Missing: the strange disappearance of S. J. Chapman’s theory of the hours of labour (5)

...now you don't? Part III

Although Hicks didn't explicitly introduce a simplifying assumption, that isn't the end of the story. Hicks discussed Chapman's theory and the optimal length of the working day in his chapter on the theory of individual labour supply (Ch. V). Later on in the book, though, Hicks turned his attention to the regulation of hours and working conditions (Ch. XI). Here Hicks no longer dealt with pure theory but with "reality" – at least with reality as Hicks perceived it. He announced at the beginning of Part II that it was, "now time for us to take a further step towards actuality" (p. 136). This was the moment Hicks had anticipated when he referred to "think[ing] back our arguments into a more cumbrous but more realistic form." Chapter XI was intended to present that 'more realistic' discussion of hours and working conditions than the purely theoretical discussion of Chapter V! But was it more realistic?

At the beginning of Chapter XI, Hicks credited Robbins with having conducted the "general study of the economics of hours-regulation" and declared that there was "no need for us to go over yet again ground which is by now sufficiently well trodden" (p. 217). After stating (without further explanation) that there was no material difference between the situations created by union demands for reduced hours and that created by demands for increased wages, Hicks surmised that it was "true that if the working day has previously been fixed at a length which is greater than the 'output optimum' the Union will not usually need to exert any considerable pressure in order to bring about a reduction" (p. 217). On the sole basis of that assertion, then, Hicks limited the rest of his discussion to a situation where union demands would reduce the hours of work below the hypothetical output optimum. If such a limitation had been proposed in a theoretical discussion, it would indeed have represented a simplifying assumption. As Hicks presented it, however, it was an alleged, but unverified 'fact' – a fact, moveover, that contradicted what theory would predict.

Next.

Abstract: Sidney Chapman's theory of the hours of labour, published in 1909 in The Economic Journal, was acknowledged as authoritative by the leading economists of the day. It provided important insights into the prospects for market rationality with respect to work time arrangements and hinted at a profound immanent critique of economists' excessive concern with external wealth. Chapman's theory was consigned to obscurity by mathematical analyses that reverted heedlessly to outdated and naïve assumptions about the connection between hours and output. The Sandwichman is serializing "Missing: the strange disappearance of S. J. Chapman's theory of the hours of labour" on EconoSpeak in celebration of the centenary of publication of Chapman's theory. (To download the entire article in a pdf file, click on the article title.)

Election Followup in the Shenandoah Valley

I hear this evening that the inner core of elite Republican conservatives are meeting at Brent Bozell's estate in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia to plot their comeback after their defeat in the US presidential election of 2008. As it is, for the first time since 1964, Virginia voted for a Democrat for president, the victorious Barack Obama (and as someone who was in actual civil rights demonstrations back in the early to mid 1960s and saw Martin Luther King, Jr. speak, this is an immensely satisfying outcome). It was 52% to 47%, only slightly more pro-McCain than the overall national outcome of 52% to 46%, fitting the forecast of Virginia as the ultimate marginal state, now reflecting average national views (sorry that the results were so slow coming in, but there were major ballot box issues here, leftover suppression, including a major scandal here in Harrisonburg where Obama's top operative was not allowed to vote, among other nonsense coming out of the registrar's office, something occurring elsewhere in the commonwealth as desperate Republicans tried to hold on to power).

While the rural Shenandoah Valley continues to be very Republican (Rockingham County around Harrisonburg went 68% for McCain, compared with 73% for Bush in 2004), the city of Harrisonburg broke its past pattern of matching closely Virginia statewide averages. It went 58% for Obama, but then we had a visit from Obama a week before the election, which definitely fired up his supporters, who came out big time. On a personal level, local Democrats who happen to be friends of mine swept the city council races, with the founder of the internationally known Orange Band Initiative, Kai Degner, a former James Madison University student, coming in on the top, and the father of my daughter's longtime boyfriend, Richard Baugh, coming in second, with one of them probably going to become mayor of the city (my daughter put together his campaign website, :-)).

