ELEMENTS OF ECONOMICS

VOL. I.

~ Ii •

ELEMENTS OF

ECONOMICS OF INDUSTRY

BEING THE FIRST VOLUME OF

ELEMENTS OF ECONOMICS

BY

ALFRED MARSHALL l'ro/e3sor oj PoliUcal EC{)IWIII'!f in the Unit'ersity oj CUlHbridvc,

Honorary Fellow of llulliol Col/eue, O;cjard.

SECOND EDITION

(Fifth Impression).

lLonbon: kIACMILLAN AND CO., "LIMITED.

NEW YORK: THE MACMIf.JLAN COMPANY.

1898

[All Rights reserved.]

F;rst Edition printerl 1892. Reprinted 1893, 1894. SI'Nmd Rdition 18UU, 1 R!::I8.

PREFAOE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

T HIS Volume is n.n attempt to adapt the first Volume of my Principles of Eeonomics (Second Edition, 1891), to the needs of junior students.

The necessary abridgement has been effected not hy syste-matic compression so much as by the omission of many

discussions on points of minor importance and of some difficult

theoretical investigations. For it seemed that the difficulty

of an argument would be increased rather than diminished

by curtailing it and leaving out SOUle of its steps. The argu-mentative parts of the Principles are therefore as a rule either

reproduced in full or omitted altogether; reference in the

latter case being made in footnotes to the corresponding

places in the larger T['eatise. Nates and discussions of a literary character have generally been omitted.

The influence of 'l'rade-Unions on '."'ages depends lUuch

on the course of Foreign Trade and on Commercial Fluctua-

tions; and therefore in the Principles aU discussion of the

subject is postponed to a late stage. But in the present Volume,

the practical convenience of discussing it in close connection

with the main theory of Distribution seemed to outweigh

the disadvantages of treating it prematurely and in some

measure incompletely; and a Chapter on Trade-Unions has

been added at the end of Book VI.

A few sentences have been incorporated from the Economics

of lndust'ry, published by my wife and myself in 1879.

VI PHEFACE.

Though she prefers thl1t her name should not appear

on the title-puge, my wife has a. share in this Volume also.

For in writing it, and in writing the Principles, I have heen

aided and advised l)y her at every stage of the l\ISS. and the

proofs; and thw.; the pages which ~~re now submitted to the

reader are illdel)tt~d twice over to her fmggestions, her judg-lJIent and her C,Lre,

DI' Keynes, J\fr John Hurnett and Mr.T. S. Cree have read

the proofs of the Chapter on Trade-Unions, and have given

me helpful adYiel~ ,\'lith regard to it from three different points of view.

18 February, 18n2.

* * * The chl1nges in this edition follow those made in the third edition of my Principles. Book I. Oh. IV. and v. and Book lIT. Cll. VI. have been rewritten in order to make more

clear how closely the economist adheres in substance to the

methods of infel'ence and judgment of ordinary life j and how

thorough are the harmony and the mutual dependence be-

tween the analytical ann the historical methods of economic

study. III Book II., eh. IV. and v. have been thrown to-

gether to make a new Chapter IV.; the old definition of

Capital regarded from the point of view of the business man

is retained; but Capital is defined from the general point of

view as wealth which yields "income)J in forms that are

admitted in the broader use of the term in the market place.

Book VI. CIt. I. and II. have been recast, with further explanations, and a fuller rehearsal of the chief results

obtained in the earlier Books.

Jlme 189G.

CONTENTS.

[ltalic,q arc n.~ed to yil'!' l'ej'ercnccs to d~fiJlitiOll$ ofleclndc(ll terms.]

BOOK 1.

PHRLDlINARY SURVEY,

Chapter I. Introduction. § 1. Economics is a study of wealth, aud a. }lRTt of the study of man. § 2. U rgellCY of the prohlem of poverty. § 3. Economics is a sciellce of recent growth. ~ 4. Characteristics of modern business, Free I'IIdu8f'l"lj awl Enterprtse. § 5. Preliminary account of value . . '. . . . . . • PIl. 1-\)

Chapter II. The Growth of Free Industry and Enterprise. * 1. Early civilizations. Influeuce of climate and of custom. ~ ~. 'fhe Milltlle Ages. Free towns. § Cl. New forces promoting fn'e(lom.

pp.l0-li\ Chapter III. Tho Growth of Free Industry and Enterprise COD-

tinued. § 1. Englislunell early llevelope management. § 4. Rise of the factory system. The llew orgalJbmtioll accompanied by great evils. §§ 5, 6. Many of these were dlle to the pressure of war, tnxcs IUlll bad harvests; ana competition was seen at its worst.. Bnt now with the increase of knowle(lge amI wealth we shonlll sepk to rf'fltrain its evil and to retain its goml infiuences pp. 14-2:')

