ABSTRACT
The danger is not that they may be untrue. The danger lies in their becoming catchwords alone, mere substitutes for urgently essential thought and action. Rising productivity means material progress. And in America, as in Britain, millions living at the highest material standards yet reached want still higher standards. In America, where this ‘blessed word’ has naturally achieved pre-eminence, productivity generally means the fruitfulness of human work: physical output per man-hour or man-year. In America at the end of last century Henry George called his famous book Progress and Poverty. Material progress has made all this possible. The productivity of labour in American industry has multiplied by three in the past fifty years, and is still rising by about one-half every ten to fifteen years. There are a few short qualifications to these comparisons. America has produced and installed eight horse-power behind every worker, whereas Western Europe has only produced and installed two and a half.
