Saturday, January 25, 2020

War, Peace and the End of Shorter Hours


In his preface to Jobs, Machines and Capitalism, Arthur Dahlberg explained that the economic views upon which his book was based were inspired by his reading of Stephen Leacock's The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice. The latter book's inspiration can be summarized in the sentence, "The economics of war, therefore, has thrown its lurid light upon the economics of peace."

Contrary to Frank Knight's dismissive arm-waving about bibliographies and footnotes, Dahlberg did in fact cite two economics textbooks along with contemporary economists such as Leacock, Wesley Mitchell, Thorstein Veblen and John R. Commons. One may infer from the sarcastic comment at the end of his review that Knight failed to grasp Dahlberg's (and Leacock's, Mitchell's, Commons's and Veblen's) point that the economic organization of modern society is not "based on price competition" as had been empirically demonstrated by the experience of the war. The implication of these statistics and analyses was that even spending on destruction stimulated productive activity. (For a concise summary of Dahlberg's argument, see his 1933 Senate subcommittee testimony, cited in "What is the most useful idea in economics.")

Quibbles about Knight's review of Dahlberg might be of merely antiquarian interest were it not for several other related observations. In addition to Leacock's book, Dahlberg had been provoked by the "disturbing figures" given by David Friday in his book on wartime profits, wages and prices. Just a year before publication of Dahlberg's book, John Maurice Clark introduced the concept of the economic multiplier in The Costs of the World War to the American People

In "The Political Aspects of Full Employment," Michal Kalecki wrote, in 1943, that "most economists are now agreed that full employment may be achieved by government spending." The exceptions to this consensus, though, were significant:
Among the opposers of this doctrine there were (and still are) prominent so-called 'economic experts' closely connected with banking and industry. This suggests that there is a political background in the opposition to the full employment doctrine, even though the arguments advanced are economic.
Kalecki went on to assert that this opposition to government spending withers when the spending is on armaments. Almost as if to confirm Kalecki's argument, Leon Keyserling in 1950 advised the author of NSC-68 that the tripling of arms spending would pay for itself by "siphoning off" a portion of the resulting increase in national income.
...if a dynamic expansion of the economy were achieved, the necessary build-up could be accomplished without a decrease in the national standard of living because the required resources could be obtained by siphoning off a part of the annual increment in the gross national product.
Twelve years later, Clyde Dankert counseled against "any sizable reduction" in hours "in view of the current cold war situation":
If shorter hours are to be advocated today -- and in view of the current cold war situation the present writer would not recommend any sizable reduction in them just now -- it would seem desirable to use, not the arguments of the past, but a more comprehensive and up-to-date argument. The one here suggested points to the maximization of worker satisfactions as the objective.
I was led to these ruminations by the reading I assigned for last week to my Politics of Working Time class, Benjamin Hunnicutt's "The End of Shorter Hours." Hunnicutt cited standard economists' arguments for why the movement for shorter hours in the United States faded away after World War II and proposed his own explanation. Hunnicutt cited "the reduction of fatigue, availability of consumer credit, commuting time, stability of employment, easier work, pent-up consumer demand, increased cost of education and raising larger families, and stable cost of recreation" as the typical explanations for the demise of the movement given by economists.

Hunnicutt's own explanation consisted of a combination of subjective distaste for "idleness" arising out of the depression experiences of unemployment, the influence of the business philosophy of "the new economic gospel of consumption," a new commitment from government to maintain full employment through government spending and public works, and the consequent erosion of the idea that "work-sharing" was necessary to combat technological unemployment. In his subsequent book, Work Without End: Abandoning Shorter Hours for the Right to Work, Hunnicutt did address the factor of military spending in a paragraph toward the end of the last chapter.

This takes me back to Leacock's evocative observation:
The economics of war has thrown its lurid light upon the economics of peace.
During the presidential campaign of 1952, Dwight Eisenhower prepared a speech that he didn't deliver because it was pre-empted by Nixon's Checkers speech. In the prepared speech published in the newspapers, Ike warned about depending on the production of armaments for national prosperity:
There is in certain quarters the view that national prosperity depends on the production of armaments and that any reduction in arms output might bring on another recession. Does this mean, then that the continued failure of our foreign policy is the only way to pay for the failure of our fiscal policy? According to this way of thinking, the success of our foreign policy would mean a depression.
Four years later, during the 1956 presidential campaign, vice-presidential candidate Richard Nixon foresaw the likelihood of a four-day work week "in the not too distant future." "These are not dream or idle boasts," he argued, "they are simple projections of the gains we have made in the last four years." But during his subsequent 1960 campaign for president, Nixon backtracked,
Well, the 32-hour workweek just isn't a possibility at the present time. I made a speech back in the 1956 campaign when I indicated that as we went into the period of automation, that it was inevitable that the workweek was going to be reduced, that we could look forward to the time in America when we might have a 4-day week, but we can't have it now.
Nixon's rationale for why we can't have it contradicted his earlier claims about the gains made in the first four years of the Eisenhower administration:
We can't have it now for the reason that we find, that as far as automation is concerned, both because of the practices of business and labor, we do not have the efficiency yet developed to the point that reducing the workweek would not result in a reduction of production. The workweek can only be reduced at a time when reduction of the workweek will not reduce efficiency and will not reduce production.
Production of what? "There is in certain quarters the view that national prosperity depends on the production of armaments..."

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please, I really try to understand the point of these posts but need a guide in reading them. What is this post about? I am lost. Please, I am a superb reader but these sorts of posts need a summary for me to make sense of.

Sandwichman said...

