Title: A Very Moderate Socialist Indeed? R. H. Tawney and Minimum Wages
Abstract: R. H. Tawney has been placed alongside G. D. H. Cole and Harold Laski as one of the most important contributors to British socialist thought this century. But, on the issue of poverty wages, Tawney was circumspect and conventional. In supporting such a modest reform as the 1909 Trade Boards Act, he was concerned with pragmatic considerations. His two studies of chainmaking and tailoring, funded by the Ratan Tata foundation and carried out at the London School of Economics, show him to be more concerned with moderate (and, in his opinion, workable) policies rather than radical ideas. In order to prove the boards a success, Tawney exaggerated their advantages. It can be argued that what was required to end low pay was not industry-based trade boards, but a national minimum wage based on an agreed living income. Whilst Tawney rejected Beatrice and Sidney Webb's national minimum wage as being overly based at the subsistence level, he also dismissed a more generous minimum on the grounds that it might be above what an individual trade could bear. Although Tawney's ideas were highly influential, they were an inadequate guide to solutions to the problems of low pay in the twentieth century.
Publication Year: 1999
Publication Date: 1999-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 3
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