Greg Mankiw ClaimsYoung Voters Are Supply-Siders

Greg Mankiw must not be happy with the choice of Sarah Palin as McCain’s running mate:

I am not enough of a political scientist to be sure, but recent conversations I have had with some Harvard undergrads have led me to a conjecture: It was largely noneconomic issues. These particular students told me they preferred the lower tax, more limited government, freer trade views of McCain, but they were voting for Obama on the basis of foreign policy and especially social issues like abortion. The choice of a social conservative like Palin as veep really turned them off McCain. So what does the Republican Party need to do to get the youth vote back? If these Harvard students are typical (and perhaps they are not, as Harvard students are hardly a random sample), the party needs to scale back its social conservatism. Put simply, it needs to become a party for moderate and mainstream libertarians.

I agree that the new GOP should move away from the theocrats known as social conservatives but let’s be honest – George W. Bush and the 2008 vintage of John McCain were NOT pushing a serious agenda of less government spending. They did push the agenda of the free lunch – tax deferrals disguised as tax “cuts”. Why would a college student vote for anyone who is shifting the long-run tax burden away from old farts like me and towards them?

Missing: the strange disappearance of S. J. Chapman’s theory of the hours of labour (4)

...now you don't? Part II

What Hicks did with Chapman's theory in The Theory of Wages cannot be called a simplification either – at least not an acknowledged one. If he did assume somewhere that the given length of the working day was optimal (which he may well have done), Hicks didn't announce it. What Nyland mistook for such an acknowledgement, was only an appeal to disregard transition costs in entertaining the concept of a given length of a working day that was optimal for output. Hicks did not specify that he was assuming that the given day actually was that length. The difference is that the assumption Hicks actually made still allows for the circumstance where the given day is longer or shorter than optimal, whereas the alleged simplification would not. The statement cited by Nyland as evidence of a simplifying assumption was thus also in accord with Chapman's theory.

The closest Hicks (1932) came to specifying the alleged simplification is when he argued that, "[provided certain limitations were respected], it is perfectly possible to treat labour as a commodity consisting of discrete homogeneous units, for which there are well-defined curves of supply and demand" (p. 92). Such treatment may imply the assumption that the given day is optimal for output because it would be hard to conceive of Chapman's hours – during which productivity may vary with the effects of fatigue – as consistent with "discrete homogeneous units". Indeed, if such homogeneity implies that output per hour is constant, then treating labour as homogenous could go farther down the simplifying path than merely assuming that the given day was of optimal length. Hicks acknowledged, though, that treating labour as such was "a method with very considerable dangers, which can only be avoided if we think back our arguments into a more cumbrous but more realistic form as frequently as possible" (p. 93)

Next.

Abstract: Sidney Chapman's theory of the hours of labour, published in 1909 in The Economic Journal, was acknowledged as authoritative by the leading economists of the day. It provided important insights into the prospects for market rationality with respect to work time arrangements and hinted at a profound immanent critique of economists' excessive concern with external wealth. Chapman's theory was consigned to obscurity by mathematical analyses that reverted heedlessly to outdated and naïve assumptions about the connection between hours and output. The Sandwichman is serializing "Missing: the strange disappearance of S. J. Chapman's theory of the hours of labour" on EconoSpeak in celebration of the centenary of publication of Chapman's theory. (To download the entire article in a pdf file, click on the article title.)

I will be giving a talk in San Francisco next Wed.

It would be fun to meet the people that I encounter on lists.