Chapter IV. The Growth of Economic Science. motlern Economics. Early regulation of trade. § 2. Adam S~nith. § D. Rical"ilu and his foI1owf'rs. § 4. EconomlCS

§ 1. Origin of The Pbysiocrats. Mill and modern

pp.26-32 Chapter V. The Scope 0: :economics. § 1. ECOllOlllics as a sucial

sciencc. §§ 2--4. Chiefly cOllcerued with motives that are measurable, but not exclusively selfi~h. Difficulties of measw·cment. § 5. The desire for money is the result of many various motives. Motives to col, lective action. § 6. Economics deals mainly with one side of life, but not with the life of fictitious beings Pl'. 33----41

Chapter VI. Methods of Study. Nature of Economic Law. §§ 1, 3. lmluction and deduction are inseparable. Neither reasOlJillg alone nor observation alone is of much service. § 4. Uses of the machillery of science. §§ 5, 6. Social [jail). Ecanomt'c [,aw. Normal. The Actiull. of a Law pp. 42-4H

Chapter VII. Summary and ConclUSion. § 1. Order of economic iWluiliei:l. Helation of science to practice. § 2. Questions to be in, vestigated. § a. Practical issnes lying partly within the range of Economics pp. 49-53

Vlll CONTENTS.

BOOK II.

SOME FUNDAMENTAL NOTIONS.

Chapter I. Introductory. ~ 1. Difficultics of d£'finition in Economics. pp.54--55

Chapter II. Wealth. § 1. Classification of {Jood.~. Wealth. § 2. Per-I>onal WI'alth. Broa

CONTENTR. ix

BOOK IV. THE AGENTS OF PRODUCTION.

LA.'1D, LABOUR, CAPITAL AND ORGANIZA·fION.

Chapter I. IntrOductory. § 1. The agents of IJroduction. §§ 2, 3. Marginal disutility. Although work is sometimes its own reward it gene-rally has a supply price. Supply Schedule. Supply P,ice IIp. 107-110

Chapter II. The FertlUty of Land. § 1. Land in what sellse a free gift of nature. § 2. Conditions of fertility. Man's power of altering the character of the soil pp.111-114.

Chapter III. The Fertility of Land, continued. The Law of Diminishing Return. § 1. The basis of the Law 0/ Diminishin!l Return. The retul'll is measured by the amount not the pnce of produce. § 2. A Dose of capital ana lahour, marginal dose, marginal nturn, maJ'9~'n 0/ wltivation. S1tl]Jltts Prodltce. Its relation to rent. § 3. The Order of relative fertility changes with circumstances. § 4. Good cultivation IL relative tenn. § 5. Misunderstandings of Ricardo's doctrine. § 6. Addi-tions to it. § 7. The return frolll fisheries, mines and building ground.

pp.115-128

Chapter IV. The Growth of Population. § 1. MaItlms. §§ 2, 3. CktiSi$ ... that determille marriage·rate and birth-rate. § 4. History of population in England. § 5. Modern causes affecting marriage-rate.

pp.12()-136

Chapter V. The Health and Strength of the Population. §§ 1,2. GeJffiin conditions of health and strength. § 3. Hope, freedom ana dunge. § 4. Influence of occupation. Town life. § 5. Nature's ten-dency to ~elect the :;trOllg(:st for survival is often coltuteractea by man,

pp.137-145

CJl\f!rer VI. Industrial Training. § 1. Unskilled labour a relative erm. f!eneral and S/!ecialized Ability. §§ 2, 3. Liberal aml Technical

Education. Apprenticeships. § 4. Education as a National investment. § 5. Mill's fonr industrial grades j Lut sharp lines of division are fading away • pp. 146-154

Chr1~ The Growth of Wealth. § 1. Early and ffimlern fonns - ea tho § 2. Slow growth of habits of saving. § 3. Security as a

condition of saving. § 4. The chief motive of saving is family affection. § 5. The source of accumulation is !lurplus income. Profits. Rent and Earnings. Collective savillgs. § 6. Interest is the reward of waiting. Influence of changes in the rate of interest on saving. • pp. 155-164

Chapter VIIL Industrial Organization. § 1. Organization increases efficiency. Teachings of biology. The law of the struggle for survival. § 2. Harmonies and discords between individual and collective interests.

pp.165-167

Chapter IX. Industrial Organization, continued. Division of La.-bour. The InDuence of Machinery. § L Practice makes perfect. The provinces of manual labour and machinery. § 2. Interchangeable parts. Machinery increases the demand for general intelligence and weakens barriers between different traaes, § 3. It relieves the strain on human mnscles, and thus prevents monotony of work frOID involving

x CONTENTS.

