586 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



pose that the maximum of progress in this direction has been attained, 

 and every reason to expect that the future will be characterized by 

 like and even greater results progressively occurring, the question 

 arises, Is labor to be continually, and in a degree ultimately dis- 

 placed from occupation by progressive economy of production ? Is 

 continual and fiercer competition to effect sales, both of product and 

 labor, in excess of current demands, likely to produce continued dis- 

 turbance and an unhealthy fall of prices, extensive reductions in wages, 

 and the more extensive employment of the cheaper labor of women 

 and children ? Is society working through all this movement toward 

 what has been called an " anarchy of production" ? 



Experience thus far, under what may be termed the new regime of 

 production and distribution, does not, however, fairly warrant any 

 such anticipations. Wages, speaking generally, have not fallen, but 

 have increased ; and, except in Germany, there is little indication of a 

 tendency to increase the hours of labor, or encroach upon the reserva- 

 tion of Sunday. Everywhere else, even in Russia, the tendency is in 

 the opposite direction. 



Again, the extent and rapidity of the increase in the consumption 

 of all useful and desirable commodities and services which follows 

 every increase in the ability of the masses to consume, is one of the 

 most wonderful of modern economic phenomena ; and the one thing 

 which, more than any other, augments their ability to consume, is the 

 reduction in the price of commodities, or rather the reduction in the 

 amount of human effort or toil requisite to obtain them, which the 

 recent improvements in the work of production and distribution have 

 effected. Better living, contingent on a reduction of effort necessary 

 to insure a comfortable subsistence, induces familiarity with better 

 things ; constitutes the surest foundation for the elevation of the 

 standard of popular intelligence and culture, and creates an increasing 

 desire for not only more but for a higher grade of commodities and 

 services. There are, therefore, two lines upon which the consumption 

 of the products of labor is advancing : the one, in which this stimu- 

 lant is animal in its nature, and demands food, clothing, shelter, and 

 fuel, for its satisfaction ; and the other intellectual, which will only be 

 satisfied by an increased supply of those things which will minister to 

 a higher standard of comfort and education. Thus far the world's 

 manual laborers have not kept up in culture with the improved and 

 quickened methods of production ; and therefore in certain depart- 

 ments there is not yet that opportunity for work that there undoubt- 

 edly will be in the future. 



"There is no good reason why a workingman earning one thousand 

 or fifteen hundred dollars a year, as many do, should not desire as 

 many comforts in the shape of furniture, books, clothing, pictures, and 

 the like for himself and his family, and desire them as intelligently, as 

 the minister, or lawyer, or doctor who is earning a similar amount." 



