![handle is hein.journals/pclscceqry31 and id is 1 raw text is:
Volume XXXI]
POLITICAL SCIENCE
QUARTERLY
THE PROBLEM OF UNEMPLOYMENT TODAY,
I. A Political and Administrative, not a Theoretical Problem
UNEMPLOYMENT in the United States presents itself
today not as a question for theoretical discussion, but
as a problem for political and administrative action.
Whether it is a personal or an industrial problem, whether it is
accidental or inevitable, whether it is preventable or the price
of progress, whether governmental action is necessary and
desirable or not, are questions that have been fairly well settled.
A century of discussion and investigation by economists, gov-
ernments and social workers has brought a consensus of opinion
among scientific students as to the essential nature of the prob-
lem, its causes and effects, the extent to which it is inevitable
in modern industry, and the general character of the remedies
that must be applied, both preventative and alleviative.
The world over, the theoretical analysis of unemployment is
now practically the same; and the same theoretical solutions of
the problem are advanced and advocated.2 Little origination
I For reasons that will appear in the course of this article we define unemployment
as the inability of able-bodied and willing wage-earners to obtain work on the cus-
tomary terms and conditions of employment. This definition recognizes the fact that
millions of workers are hired and dismissed every year, that both voluntary and in-
voluntary changing of places goes on constantly on a tremendous scale, and that the
prime problem, therefore, is not why wage-earners quit or are dismissed but why they
cannot find new places.
2 Compare Georg Adler, Arbeitslosigkeit und Arbeitslosenversicherung in
Handworterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, third edition, vol. i, pp. iro4-inio;
Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress (1909) Majority Report,
part vi, and Minority Report, part ii, chapters iv and v; New York Commission on
Employers' Liability and Unemployment, Third Report (091) pp. 38-53.
I
Marck, 1916
[Number r](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/pclscceqry31&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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