monotony of life. § 4. Specialized skill awl specialized macbinery com· pared. External and Interual economies • pp.168-176

Chapter X. Industrial Organba.tton, continued. The Concentra,... tion of Specialized Industries in Particular Localities. § 1. Primitive fonns of localized industries; their various origins. § 2. Afl· vantages of localized imlustrics; hervclitary skill, subsidiary tratles, spe-cialized machinery, local market for sldll. Their disadvantages. Move· ments of English industries PI). 177-181

Chapter XI. Industrial Organization, continued. Production on a large scale. §§ 1, 2. Aflvalltagcs of a large producer as to ecollomy of material, specialization of awl improvements in machinery, buying and selling; speciali:t.ecl sldll, especially in matters of management, but the smallllroducer makes many detaile41 s!l.vings . pr. 182-187

Cha.pter XII. Industrial Organization. continued. Business Management. § 1. Various forms of business management classifie41 with rcferelice to the ta!;}.:s of undertaking risks anll of superilltendence. § 2. Faculties required in the ideal manufacturer. § 3. Hereditary Imsinesses, why they are not morc common. § 4. Private partnersllips. § :i. Joint-stock companies. Government undertakings. § 0. Co-opera-tion, l'rofit Sharing. § 7. The rise of the working mall hindered by his Wallt of capital amI even mor8 hy the growing complexity of husiness. § 8. Adjustment of ca}Jital to bll!'lilw!'ls ability. ...'{et and Gross Earnings of 1Ianagemellt pp. 188-204

Chapter XIII. Conclusion. The Law of Increasing in Relation to that of Diminishing Rcturn. § 1. Helation of tbe later chap-ters of this HOIlI;; to the earlier. A llepresenfafil'e Finll. The LaW.9 of increasing and Constant He/un/. § 2. Comlitions under which a.n illcrease of llUlllbcrl:l 18a41s to a more than proportiollate increase of colkctiy€ efficiency . pp. 205-209

BOOK V.

'J'HR THROllY 0 F TI-IE EQUILIBRIUM OF HEMAND AND SUPPLY.

Chapter I. On Markets. § 1. lIOHt economic 1lroblcms have a common kernel relating to the cqlliliiJrium of supply and dCDlaml § 2. Definition of II. ~lIarket. §§ 8,1. Lilllitations of II. market with l'Pgard to spnce. Conditions of II. widc market. Grading. Portability. World markets.

pp,210-215

Chapter II. Temporary Equilibrium of Demand and Supply. § l. Elluiliblimn betwecll desire awl effort. Illustration from a loc~d com·markd of a true though temporary equilibrium . pp.216--218

Chapter III. Equilibrium of Normal Demand and Supply. § 1. Transition from market to normal price. § 2. Real and Money (fost 0/ Prod1U;lioll. }I;3pellse,~ o/l'rodllcfiml. Facim's of Production. Rent ill I'elation to Expenses of production. § 3. The Law of Substitution. § 4. Basis of the general theory. The Supply Bclled~de. § 5. Equi-librium wllomd amI 1~llllililJl'imn price. § G. Influence of Utility aud

CONTENTS. Xl

Cost of Production on value-. The former preponderates ill market values, the latter in normal value-s . . PlI. 2Ht-229

Chapter IV. The Investment of Capital in a Business. Frim~ Cost and Total Cost. § 1. Motives determiuillg the invcstmeut of capital § 2. Different. routes are chosen in obtaining the same end. The lIJargin of profitableness. § 3. Prime C08t. SupplemC1!fary and Tot,d Cost . pp.230-233

Chapter V. Equilibrium of Normal Demand and Supply, ton-tlnued. The Term Normal with Reference to Long and Short Periods. §§ 1-3. Elu:-;ticity of the tenn normal. Long alld short period normal prices. lliustratiolls. § 4. The geueral drift of the term Normal Supply Price is the same for short and long periods. But for short lJeriods tho aptl1iances of pl"Oflnctioll have to be taken for granted; meanwhile the income derived from them affords a. (Juasi.rent.

pp.234-2,!i\

Chapter VI. Joint and Composite Demand. Joint and Composite Supply. § 1. Derived demtuld aud Joint de1lwlId. Illustration, taken from a. labour dispute. § 2. Comlitiol1s under which a check to supply may raise milch the price of a factor of prO(luction. J\.Iorll'rat.ing influence of the Law of SllllStitutioli. § 3. Uompo.~ite demand. § ,i. Joint Sltp}!l!/. § 5. Composite Hnpply . . pp. 244-24!1

Chapter VII. Prime and Total Cost in relation to Joint Products. Cost of Marketing. Insurance against Risk. § 1. Difficulties as to the joint products of the same busilless aud as to the expE'nses of marketing. § 2. Insurance against risk pp.250-253

Chapter VIII. Changes of Demand and Supply. Monopolies. § 1. Effects of un Illcrease of normal demand on pnce ~ 2. Monopoly price. Relntioll between the l!ltcrcsts of monopoly llrodnccrs alld of COli· sumer~ . \,p. 254-257

BOOK VI.

