TRADES UNIONISM
A dysgenic feature often found in trades unionism will easily be
understood after our discussion of the minimum wage. The union tends to
standardize wages; it tends to fix a wage in a given industry, and
demand that nearly all workers in that classification be paid that wage.
It cannot be denied that some of these workers are much more capable
than others. Artificial interference with a more exact adjustment of
wages to ability therefore penalizes the better workmen and subsidizes
the worse ones. Economic pressure is thereby put on the better men to
have fewer children, and with the worse men encourages more children,
than would be the case if their incomes more nearly represented their
real worth. Payment according to the product, with prizes and bonuses so
much opposed by the unions, is more in accord with the principles of
eugenics.
PROHIBITION
It was shown in Chapter II that the attempt to ban alcoholic beverages
on the ground of direct dysgenic effect is based on dubious evidence.
But the prohibition of the use of liquors, at least those containing
more than 5% alcohol, can be defended on indirect eugenic grounds, as
well as on the familiar grounds of pathology and economics which are
commonly cited.
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