Page:The Economics of Unemployment.djvu/19

naïve testimony to the belief. How far that doctrine is conscious and avowed, and how far the practice is deliberate, are matters of doubt. But that a very widely prevalent sentiment exists in favour of spreading out employment, prompted by the opinion that there is not enough to go all round, and that, if workers put through their jobs as quickly as possible they are likely to have a spell of unemployment, can scarcely be questioned. Whatever importance may be attached to other motives for slow work, the natural reluctance to exert oneself, the fear of a cut in piece-rates, or the objection to high profits based on low costs of production, the dominant motive is the fear of unemployment for oneself and one's mates, involving the conception of a limited market. It may be contended that this conception is fallacious, in that it takes no account of the stimulus which low cost of production and low selling price give to effective demand for the goods and to employment, i.e. that by restricting output and raising prices labour limits its own market. In the long run and for trade in general this may hold, though for a bricklayer in a particular town, or a miner in a particular pit, looking to next week's or next month's livelihood, a different policy may well prevail. But I am not here concerned with the economics or ethics of ca' canny, but only with the general opinion among the workers in all countries that there is, in the actual working of their trade, no security for full continuous employment. I am not alluding to normal leakages between jobs, or to seasonal or fashion fluctuations, or to the misfortunes or mismanagement of businesses leading to