San Francisco Peace and Freedom Party Presents:
A Forum

The Financial Panic, The Causes and The Solution
with
Author
Michael Perelman, CSUC Economics Professor and Author of

THE CONFISCATION OF AMERICAN PROSPERITY
From Right-Wing Extremism and Economic Ideology to the Next Great Depression

Wednesday November 12, 2008 7:00 PM
522 Valencia St/16th St. 3rd Floor
San Francisco, CA

$5.00 Donation requested (no one turned away due to financial need) strikers and unemployed Free

Sponsored By Peace and Freedom Party, San Francisco
For more information call (415)637-3787
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org

Meaning of the Eight-Hour Movement

From the 1868 pamphlet by Ira Steward:

A reduction of Hours means more than an Increase of Wages. It means a more equal and just Distribution of Wealth. For, to increase Wages, without increasing the cost of Production, is a more equal Distribution of Wealth.

A better Distribution of Wealth, means, at the same time, the gradual eradication of. Speculation, Idleness, Public Debts, Interest, Fashionable extravagance, Woman's endless Drudgery and Low wages, Prostitution, Intemperance, Corrupt Legislation, Land Monopoly, Polygamy and War.

Human life will be lengthened, less time will be lost in attending the sick, woman will become far more healthy, as well as beautiful, and men, as well as women, will be placed more upon their good behavior.

Amusements will be made to- "serve to second too some other use."

Wealth will increase, while Capitalists as we now understand them will be known no more forever; for the Laborer and the Capitalist will be One! Beyond the power or the necessity, at present, of the imagination to conceive, are the blessings, without number, which will grow up among us, when we turn our footsteps in this direction...."

Missing: the strange disappearance of S. J. Chapman’s theory of the hours of labour (3)

...now you don’t?, Part I

So much for the theory; now to its disappearance. Nyland's explanation for the disappearance of Chapman's theory was that Robbins and Hicks, in 1929 and 1932 respectively, had each introduced a simplifying assumption that the given length of the working day was optimal for output. According to Nyland (1989), the requirement for such a move arose because the variability of both the duration and intensity of working time made it difficult – if not impossible – to calculate returns to the various factors of production. Subsequently, in Nyland's account, Robbins's and Hicks's simplification came to be regarded as the way things were in reality.

However, a re-examination of the texts by Robbins and Hicks fails to detect the simplifications that Nyland identified. Both authors made statements that may seem to announce such a simplification. But a careful re-reading of the wording and context of those statements challenges Nyland's interpretation. In Robbins's article (1929), the context for the statement Nyland takes to be a simplifying assumption involved, first, acknowledgements to Chapman for his theoretical analysis of the hours of labour and to Philip Sargant Florence for the empirical confirmation of Chapman's theoretical insights. Second, Robbins offered the disclaimer that in his discussion, he wasn't examining what factors might lead to a reduction of the hours of labour but only the effects that would proceed from it, assuming such a reduction to take place. Finally, came the alleged simplifying assumption itself: "If we are to predict the effect of a given variation in hours we must conceive of it in relation to a working day of maximum productiveness" (p. 27). Robbins's working day of maximum productiveness is thus not posited as the given working day but only a point of reference to which any given variation in hours must be related. If the given day was longer than the hypothetical day of maximum productiveness, then a reduction in hours would induce an increase in production. If the day was already shorter than optimal, then a further shortening would lead to an decrease in production. Such an analysis remained in accord with Chapman's theory.

Next.

Abstract: Sidney Chapman's theory of the hours of labour, published in 1909 in The Economic Journal, was acknowledged as authoritative by the leading economists of the day. It provided important insights into the prospects for market rationality with respect to work time arrangements and hinted at a profound immanent critique of economists’ excessive concern with external wealth. Chapman's theory was consigned to obscurity by mathematical analyses that reverted heedlessly to outdated and naïve assumptions about the connection between hours and output. The Sandwichman is serializing "Missing: the strange disappearance of S. J. Chapman’s theory of the hours of labour" on EconoSpeak in celebration of the centenary of publication of Chapman's theory. (To download the entire article in a pdf file, click on the article title.)

