Morgenstern’s review evaluates Burns’s comparative study of state wage regulation as a substantial contribution to the theory of social policy. Its organizing distinction separates the efficiency of regulatory methods from the validity of their purpose: inquiry must examine both whether wage-setting institutions achieve their intended effects and whether state wage-setting itself can serve the larger ideal of social peace.
Zweitens ist der Sinn des Zieles selbst in Zweifel zu ziehen und zu untersuchen, ob staatliche Lohnfestsetzung als Zwischenziel für ein übergeordnetes Ideal des sozialen Friedens überhaupt tauglich ist.
English translation: Secondly, the sense of the goal itself is to be called into doubt, and it is to be examined whether state wage-fixing is at all suitable as an intermediate goal for a superordinate ideal of social peace.
This distinction makes unintended effects and the relation between means and ends central to policy assessment. Morgenstern insists that such theoretical criticism requires comprehensive, reliable empirical evidence. Burns’s chief achievement is to supply that foundation on a scale he regards as unmatched by comparable studies.
The review follows the book’s three-part progression from legislation through implementation to principles. The first part surveys statutory measures across countries, particularly Australia and New Zealand, and thereby offers a distinctive contribution to economic history. The second examines enforcement, obstacles, and accompanying effects; it favors wage boards over fixed minimum wages or arbitration. The third tests the principles of “Living Wage,” “Fair Wage,” and “The Wage the Trade can Bear.” Morgenstern stresses their conceptual instability:
Es zeigt sich dabei, daß alle mit unklaren Begriffen operieren, die auch dem ehrlichsten Versuch einer Präzisierung kaum standhalten.
English translation: It thereby becomes apparent that all of them operate with unclear concepts which scarcely withstand even the most honest attempt at precise definition.
The difficulty concerns the basic standards by which regulation claims legitimacy: fairness, the average family’s needs, and an industry’s capacity to pay all resist precise definition. Rather than treating these principles as sufficient guides, Morgenstern endorses Burns’s shift toward identifying and, where possible, removing the general causes of low wages. This gives wage theory an explanatory role beyond the design of regulatory machinery:
Die Lohntheorie, die in diesem Buche eine Produktivitätstheorie ist, tritt demnach in den Vordergrund, als das beste Mittel zum Verständnis eines großen Teiles der komplexen sozialen Beziehungen, die sich um den Arbeitsmarkt aufbauen.
English translation: The theory of wages, which in this book is a productivity theory, accordingly moves into the foreground as the best means for understanding a large part of the complex social relations that are built up around the labour market.
Morgenstern thus values the book for bringing institutional evidence, conceptual criticism, and productivity-based wage theory into a shared inquiry. His concluding judgment is strongly favorable: despite a title he finds somewhat too broad, Burns’s careful organization and cool objectivity make the study indispensable to further debate over minimum-wage regulation. The review’s lasting conceptual interest lies in its demand that social policy justify not only its techniques but also the causal assumptions and intermediate goals on which those techniques depend.
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