Labor Scarcity and the Problem of American Industrial Efficiency in the 1850's: A Reply

Peter Temin

The Journal of Economic History, 1968, vol. 28, issue 1, 124-125

Abstract: In a recent issue of this Journal, Ian Drummond took issue with my article discussing the relation of labor scarcity to British observations of American industrial efficiency in the 1850's. I tried to show that (1) the contemporary observations were not specific enough to show whether or not Americans were using the same technology as the British; (2) even if the observations showed that the Americans used the same technology as the British, it would not follow that the higher ratio of land to labor in the United States had induced a higher ratio of capital to labor; and (3) if the observations proved that the Americans used a more efficient technology than the British, the connection between this fact and the high land-labor ratio was not clear. Under (2), I tried to demonstrate that the land-labor ratio and the capital-labor ratio were separate, and that it was improper to make inferences about the latter from data about the former. In fact, if we assume that land was not used in manufacturing, the data imply that while the land-labor ratio in America was higher than in Britain, the capital-labor ratio was lower.

Date: 1968
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