During the decades which witnessed the introduction of wage standardization into industry in the United States, the most loudly expressed anxiety was in regard to its conceived effect upon individual independence and initiative. This question cannot be satisfactorily discussed apart from the larger one of which it is a part--that is the question of the influence of labor organization upon individual behavior. A few observations may be ventured with the explicit admission that they leave many sides of the question untouched. The "common rule" has come into operation only where the ground has been prepared for it, where there has been a growth of group consciousness and unity. Under such conditions its use and observance mould individual ambitions and actions in some measure. It is a device which attaches the individual to the group, and interests the individual in the group advancement more than he otherwise would be. On the other hand, it indirectly guards for the individual an independence and vigor of spirit often lost in modern industry. When the underlying philosophy of the "common rule" is deeply ingrained the problems of industrial direction are completely changed; they become more difficult. Production becomes a task involving the power to win men to their work. Where the ethics of the common rule are accepted, effective work on the part of wage earners depends upon interesting them as a group in their work. The usefulness of wage systems which aim to increase individual production through individual reward is not necessarily at an end. But all such systems are compelled to accommodate themselves to the widespread desire for a standard group minimum. 6.--Another question to which the introduction of the standard wage gives rise is that of its effect upon the distribution of the available employment among the members of the group to which the wage applies. This question should be distinguished from that of its possible effect on the total amount of employment. It has often been contended that the multiplicity of wage rates for approximately the same work in industries in which wages are not settled by collective bargaining, is to be accounted for, above all, by the varying efficiency of individual wage earners. And, therefore, it is argued, that any attempt to standardize wages must lead to a concentration of employment upon those members of the group who are the more efficient, and must deprive the relatively less efficient of their employment.