Missing: the strange disappearance of S. J. Chapman’s theory of the hours of labour (2)

Now you see it: Chapman's theory of hours

It wasn't as if Chapman's theory was eccentric or Chapman himself was a radical fringe figure. Chapman's theory built on Stanley Jevons's well-established analysis of individual labour supply, supplemented by an accumulation of statistical and experimental evidence. Chapman had been Marshall's star pupil at Cambridge for three years before moving on to Manchester where he completed a prize-winning study of the Lancashire cotton industry (Tribe, 2004). He rapidly rose to a professorship of political economy at Manchester's Owens College (which in 1904 became Victoria University) and was appointed dean of the newly established faculty of commerce and administration there. In that role, from 1904 to 1917, he pioneered an exemplary teaching and research program.

At the start of the first world war, Chapman was asked by the British government to direct research into wartime production. By 1918, he had become a full-time civil servant. The following year he was appointed joint permanent secretary of the Board of Trade and subsequently served seven years as permanent secretary. In 1920, he was knighted for his contribution to the war effort. In 1927, Sir Sydney Chapman was appointed chief economic advisor to the British government, a post he held until 1932.

Before chronicling the eclipse of Chapman's theory, it would be appropriate to present a brief summary of it. Chapman argued that the importance of leisure, both to industrial productivity and to individual well-being, must rise along with technical progress. As industrial processes became more intensive and specialized, the faster pace of working and the mental concentration demanded from workers would accelerate fatigue and thus would make it less productive to continue working longer hours. The optimal length of the working day would thus decline. At the same time, increased incomes from higher output would also make leisure time more attractive and affordable to workers. Those changes in both the optimal length of the working day and the value of leisure to workers would lead to demands for corresponding reductions in the actual length of the working day: "agitation for shorter hours will be constantly breaking out anew" (Chapman, 1909, p. 358).

Chapman arrived at this conclusion after reviewing a mass of evidence from the 19th century that reductions in the hours of work had not led to proportionate declines in output. From that evidence, he inferred that workers required more leisure time to fully recover from the fatigue of work as industrial methods became progressively more intensive. Thus when the hours of labour were reduced, the better-rested workers were often able to produce as much or more in the shorter hours than they had previously in longer hours.

Most importantly, Chapman's analysis also suggested that competition between employers would make it unlikely that a working day of optimal length could be established solely through the working of a free market. The reason for this was that the long-term maintenance of a working day of optimal length for output would require employers to exercise short-term restraint. Such restraint, however, could be undermined because competing firms could always offer higher wages to poach well-rested employees from a firm that did exercise such restraint. The enlightened firm would thus be making a sort of investment without equity in the workers' well-being. For this reason, the length of working day sought by employers under competitive conditions would tend to be longer than would be optimal for output. A working day of optimal length could only be maintained if all employers acted together in enlightened accord.

The length of day that would be best for workers' welfare would be shorter than that which could produce the greatest total output. But workers, too, would tend to disregard the long-term effects of working time on fatigue, productivity and ultimately on wage levels. In forming their preferences for income and leisure, they would be predominantly influenced by current wage levels. This would result in workers seeking a working day longer than would be prudent in the long run, although still shorter than that sought by employers acting competitively. The prevailing concern of both employers and workers for immediate self-interest would bias the preferences of each toward a longer than optimal length of the working day.

NEXT

Abstract: Sidney Chapman's theory of the hours of labour, published in 1909 in The Economic Journal, was acknowledged as authoritative by the leading economists of the day. It provided important insights into the prospects for market rationality with respect to work time arrangements and hinted at a profound immanent critique of economists' excessive concern with external wealth. Chapman's theory was consigned to obscurity by mathematical analyses that reverted heedlessly to outdated and naïve assumptions about the connection between hours and output. The Sandwichman is serializing "Missing: the strange disappearance of S. J. Chapman's theory of the hours of labour" on EconoSpeak in celebration of the centenary of publication of Chapman's theory. (To download the entire article in a pdf file, click on the article title.)

