AN EARLY AMERICAN THEORY OF THE STANDARD OF LIVING.

STANDARD of living; HUGHES, Henry; WAGES; POVERTY; SOCIAL psychology; LABOR; CAPITAL

The article presents information about an early theory of the standard of living by sociologist Henry Hughes. He quite modernly divided the subject into two aspects, theoretical and practical. The first end of the society, he says, is the existence of all. Deficient wages are the cause of want or poverty, he says and they must be made adequate. Excepting an imperfect economic system or an erroneously planned government, which may lie back of and produce inadequate wage payments, this is the only cause of poverty. Hughes classified poverty functionally under three main headings, taking as his criterion the results of poverty rather than its cause. Evidently he uses this sort of a classification rather than the causal one because he is deeply concerned with effects of social causes and by emphasizing effects he hopes to create a sufficient public opinion to demand the removal of causes. Surely these are no uncertain words. It is evidently the belief of the author that there is no shortage of means of subsistence in society. He is clear that he thinks the first care in production should be to see that everybody produces. Society is not obligated to feed the poor and the hungry without a reciprocal obligation of these classes to labor for this subsistence.