The engineer, employer and employee

THE purchase prices of most essentials, not to mention luxuries, of life are now abnormally high. Can the engineer do anything about it except pay and grin? My good friend, George F. Swain, of Boston, says that the engineer is the antithesis of the idealist and that the idealist is a most dangerous individual. The engineer approaches a problem with an open mind, first obtains all the available facts and then reaches his conclusion and bases his action on these facts. The idealist on the contrary, first pictures the ideal result which he would like to obtain and proceeds to make his facts fit — if they do not, so much worse for the facts. In discussing higher prices, let me see if I can qualify under Professor Swain's definition of an engineer. The first question that arises is “Why are prices high?” And the answer to this question is almost if not quite obvious. Prices are high because costs are high and costs are high because wages have gone up. Of course material as well as labor goes into cost, but material in the last analysis is very largely labor because, for example, coal, iron, copper, lumber and other raw materials, forming the bulk of those used, are governed as to their cost by the wages paid to produce them. It is also alleged, and with reason, that prices of some commodities are higher than the increased costs justify because their distributors have taken advantage of existing conditions to reap abnormal profits. This no doubt is so to a limited extent. It can hardly be claimed to be true in general and certainly not to such an extent as to disprove the statement that prices are high because costs are high. Following the analysis, if prices are high because costs are high and costs are high because wages have increased, the next question is “Why have wages increased and in what way, up or down, may wages be expected to change in the future?” We have all heard much about the “awakening” of labor and its determination to hereafter demand and obtain a greater “share in the reward of its products.” Our recent history is not lacking in examples of efforts on the part of workmen to benefit through organization and collective bargaining, effects crowned with no mean measure of success, but of catch phrases and slogans it perhaps may be said that they lack a sufficiently definite meaning to be interpreted alike by all. A catch phrase can frequently be made to mean whatever its user wants it to mean over wide limits. Let us therefore adhere to a terminology of which the meaning is understood by all and which is always the same. First of all what do we mean by “labor” and “capital?” Perhaps we all ought to understand what these words mean but do we? If we say that “labor” is the performance of manual work and “capital” is accumulated money, it can be pointed out that many are classed with labor who do no manual work while a large number have accumulated money who are not capitalists. Possibly the walking delegate's definition would be that a laborer is one who works all the time for pay but never has any money and a capitalist is one who has money all the time but never does any work. Both of these are manifestly incorrect definitions. For the purpose of avoiding misleading terms perhaps we can dodge the issue by not using them in the present discussion and instead of referring to capital and labor speak of the “employer” and the “employee” although even then it becomes necessary to explain the term “employer” to include not only him who pays for the services of others with his own money but also him who directs the work of others while himself employed and also to limit the term “employee” to those who do not so direct the work of others. Is there any good reason to believe that a “new order” of things has been created that the working man or employee will hereafter “demand” and what is more to the point obtain a greater share of the reward of his labor and that therefore wages and consequently the cost of everything into which labor enters will stay up and may even go higher? Has there been anything which may properly be called an “awakening” of labor? The only evidence that I can find to support such an idea is the undeniable fact that beginning in 1914 the employee has demanded and has obtained a greatly increased wage and of course we know it is human nature to get all we are able and to keep it if we can. But these plain facts do not prove the reasons why. The working man like every other man has in the past always wanted all he could get and human nature today has neither gained nor lost cupidity. There is no indication of a “new order” in these facts.