The Development of American Labor (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from The Development of American LaborLabor was not alone in searching for a path to follow. The industrial revolution had brought forth great opportunities for progress - more production, more profit, more work. It also carried in its wake frequent loss of skills, monotony of mass production, long hours of toil, dismal working conditions, and the stench of industrial slums. The farm had had horrible conditions too but not in such concentrated doses. What to do perplexed many sensitive individuals early in the nineteenth century as in the years following. Must poverty go hand in hand with progress? To some, the answer was in the affirmative. To many members of the laissez faire school of economics, it was a dismal but nonetheless clear fact that there was only a fixed amount of money available for wages for workers, to give them more would only permit them to'propagate more, which in turn would inevitably create greater pressure on the already limited amount of funds available. Consequently, one would only pay them enough to subsist. Other members Of the laissez-faire school of economics painted a more optimistic picture of the lot of the worker - that the law of supply and demand working freely in the market place would, in the long run, all other things being equal, help the worker. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, this approach took on a Darwinian ¿avor. The Social Darwinists, as this group was called, argued that the best rise to the top and that the dregs settle on the bottom. Therefore, do not help those at the bottom. If they are good, they will rise. If not, they are getting what they deserve. DO not send to know for whom the bell tolls, preached the Social Darwinist. It tolled for whom it Should.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.