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Labor Scarcity and the Problem of American Industrial Efficiency in the 1850's: A Comment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Ian M. Drummond
Ian M. Drummond
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Extract

In a recent issue of this Journal Peter Temin has offered a challenging analysis of American labor scarcity and the choice of technology. He deserves our gratitude for attempting to increase the analytical rigor in discussions of this matter, but his analysis is puzzling and, I think, profoundly misleading. This note is meant as a comment upon certain of its oddities.

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , September 1967 , pp. 383 - 390
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1967

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References

1 Temin, Peter, “Labor Scarcity and the Problem of American Industrial Efficiency in the 1850's,” The Journal of Economic History, XXVI (09 1966), 277–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Habakkuk s argument is couched in terms of a difference in real wages between the United States and Britain. Admittedly, in the passage Temin cites, Habakkuk speaks of “wages” simpliciter. However, elsewhere Habakkuk makes clear that this analysis i s worked in terms of real wages. Thus he speaks of wages which are “higher in terms of output.” See Habakkuk, H. J., American and British Technology in the 19th Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962), p. 26Google Scholar . He says that he is concerned with “the difference in labour cost, in terms of output, between the two countries” (ibid., p. 14). Temin is wrong to say that his quotation from Habakkuk relates to money wages ( Ibid., p. 76; , Temin, “Labor Scarcity,” p. 286)Google Scholar.

3 , Temin, “Labor Scarcity,” p. 296.Google Scholar

4 I owe this point to Professor J. H. Dales.

5 , Temin, “Labor Scarcity,” p. 292Google Scholar , footnote 23, citing the factor-price-equalization theorem.

6 Ibid., p. 296

7 Ibid., p. 296.

8 Ibid., p. 285.

9 , Habakkuk, American and British Technology, p. 34.Google Scholar