A Beautiful Mind in Splendid Isolation

Sometimes I forget how much pure enjoyment one can get from the economics literature. Consider this:

"The Optimal Jury Size When Jury Deliberation Follows a Random Walk"

Public Choice, Vol. 134, No. 3-4, 2008
Robert Day School of Economics and Finance Research Paper No. 2008-3

ERIC HELLAND, Claremont McKenna College - Robert Day School of Economics and Finance, RAND
Email: ehelland@cmc.edu
YARON RAVIV, Claremont McKenna College - Robert Day School of Economics and Finance
Email: yraviv@cmc.edu

The existing literature does not agree on the optimal jury size. We demonstrate that the probability of type I and type II errors is not sensitive to the number of jurors under the following three conditions: jurors received independent signals about a defendant's guilt during the evidence stage of the trial; the jurors truthfully reveal their signal before deliberations in the first ballot via their vote; and the jury deliberation can be modeled as a random walk. Since the opportunity cost of jury service is positive, this implies the optimal number of jurors is one.

And why do we need coauthors?

Missing: the strange disappearance of S. J. Chapman’s theory of the hours of labour (1)

The days are gone when it was necessary to combat the naïve assumption that the connection between hours and output is one of direct variation, that it is necessarily true that a lengthening of the working day increases output and a curtailment diminishes it. – Lionel Robbins

On August 26, 1909, Sydney J. Chapman unveiled his economic theory of the hours of labour in his presidential address to the Economics and Statistics Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The theory was subsequently published in The Economic Journal (Chapman 1909). Chapman's analysis arrived at several remarkable and far-reaching conclusions. First, the length of working day that would be best for workers’ welfare is shorter than the length that would produce the largest output. Second, the play of competition would tend to make the working day too long, even from the standpoint of production. Third, improved methods of production would lead to a progressive reduction of the optimal length for the working day. As a consequence, renewed conflict over the length of the working day would break out from time to time.

Not only were those conclusions novel from the point of view of conventional economic theory, they also had important practical implications for public policy regulating the hours of work. If the hours of work established by the market were likely to be too long, even from the perspective of total output, then legal limitation of the working day could aid not only equity but also economic efficiency. This possibility challenges the popular myth – often presented as an economic truism – that there is a "trade-off" between equity and efficiency goals and, furthermore, that economic efficiency is best served through the workings of a competitive market. Chapman’s theory calls both of those suppositions into question. It does so from within the tradition of neoclassical economics, using the approved tools and standard assumptions.

The leading economists of the day acclaimed Chapman's theory. Alfred Marshall (1961) cited Chapman's theory as authoritative. So did Marshall's successor at Cambridge, A.C. Pigou (1920), who based his own discussion of working time in The Economics of Welfare on Chapman’s theory. Lionel Robbins (1929) referred to Chapman's article as having effectively dealt with "one of the chief problems of the analysis of economic equilibrium" (p. 25) – i.e., the determination of the hours of work in industrial civilization. John Hicks (1932), called the theory the "classical statement of the theory of 'hours' in a free market" (p. 102n), and presented a meticulous six-page précis of it.

Twenty-four years after Hicks had proclaimed Chapman's theory authoritative, H. Gregg Lewis (1956) referred to something completely different as the "orthodox approach" to analyzing the individual supply of labour time. According to the newly-crowned orthodoxy, individuals choose how many hours they want to work based on their relative preferences for income and leisure. In the income-leisure choice model, leisure is viewed as a normal consumer good – no different from shoes, cabbages or sealing wax. Between the earlier classical statement of the theory of hours and the later orthodoxy lay a gulf and an enigma. In his history of worktime thought, Chris Nyland (1986) described the unchronicled transition as a matter of "now you see it, now you don’t" (p. 32).

