ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses Thorstein Veblen's distinction between economic welfare and business prosperity and Maurice Clark's distinction between public and private interest. It examines the notion of business prosperity in the context of past doctrines for high and low wages. The chapter explores the controversies over a living wage into perspective by recalling earlier views of subsistence wages, and develops the concept of wages that provide adequate subsistence as being in the public interest. It shows that ensuring subsistence or living wages to all members of society is a minimum standard of prosperity in any economy that would fulfill its basic task of provisioning all members of society. Economic welfare, within a public interest context, places as its central concern and standard the welfare of all participants in an economy. The chapter also discuss the concept of the subsistence wage.
