Page:Confessions of an Economic Heretic.djvu/138

The situation is different in countries which retain the forms and substance of political democracy, like Britain, France, America, Scandinavia. Here the lessons of post-War economic disturbance take shape in political measures of a socialistic or communistic kind designed chiefly to “humanize” industry by protecting the workers against the injuries and dangers of an economic system no longer regarded as safe, reasonable, and fair in its distribution of work and income. In fact “humanism” is coming to be regarded as the guiding principle for industry alike on its productive and consumptive side. The recognition that it is a function of the State to establish minimum wages and maximum hours is the most definite application of this principle, more “revolutionary” in its nature than any of the fragmentary nationalization of industry which is everywhere proceeding. For this public guarantee of wages and leisure strikes at the very roots of profiteering capitalism. Carried far enough, indeed, it is certain to show the general incompatibility between profiteering and humanity. For, as already appears in France and elsewhere, the attempts to recover from the consumer in higher prices the increased costs of production due to the wage and hour regulations, oblige the Government to attempt the more difficult and in many cases impossible task of regulating the selling prices. For wage-rises and increased leisure that lead to higher prices are no gain to the workers.