In the long run we are all unemployed

The 1920s saw important debate about consumption and work hours Some industrialists argued that work hours needed to remain high to sustain demand for output; others thought they could fall because people would buy goods to complement their leisure In contrast, John A Ryan thought that work hours could and should decline in the interests of “industrial sanity, social well-being, and desirable human life” This paper discusses Ryan's views of consumption and work hours, which were far broader and richer than contemporary critique Ryan's writings clarify that, if contemporary projects are to engender the sort of fundamental changes in everyday life contemplated in the 1920s, they need to consider social as well as individual values and the ineludible distributional dimensions of the consumerist lifestyle; otherwise their effects may be confined to promoting lifestyle adjustment among better-off groups

Consumption, Work Hours, and Values in the Writings of John A. Ryan: Is it Possible to Return to the Road Not Taken?

Historians are wary of surveys of neatly packaged periods of time such as the decade. However, an attempt to survey progress in the field of American Catholic history might be excused if it settled on the period of the last ten years. There are two reasons for this decision. First, it was just ten years ago that the late Thomas F. O'Connor in his presidential address to the American Catholic Historical Association spoke on trends and what, for some unexplained reason, he called ominously “portents” in the writing of American Catholic history. We have, therefore, in his remarks some mark from which to judge forward movement. The second reason for restricting an examination of this matter to the last decade is that the year 1946 marked the first formal entrance of John Tracy Ellis into the circle of historians of American Catholicism.

American Catholic History: A Progress Report on Research and Study

David A. McCabe

Papers

The Economic Thought of Monsignor John A. Ryan.

The Theory of Collective Bargaining.

The Labor Problems of American Society.