The Challenge of Waste (Classic Reprint)

The League for Industrial Dete Scrateresents to the public its second pamphlet on social problems; The first in the series, Irrepressible A merica, by Dr. Scott Nearing, analyzes the social philosophy of the American people in these years following the world war and points out the educational task ahead. The present pamphlet deals with the wastes involved in producing and distributing services and goods under the system of production for profit. These wastes, as the author points out, are becoming ever more widely acknowledged and the problem at issue today is no longer their existence but the extent to which they are inherent in capitalist production. The author has served as accountant and partner of the firm of Harvey S. Chase Company, one of the largest firms of public accountants in New England; as senior accountant of the Federal Trade Commission, and as head of the accounting section of the Government sinvestigation into the meat packing and the milk industries. He is at present consulting accountant for the Labor Bureau, I nc. In these capacities he has had unusual opportunities to observe at first hand the conduct of the nations business. Mr. Chase has not been content in this pamphlet to tabulate reported wastes in industry, but has sought to obtain an aeroplane view of the whole industrial system, and to raise a number of fundamental questions. What constitutes industrial waste? Why is it important to the millions of people in A merica? What proportion of human energy is expended today in the production of illth, and what in the production of wealth? How does industry utilize its present equipment of men and machinery? Given adequate incentives, can an industrial system, scientifically organized on the basis of production for service, eliminate these wastes and can such a system develop adequate incentives? These and other problems he has attempte
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