This post is a follow up to the post about David Autor's Planet Money interview v. Arthur Dahlberg's 1933 Senate subcommittee testimony. I have added several paragraphs that hopefully make clear that the choice for maintaining prosperity in the U.S. was between pursuing a permanent war economy or reduction of the hours of work. The U.S. chose permanent war.

Anonymous said...

I have added several paragraphs that hopefully make clear that the choice for maintaining prosperity in the U.S. was between pursuing a permanent war economy or reduction of the hours of work. The U.S. chose permanent war.

[ Perfect, just what I needed and very important for me to understand. I am so grateful. ]

Anonymous said...

https://econospeak.blogspot.com/2020/01/what-is-most-useful-idea-in-economics.html

JANUARY 19, 2020

"What is the Most Useful Idea in Economics?"
By Sandwichman

Anonymous said...

Please do write this entire argument in your words, since I think the argument very important but am not interested in obscuring quotes and jargon nor even more than a little in Autor. I really do like this and will discuss the idea with students, using your name of course. This gives me all sorts of ideas, such as the way in which Germany integrated its workforce with the joinging of East to West and protected the workforce after 2007.

Anonymous said...

That is "joining"...

Anonymous said...

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=nZss

January 15, 2018

Germany and United States Employment-Population Ratios, * 2007-2018

* Employment age 25-54

[ Look at the difference, and the difference has nothing to do with trade. ]

Anonymous said...

By the way here is the annualized defense spending for Q3 2019; which will of course be increasing significantly in the coming year:

https://apps.bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?reqid=19&step=3&isuri=1&select_all_years=0&nipa_table_list=5&series=q&1=5&2=2007&3=2018&4=q&5=x&first_year=2017&6=0&7=survey&scale=-9&last_year=2019&thetable=x

December 30, 2019

Defense spending was 59.3% of federal government consumption and investment in July through September 2019 *

$849.3 / $1,432.2 = 59.3%

Defense spending was 22.5% of all government consumption and investment in July through September 2019 *

$849.3 / $3,772.8 = 22.5%

Defense spending was 3.9% of GDP in July through September 2019

$849.3 / $21,542.5 = 3.9%

* Billions of dollars

Sandwichman said...

Here is the full quote from S. Leacock's "The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice":

"War is destruction — the annihilation of human life, the destruction of things made with generations of labor, the misdirection of productive power from making what is useful to making what is useless. In the great war just over, some seven million lives were sacrificed; eight million tons of shipping were sunk beneath the sea; some fifty million adult males were drawn from productive labor to the lines of battle; behind them uncounted millions labored day and night at making weapons of destruction. One might well have thought that such a gigantic misdirection of human energy would have brought the industrial world to a standstill within a year. So people did think. So thought a great number, perhaps the greater number, of the financiers and economists and industrial leaders trained in the world in which we used to live. The expectation was unfounded. Great as is the destruction of war, not even five years of it have broken the productive machine. And the reason is now plain enough. Peace, also — or peace under the old conditions of industry — is infinitely wasteful of human energy. Not more than one adult worker in ten — so at least it might with confidence be estimated — is employed on necessary things. The other nine perform superfluous services. War turns them from making the glittering superfluities of peace to making its grim engines of destruction. But while the tenth man still labors, the machine, though creaking with its dislocation, can still go on. The economics of war, therefore has thrown its lurid light upon the economics of peace."

Benjamin Hunnicutt said...

I agree that war, and more importantly, permanent mobilization is one factor in the ending of shorter hours. But I argue that there are more important reasons: consumerism, the political ideology of Full Time, Full Employment (The beginning and epitome of modern government regulation of the economy), and most important, the new religion of work - see https://www.huffpost.com/entry/post-work-world_n_5afbe686e4b0779345d43a20. It looks like, thought, things may be turning around, at least in Europe with the 4 day, thirty hour week, and i argue in the USA with the take-off of the experience and transformation economies - http://tupress.temple.edu/book/20000000009761 - which should strengthen the income effect, and create a greater demand for leisue - Benjamin Hunnicutt

Anonymous said...

"War is destruction — the annihilation of human life, the destruction of things made with generations of labor, the misdirection of productive power from making what is useful to making what is useless. In the great war just over, some seven million lives were sacrificed; eight million tons of shipping were sunk beneath the sea; some fifty million adult males were drawn from productive labor to the lines of battle; behind them uncounted millions labored day and night at making weapons of destruction.

S. Leacock

[ I appreciate having this. ]

Anonymous said...

Great as is the destruction of war, not even five years of it have broken the productive machine. And the reason is now plain enough. Peace, also — or peace under the old conditions of industry — is infinitely wasteful of human energy. Not more than one adult worker in ten — so at least it might with confidence be estimated — is employed on necessary things. The other nine perform superfluous services.

Leacock

[ This part strikes me as ridiculous and contradicts the opening 2 sentences. American involvement in World War II was unfortunately unavoidable and though "war is destruction" this war was unavoidable and made for a constructive life for Americans and many, many more following the war.

Thinking thoroughly about the entire quote, I would never use any of this in a class because the writer has a disdain for much highly valuable work and has no sense of what World War II was about. My grandfather, who was always for peace through his life, did not fight in World War II in vain. After the war, my grandfather worked productively and happily for years and years. ]

Anonymous said...

Good grief, I now realize that Leacock was referring to World War I. I have never understood what World War I was about, at least for America. Possibly more of work about that time was unproductive and discontenting, but times are different now.

Sorry, I failed to understand when the quote was written and while likely useful then I no longer find the quote useful.

Thanks for the post and explanation and quote, however.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, I know so little about Canadian culture or I might have known who Leacock was. I will read about him now on Wikipedia, and likely become more sympathetic.