Donald Stabile

Irving Fisher and statistical approaches to risk

Abstract Irving Fisher has been recognized as one of the most prominent economists in the US in the first half of the 20th century. His contribution to financial economics has not been well recognized, however. This article describes Fishers pioneering efforts to apply statistical methods to the analysis of investment risk. In addition, it will argue that Fishers statistical analysis of risk had a Bayesian philosophy of probability theory. Finally, the highs and lows of Fishers investment strategy for the 1920s and 1930s will be discussed.

The Du Pont Experiments in Scientific Management: Efficiency and Safety, 1911–1919

In this article, Professor Stabile examines the experimentation with Frederick Taylors principles of scientific management by managers at the E. I. du Pont de Nemours Powder Company. Despite their initial interest in efficiency, those managers quickly recognized that there was a direct relationship between efficiency and safety, an issue Taylor had not considered. When it was alleged that the efficiency methods had been a factor in two explosions, the emphasis in the company shifted to a more systematic approach to promoting safety. As a consequence, the company was able to manage a full-scale expansion of its production during the First World War with little disruption resulting from safety problems.

The New Class and Capitalism: A Three-and-Three-Thirds-Class Model

This paper represents an effort to clarify some of the confusion surrounding current discussion of the New Class of professional administrators, scientists, intellectuals and technicians that forms an integral part of advanced capitalist systems. A three-and-three-thirds-class model is developed and employed to explain how this class can be united ideologically but divided politically. Historical evidence is then presented to show how members of the New Class used ideological arguments to gain political support during the years 1900-1920.

Social Security: Protection from Poverty in Old Age and Unemployment

This chapter will look at two New Deal programs that used the tax system to fund unemployment insurance and old-age pensions as part of the SSA of 1935. The focus in the first part of this chapter will be on the views of the supporters of the SSA; the second part will deal with its critics. In both parts, the discussion will revolve around a living wage. It will also describe how unemployment insurance and old-age pensions were part of a consumerist New Deal program to increase purchasing power. Still, the relationship between social security and a living wage will be the main focus of this chapter.

A Living Wage from World War I Through the Onset of the Great Depression

This chapter describes how the concept of a living wage became of greater importance during the 1920s through US participation in World War I. It first looks at how the federal government in the USA planned the economy to fight World War I and uncovers that a living wage was part of the plan. Then it will describe how reformers continued to promote a living wage during the period of reconstruction immediately after the war and will follow this promotion through the 1920s to its culmination into proposals for the federal government to end the Depression by managing the economy, much as it had during the war. These proposals also included a living wage.

Collective Bargaining, Social Insurance, and the Minimum Wage: A Program for a Living Wage

This chapter addresses the question of whether advocates for a living wage felt they had succeeded in accomplishing their goal. It will look at how supporters of a living wage such as The New Republic and John Ryan interpreted the overall accomplishments of the New Deal. It will then review the legacy of the New Deal to consider why the components of its program for a living wage did not result in all workers attaining that standard. The finding of the chapter is that the rise of Keynesian economics and consumerism shifted the focus of the Progressives away from the achievement of a living wage. Still, the New Deal legacy of social programs gave a base for current advocates for a living wage to build on.

A Useful and Remunerative Job: The National Labor Relations Act

The NLRA was a first step in a movement from the voluntary cooperation of the NIRA to government regulation of business. This chapter will examine the NLRA with its aim of establishing collective bargaining as a way to provide workers a useful and remunerative job, a key element of a living wage. It will investigate the extent to which a living wage influenced the NLRA, including in the debates in the Congress, and will describe an argument that collective bargaining was the best way to attain a living wage. It will also review business criticisms of the NLRA to highlight how those criticisms overlooked the living wage elements of the NLRA.

The Political Economy of a Living Wage

In this book, I will tell the story behind Franklin D. Roosevelt’s interest in a living wage. This chapter first examines the issues a living wage raise for interpretations of the economic policies of the New Deal. It then reviews the history of political economy to show how economic thinkers supported the concept of a subsistence wage as a living wage, followed by a study of the writings of John Augustine Ryan as an overview of the arguments in favor of a living wage and the programs that a government could use to bring it about. In comparison, it will present the elements of Roosevelt’s programs for a living wage. The chapter finds a definition of social justice as ensuring that everyone shares economic prosperity.

The Right to Earn Enough: The Fair Labor Standards Act

In 1938, the New Deal enacted the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to establish a minimum wage. This chapter will survey the legal and political obstacles that had to be overcome to pass minimum wage legislation in the USA and review the arguments that overcame those obstacles. It will describe the legislative history of the FLSA and the way it produced a minimum wage that did not equate to a living wage. Unions were especially in favor of a living minimum wage as this chapter will describe. The AFL, however, did not want the FLSA to interfere with collective bargaining, while the CIO saw it with a consumerist perspective that higher wages would increase consumption and bring a recovery.

Planning a Living Wage: The National Industrial Recovery Act

During the 1920s and early 1930s, the idea of national economic planning had been proposed by several persons. The New Deal responded to this call for planning with an eclectic combination of these programs under the name of the NIRA. This chapter focuses on the relationship between the NIRA and a living wage. First, it considers Roosevelt’s statements on the NIRA and its goal of a living wage. Then, it examines what administrators and supporters of the NIRA said about a living wage. Finally, it will present analyses of the NIRA by supporters of a living wage, along with criticisms from skeptics about a living wage. The conclusion to the chapter will offer an assessment of where the NIRA went wrong.