Next

Abstract: Sidney Chapman's theory of the hours of labour, published in 1909 in The Economic Journal, was acknowledged as authoritative by the leading economists of the day. It provided important insights into the prospects for market rationality with respect to work time arrangements and hinted at a profound immanent critique of economists' excessive concern with external wealth. Chapman's theory was consigned to obscurity by mathematical analyses that reverted heedlessly to outdated and naïve assumptions about the connection between hours and output. The Sandwichman is serializing "Missing: the strange disappearance of S. J. Chapman's theory of the hours of labour" on EconoSpeak in celebration of the centenary of publication of Chapman's theory. (To download the entire article in a pdf file, click on the article title.)

The Euro-Economy's Trouble Ahead

Perhaps one of the biggest achilles heel of the Euro-economies at present is their close ties with the 'emerging-market' economies. Europe's faltering trade partners to the East purchase approximately one-third of Europe's exports. The currencies of the former are sliding and their banks are weakening. Middle Eastern nations are suffering from a dramatic plunge in oil prices [1] with Kuwait bailing out its largest banks. The IMF will lend the Ukraine $US16.5 billion with a large package also for Hungary a nation where the currency has fallen 16% since the end of August this year and "foreign- currency loans make up 62 percent of all household debt...up from 33 percent three years ago." "Plunging domestic currencies mean higher monthly payments for businesses and households repaying foreign-denominated loans, forcing them to scale back spending." [2] Other 'emerging-economies' are hit with precipative falls in commodity prices [3]to levels regarded by some in the industry as unsustainable in the longer term. [4]

The dozen mostly Eastern European nations which joined the broader European Union since 2004 account for 15.3% of the Euro area's foreign demand, up a third since the start of the decade, according the the ECB. The contributions of China and Russia have almost doubled. By contrast, the US and UK portions have each dropped about 4% to 11.9% and 14.5% respectively. European banks lent $US 3.5 trillion to emerging market economies and are already retrenching staff as they try to cover $US 221.8 billion in losses and write-downs. Those banks in Austria and Spain were particularly exposed. [US banks lent $500 billion and Japan $US 200 billion.] [5]


In the UK the economy shrank in the 2nd quarter this year, the nation's biggest bank needs to raise $Au$8 billion of capital (of which 3/5 is likely to be equity). House prices have dropped there by 7.3%over the last 12 months.

This does not strike me as an opportune time for our global media magnate, Rupert Murdoch, to be lecturing us all on how to reach the "golden age" of prosperity and freedom" by scaling back Government and embracing the free market. He did just that this week in his Australian Boyer lectures [6].

[1] Oil is $US25 per barrel lower than the 2008 June year average.

[2] `Panic' Strikes East Europe Borrowers as Banks Cut Franc Loans By Ben Holland, Laura Cochrane and Balazs Penz. Bloomberg. 31st October 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=awd1vGnyyBJQ&refer=home

[3] Copper is down 40.1% in the last 12 months whilst zinc prices fell 55.7% and Nickel 60%.

[4] In Australia the Kagara executive chairman Kim Robinson stated in late October 2008: "Management does not believe that these low metal prices can be sustained in the longer term as the majority of mines worldwide are cash-flow negative and a continuation of current prices would result in wholesale mine closures." [From 'Cost focus as mine futures up in the air' by Michael Vaughan, Australian Financial Review. Page 50. 31st October 2008]

[5] 'Emerging markets become a problem'. Simon Kennedy, Australian Financial Review, page 17. 29th October 2008

[6] Rupert Murdoch's challenge to Australia in Boyer Lectures", Roger Coombs
November 02, 2008 12:00am. Herald Sun.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24590176-662,00.html

Upcoming on EconoSpeak

by the Sandwichman

Starting this coming Monday, November 3, Sandwichman will be posting a 14-part serialization of "Missing: the strange dissappearance of S. J. Chapman's theory of the hours of labour" to celebrate the upcoming centenary of that penetrating but neglected contribution to neoclassical economic analysis.

