would have 

 abated the rates to the public, but would have controlled and maintained them to their 

 own profit, had they been able. But, by the force of agencies that have been above human 

 control, they have not only not been able to do so, but have been constrained to promptly 

 accept business at continually decreasing rates, as a condition of making any profit for 

 themselves whatever. And what is true of the results of improvements in the transpor- 

 tation of products is equally true of all methods for economizing and facilitating their 

 production. They are all factors in one great natural movement for continually increasing 

 and equalizing abundance. 



* On this point the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the State of 

 Connecticut, in his report for 1887, speaks as follows: "Necessary wants have multi- 

 plied, and society demands so much in the style of living that the laboring-man finds it 

 almost impossible to live as respectably now on his wages as his father did thirty years 

 since upon his. That is, wages have not kept pace with the increasing wants and style 

 of living demanded by society. The laborer thinks be sees a wider difference between 

 the style in which his employer lives and the way he is compelled to live, than existed 

 between employer and employes thirty years ago. He thinks that this difference is 

 growing greater with the years. Now, as a man's income is, in general, measured by his 

 style of living, he can not resist the conclusion that a larger share of the profits of busi- 

 ness goes to his employer than employers received in former years ; that the incomes of 

 employers have increased more rapidly than the wages of employes. The laboring peo- 

 ple are fully alive to the fact that modern inventions and the like make larger incomes 

 possible and right. They do not complain of these larger incomes, but they do believe 

 most profoundly that they are not receiving their fair share of the benefits conferred 

 upon society by these inventions and labor-saving machines. In this belief lies the prin- 

 cipal source of their unrest." 



