Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/543

 SOCIAL EFFECTS OF THE EIGHT-HOUR DAY $2$

market. The increased purchasing power of his wages may be lost at any time by the competition of the unemployed who tend to force the employed to take a lower remuneration. The worker is thus confronted by lower wages to balance lower prices.

The employer, too, is compelled to keep in the procession of low cost, producing cheaply when he needs the supply, closing his mills when the demand falls and his supply is sufficient. This condition of affairs produces the unemployed.

It is the presence of the unemployed that creates the social necessity for the eight-hour day, so it is urged. A large body of unemployed increases the burdens of society, and enlarges the ranks of criminals and those dependent upon charity. The trade unions are jeopardized by the greater difficulty of keeping up their organization and their rates. Union wages fall, demand for commodities declines, the weaker concerns fail, and consoli- dation of interests results, bringing another social problem for solution.

The wear and tear upon human life steadily increases under modern methods of production. This is the third reason urged for the adoption of the eight-hour day. If men are to stand as heads of families, as electors, and even as operators of machines, they must have time for rest, for education, and for family life. The responsibility of government increasingly falls upon the working classes in a democracy. Shorter hours of labor alone can give the worker the leisure for careful study of the present- day problems thrust more and more upon the electorate for decision.

The stanch followers of trade-unionism believe that in the philosophy just enunciated they have a solution of the question of the unemployed, and consequent fluctuation of wages ; but to this the great socialist element in the trade-union movement replies that the reduction of hours is a necessary feature of a labor program, but that it is unsatisfactory and reactionary as a substitute for the socialist program. Nothing but the latter can overcome the blighting influence of overproduction under the machine regime of private property. To the socialist the intro- duction of new machinery, higher speeds, and reorganization