Chapman's theory, published in 1909 in The Economic Journal, was acknowledged as authoritative by the leading economists of the day. It provided important insights into the prospects for market rationality with respect to work-time arrangements and hinted at a profound immanent critique of economists' excessive concern with external wealth.

Chapman's theory was consigned to obscurity by mathematical analyses that reverted heedlessly to outdated and naïve assumptions about the connection between hours and output. You can also download the full article in PDF format.

GM and Chrysler - another bailout?

Cerberus Capital Management is the parent company of General Motors and Chrysler. It's a private equity group. GM and Chrysler are suffering from a precipitative decline in US auto demand. The sales are the lowest in 15 years. At the same time GM's debt is $US 43 billion and Chrysler's is $US 9 billion. Their debts have been cut another grade toward junk status by Moodys.[*} Concurrently there are hundreds of billions of dollars of notional insurance on GM debt through the credit default swap market. The US government is expected by some observers to intervene because of a possible domino effect on the wider economy but the bailing- out of a private equity concern is not going to going to go down very well with those that have studied this financial model's nature and behaviour over the last 30 years or so.



* From 'GM and Chrysler downgraded as demand drops'. Australian Financial Review, 29th October 2008.

Holtz-Eakin on the Latest GDP News Release

BEA released its advance estimate of how real GDP fared during the third quarter of 2008 and it would seem real GDP fell a bit:

The decrease in real GDP in the third quarter primarily reflected negative contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), residential fixed investment, and equipment and software that were largely offset by positive contributions from federal government spending, exports, private inventory investment, nonresidential structures, and state and local government spending. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased.

In short, consumption and investment fell but the blow to aggregate demand was tempered by increases in government purchases and net exports.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin took the liberty of issuing this BS:

Today's announcement that third quarter GDP fell at a 0.3 percent rate confirms what Americans already knew: the economy is shrinking. Barack Obama would accelerate this dangerous course. According to the independent Center for Data Analysis, Barack Obama's new policies will destroy nearly 6 million jobs over the next decade. Barack Obama's ideologically-driven plans to redistribute income will impose higher taxes on families, small businesses, and investors; expensive, rigid, job-killing health mandates on employers; energy policies that fail to promote domestic oil, natural gas, and coal, and will impose a massive Washington-driven regulation of everything from home furnaces to factories; isolationist trade policies that endanger one out of every five jobs; and massive new spending plans that that will burden the economy and saddle our children with debt. Barack Obama is change Americans cannot afford.

Shifting the tax burden away from the middle class and working poor and towards high income individuals may actually reverse some of the decline in consumption. As far as trade policies – McCain wants a stronger dollar which will reduce net exports. Holtz-Eakin also repeats McCain’s assertion that he would lower government spending. The notion that reducing government spending is a cure for a recession must have Lord Keynes rolling over in his grave.

Economic and Social Importance of the Eight-Hour Movement

by the Sandwichman

The serialization on EconoSpeak of the analytical portion of George Gunton's 1889 pamphlet, "The Economic and Social Importance of the Eight-Hour Movement," is now complete. Below the jump is a point-form summary of the argument with each point linked to an expanded excerpt from the pamphlet.

Also categorized under the economic and social importance of the eight-hour movement label are:

1. A post on the place of this eight-hour theory in American labor history and it's aptness to the depression.

2. Another post relating the theory to the present credit crisis.

3. Some thoughts on the treatment of eight-hour theory in economics textbook lore and

4. a brief annotated bibliography.

I conceive of the composite of these posts as a kind of serialized hypertext and will be reviewing and adding further links to related material on, for example, Sydney Chapman's "Hours of Labour," Ira Steward's 1865 pamphlet, "A Reduction of Hours, An Increase in Wages" and Charles Wentworth Dilke's 1821 pamphlet, "The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties Deduced from Principles of Political Economy in A Letter to Lord John Russell." I will also be serializing point-form summaries of Dilke's pamphlet and Chapman's article.

