A Nation of Shopkeepers?
The U.S. will come nearer attaining full employment after the war if “a smaller proportion of Americans are engaged in manufacturing . . . and a larger proportion are engaged in the service industries.” This advice was offered postwar planners by Author C. (for Clinton) Hartley Grattan in an article entitled “Factories Can’t Employ Everybody,” in the September Harper’s.
Wrote Grattan: “The great majority of those who are discussing what America must do to achieve postwar prosperity . . . talk in terms of employment in factories. This is a dangerous error. . . . Our main attention must be concentrated upon seeing that after the war service industries are given every opportunity to expand.”
Some economists have regarded the steady expansion of the service industries as a parasitic growth. Social Scientist Grattan rebuts the theory that service industries create no new wealth as “antiquated nonsense.” To Grattan, who realizes that technological improvements tend steadily to reduce factory work toward button-pushing by fewer & fewer workers, a higher standard of living means many more services, and thus more opportunity for employment outside factories.