124 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



32. AN EFFICIENT STANDARD OF RURAL LIFE' 

 BY T. N. CARVER 



In many parts of the country a distinct tendency is noticeable for 

 the old population to give way for a new population of an entirely 

 different type. In parts of New England the new population is 

 French-Canadian, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, and, in a few places, 

 Swedish. In some parts of the country a second phase of this process 

 is showing itself. Foreigners of an earlier migration are being dis- 

 placed by foreigners of a later migration. The incoming population 

 seems always to be a population with a lower standard of living than 

 that which is displaced. 



This is an important economic fact to be considered. Is it true, 

 and must it always remain true, that the men with the lower standard 

 of living shall drive out the men of the higher standard ? A restriction 

 of immigration, coupled with a minimum-wage law, would accomplish 

 something, but it is difficult to see how it would stop the farmers with 

 a lower standard from buying or renting the land away from farmers 

 with a higher standard. Of two farmers who are able to grow equally 

 good crops the one with the cheapest standard of living can accumu- 

 late capital most rapidly. He, therefore, can outbid the other in 

 competition for land, whether they are in the market as buyers or as 

 renters. The mmimum-wage law could not affect this process at all, 

 and the restriction of immigration would only retard it. Immigration 

 from heaven is quite as much a factor as immigration from the Eastern 

 Hemisphere, and immigration from heaven is favored by a low stand- 

 ard of living. The battle of the standards is inevitable, and the vic- 

 tory will go ultimately to the most efficient. In other words, in the 

 J'final result a standard of living is protected by its own efficiency, and 

 by that alone. 



This suggests the important distinction between a high standard 

 and an efficient standard. A high standard of living ordinarily means 

 merely an expensive standard. If every additional expense added 

 to one's standard of living adds correspondingly to his productive 

 efficiency, then a high standard is also an efficient standard; but if it 

 does not in some way increase his efficiency, then it is merely an 

 expensive standard, and will handicap its possessor in the struggle for 

 existence, whether that struggle is waged by the destructive methods 

 of warfare or the productive methods of economic competition. The 



'Adapted from The Annals, XL (March, 1912, on "Country Life"), 21-25. 