My guiding hypothesis is that the common thread that runs through all these documents -- about the centrality of reduction of working time to social progress -- has been excised alike from trade unionist thought, neo-classical economics and traditional Marxism. It's too much to be a coincidence. It's too vast to be a covert conspiracy. It may be more usefully thought of as the elephant in the room that we silently agree not to speak about. Why? Because the "civilization" we know is dying and it is very difficult for us to name that death. Denial.

There is nothing new or novel in the proposition for a general reduction of the hours of labor. [more…]

The opposition of the employing class to this measure has not risen so much from an aversion to improving the laborer's condition as from a misconception of their economic relation to the community, and especially to the laboring classes.... For nearly a century the colleges have taught, and the employing classes have believed, that an increase of wages always means a decrease of profits-that their income moves inversely with that of the laborer's, or, in the language of the economic instructors, that "profits rise as wages fall, and fall as wages rise. [more…]

That the labor movement is a natural phase of modern society is too obvious for any careful observer of social phenomena and student of economic history to question. [more…]

The end and object of production is consumption. Nothing but the desire for a commodity and a willingness to give an equivalent for it will cause it to be produced. [more…]

Capital is not an original but an auxiliary force in production. Capital being merely an implement in the hands of man he will only use it when he can obtain his end better with than without it. [more…]

Capital can yield increasing returns – i.e., become a cheaper productive force than labor – only when it can produce on an extensive scale. Since the laboring classes constitute seven or eight-tenths of the community, it is upon increasing their consumption-which means raising the social life and wages of the laborer-that the market for capitalistic productions finally depends. [more…]

While no proposition for industrial reform can produce any real improvement in the laborer's condition which does not promote the advance of real wages, even that can only be economic and wise when it takes place without permanently increasing prices or reducing profits. [more…]

The price of labor (wages), like that of everything else subject to the conditions of exchange, constantly tends toward the cost of its production. [more…]

The general rate of wages, in any given class, group or industry, is determined by the standard of living of the most expensive families furnishing the necessary part of the supply of labor in that country, class, group or industry. [more…]

The standard of living in any community is always high or low, according as the social life of the masses is simple or complex; that is to say, as the number of the habitual daily wants of the people is large or small. [more…]

The wants of mankind are everywhere simple or complex according to the quality of the habits and Customs of the society in which he moves. Habit not only governs our social wants, but it exercises an important influence over our physical wants also. [more…]

Frequent contact with enjoyable conditions creates desire for them, and by repeated satisfaction the desire grows into a taste, and tastes into absolute wants, which ultimately become a part of the habits and fixed character, or second nature. [more…]

The first condition for social opportunity which consists of frequent contact with an increasing variety of social influences is LEISURE. So long as one's time is all occupied in the mere getting of a living, the chance for social influences to operate upon him, which creates new desires, is impossible. [more…]

The adoption of an eight-hour system would tend to increase wages in two ways: first, by reducing enforced idleness; second, by creating new wants, and raising the standard of living. [more…]

Whatever tends to raise wages through increasing the aggregate consumption of wealth, necessarily tends to reduce the cost of production and lower prices. [more…]

By the increased aggregate production, the laborer can get more wealth through his higher wages, the general consumer can obtain more through lower prices, and the manufacturer while receiving a smaller per cent. of the total products actually obtains a greater quantity of wealth through the larger productions and extended business. [more…]

We are therefore warranted in saying that the economic effects of a general reduction of the hours of labor would be to raise the standard of living and increase real wages; promote the concentration of capital; and the use of improved machinery; will cheapen production, lower prices, and while diminishing the rate, will increase the aggregate amounts of profits. Obviously, therefore, it would tend to improve the economic and social condition of the laborer and the consumer without injuring that of any other class.