ction of plant and in suspension of profits, and to the public
in the interruption of business, aggregate an enormous sum. The direct
losses to employers and strikers in the 20 years between 1881 and 1900
have been estimated to have been nearly $500,000,000, a large sum, but
amounting to less than 1 per cent of the wage-earners' incomes. It
is, however, impossible to estimate at all exactly losses that in many
cases are indirect and intangible. The strikers are concerned in each
case not with the balance of total losses and total gains to society
as a whole, but with the net gain that they expect to accrue in the
long run to themselves. Viewed in this way it is true that there are
various indirect benefits in strikes that are not easily calculable,
particularly the advances of wages made by employers to avoid strikes
which they know will otherwise occur. In regard to the wisdom of any
contemplated strike, opinion is always somewhat divided, as it is in
regard to the value of strikes in general.

Sec. 9. #Frequency and causes of strikes#. Strikes were relatively
decreasing in number from 1880 to 1900, but from 1901 to 1905 the
annual average was more than twice as large as in the preceding
decade. On the whole, strikes have been more numerous in periods of
business prosperity when there was a better chance to get concessions
from the employers. But they occur also in the periods following
crises, when the workers seek to minimize cuts in wages and to prevent
the depression of working conditions. More broadly viewed, strikes
appear to accompany readjustments to dynamic conditions. As wages as
a rule rise more slowly than general prices,[5] it was to be expected
that the period since 1900, in which the general price level was
rising at the rate of about 3 per cent a year, should have been marked
by increasing resort to strikes.

The immediate causes of strikes have been changing in relative
importance. In 1881, at the time of the very rapid organization of
unions, over 71 per cent of all strikes were directly connected
with wage demands (61 per cent for increase and 10 per cent against
reduction). But in 1905 the total for these causes was only 37 per
cent, whereas the proportion of strikes for reduction of hours nearly
doubled (from 3 to 5 per cent) and the proportion of those concerning
recognition of unions and union rules increased fivefold (from 6 to 31
per cent). Ultimately nearly every demand of the laborers is
re