5
If we want to stick to a supply determined explanation we
should have to argue in the following way: The pressure of
labour coming from agriculture kept wages low which made
the building up of industry and of towns possible.To the
extent to which wages subsequently rose this process was late r
braked and the growth rate declined. But the fact is that
real wages were high in the U.S. from the very start, and
there was hardly any pressure from agriculture. It is far more
in accordance with what we know that the iclusstrial
••
entrepreneur had to exe^rt a pull on the labour force by
* .. — 1 "T
paying higher wages( which according to E.Rothbarth,also
explains the comparatively great efforts of the American
industrialists to introduce labour saving innovations ).
This pu’.ll would also affect the rate of immigration which
should not be taken as an exogenous datum but was strongly
influenced by the chances of employment. Furthermore,
seing that the American development did not rely on exports
but very largely on the internal market, the positive effects
of high wages on internal demand must have outweighed the
negative effects on exports. ( In this respect the situation
was different from that of the newly industrialising countries
of more recent times ). Thus it appears plausible that
the shift from agriculture was dominated by demand and that
^ V, . " ' - * ” ' ' " -- -•
the growth of the non-agricultural la^QUiT force was th^effect
and not the cause of accumulation. In te(h same way it is
Tati*/
( highly plaus ible to argue that the^declining growth rate of
the non-agricultural labour force was the effect of a
weakening of accumulation and not its cause. The industrial
labour force might well have increased more by pulling more
labour out of agriculture or drawing more on foreign laour supply.
Labour force was not the barrier of accumulation.