ke an individual wage bargain with each
worker.

These contentions have some basis on occasion. More often they arise
from a misconception of the place of the wage earner in industry, or
from a general hostility to labor unionism. Wage standardization does
not mean that all wage earners receive the same wage irrespective of
differences in ability. It simply sets a minimum standard for all
workers of the group who are about the average in ability. It is
designed to end all differences in remuneration, save those which arise
out of differences in ability. It may be worked out in systems of
payment by results, as well as in systems of time payment.

In reality a deeper conflict lies behind the antagonism to the standard
wage--a conflict of social philosophy. Most unionists, it will be
observed, are inclined to wave away all criticisms of the standard wage
which rest upon its alleged effect upon output, no matter what the
situation to which it may be addressed. In their opinion, these
criticisms of the standard wage are based on a misconception of the
place of the wage earner in industry. Or, as it is frequently put, they
regard the worker in the same way as they do a machine, since they would
have each worker paid solely according to his individual value to the
industrial system. There exists a conflict between two views of the
nature of industrial society, and of the way of industrial progress. In
one the social importance of a high level of production predominates,
and the wage earner is argued about merely as part of a productive
organization. In the other, the wage earner is viewed primarily as a
member of an occupational group or class, whose wages should be
regulated by the standard of life of his group or class, rather than by
strict measurement of his own individual capacity. This conflict is
revealed, as R. F. Hoxie pointed out, in the antagonism between unionism
and scientific management. To quote "much of the misunderstanding and
controversy between scientific management and unionism ... results from
the fact, that scientific management argues in terms of the individual
worker or society as a whole, while the unions argue primarily in terms
of group welfare." It is well to recognize these different philosophies.
Is it possible to find common ground under the principle of
standardization? Can the desire of the wage earners to be viewed
primarily as members of occupational groups or classes be satisfied by
the e