there is nothing whatever in it which proportions to it
social justice. It is the war of each against all. Its only mitigation
is that it is carried on under the set of rules represented by the state
and the law.

The tendencies involved may be best illustrated by taking one or two
extreme or exaggerated examples, not meant as facts but only to make
clear the nature of social and industrial forces among which we live.

What, for example, will be the absolute maximum to which wages in
general could be forced? Conceivably and in the purest and thinnest of
theory, they could include the whole product of the labor of society
with just such a small fraction left over for the employers, the owners
of capital and the owners of land to induce them to continue acting as
part of the machine. That is to say, if all the laborers all over the
world, to the last one, were united under a single control they could
force the other economic classes of society to something approaching a
starvation living. In practice this is nonsense. In theory it is an
excellent starting point for thought.

And how short could the hours of the universal united workers be made?
As short as ever they liked: An hour a day: ten minutes, anything they
like; but of course with the proviso that the shorter the hours the less
the total of things produced to be divided. It is true that up to a
certain point shortening the hours of labor actually increases the
total product. A ten-hour day, speaking in general terms and leaving out
individual exceptions, is probably more productive than a day of twelve.
It may very well be that an eight-hour day will prove, presently if not
immediately, to be more productive than one of ten. But somewhere the
limit is reached and gross production falls. The supply of things in
general gets shorter. But note that this itself would not matter much,
if somehow and in some way not yet found, the shortening of the
production of goods cut out the luxuries and superfluities first.
Mankind at large might well trade leisure for luxuries. The shortening
of hours with the corresponding changes in the direction of production
is really the central problem in social reform. I propose to return to
it in the concluding chapter of these papers, but for the present it is
only noted in connection with the general scheme of industrial
relations.

Now let us ask to what extent any particular section or part of
industrial society can succeed in fo