VALUE, OR DIS'l'RIBUTION AND EXCHANGE.

Chapter I. Preliminary Survey of Distribution and Exchange. § 1. 'rile Physiocrats. Adam Smith. Malthus awl Ricardo. J. S. Mill. ~~ 2-;). Illustrations of thc influenco of demand in distribution. §§ 6, 7. The Law of Sub;;titution in relation to demand for labour, and fur capital. § S. The National nivideml pp. 2;)S-270

Chapter II. Preliminary Survey of Distribution and Exchange. continued. §§ 1-3. Hecapituiatioll of causes, discm;."e(I ill Book 1 V., which govern the supply of yal;OnS forms of labour and capital. These causes playa. part coof(linate with those affecting demand ill governing distlihution. § 4. Land is on a. different footing. § 5 Mutual relations between earnings and efficiencies of different gr011pS of workerfl. § 6. Competition is not supposed to be perfect, but to act as it docs in real life. § 7. Provisional conclusion as to the general I'elations of capital and labour. The so·called Wages·fund pp. "271-286

XI! C()~TEXTS.

Chapter III. Demand and Supply in relation to Labour. Real and Nominal Earnings. § 1. 'l'£mc-earning.'i. Payment hy Piece-lI'ork. J~:(iit;ienc!l-carl/ill!J8. 'l'illle-carnings do not tend to equality, but Efficieucy-earuings do. § 2. Real jL'arJCS and ~'i\-ominal1!Ja.1e8. § 3, Uu-certainty of suecess. Irregularity of employment. Supplementaryearll-ings. § 4. 'rho attl'adi\'clless of a trade depends on its Xci Adranta,qtll.

pp.2f17-295

Chapter IV. Demand and Supply in relation to Labour, con~ ti!lued. § 1. :MaIlY peculia.rities il! the action of demand alld sl1!)ply with regard to labour are CllllmlathlC ill their effects. §§ 2-4. The worker sells his work, hut he himself Ims 110 price, consequently the illvestmellt of ctlllital in him is limiter} hy the means, forethought and ullselfl:;lmeOls of his parellts. Economic importance of moral forces. * 5. The seller of lahour must deliver it himself. § 6. Labour is perish-aulc, and the sellers of it arc often at a disadvantage ill hargaining.

I'p. 296-30-1

Chapter V. Demand and Supply in relation to Labour, con. eluded. ~ 1. t:ilowness of growth of new supplies of labour. Diflienltiell of forecasting tile fut.urc. § 2. 'the movements of adult labour are of incrcasing importaw:e. * 3. Fluctuations of earnings chiefly govenmd hy those of (lmnam1. § 4. Causes which detennine earllings during long awl short periorls respectively 1)P. 305-309

Chapter VI. Demand and Supply in relation to Capital. Gross and Net Interest. § 1. Interest on capital has been jealously scruti· nized; and not altogether without reason: but it is R::l truly a return for seniccOl rendered as the wages of labour arc. §§ 2, 3. lI-et and Gross interest. Gross interest inchules some Insurance against risks both Trade aud Personal, and also Earnings of Management, and therefore does Dot tend to equality as Het intcrcs~ does • . . pp. 310-314

Chapter VII. Demand and Supply in relation to Capital, Busl. ness Power and Industrial Organization. § 1. Action of the Struggle for Survival. Services of those who pioneer. § 2. Adioll of the Law of Sub~titution in controlling Earnings of Management. § 3. The Law of Suh~titutioll acts tlir01tyh the employer and also on him. The husiness man working with horrowed capital. § 4. JOillt Stock com· llanies. § 5. The supply of business ability i::l drawn from tl. wide area and is non·specialize

CONT.KNT,s. XliI

Chapter IX. Demand· and Supply in relation to Land. Pro-ducers' Surplus. § 1 Gcneral view of the cau::Ies that dctennine Producers' Surplus. ~ 2. The argument so far applicable to nearly all systems of lalld tenure . . . . . . . pp. 3ill-3M

Chapter X. Demand and Supply in relation to Land, continued. Land Tenure. ~ 1. Early forms of Land·teuure have gellerally bcclJ based on partnersJJips. § 2. Metayage or rental by shares. l'easant-proprietorship, its advantages and disadvantages. The American farmcr. § 3. The English system ellables the lan(11ortl to supply that capital oyer which he can kcep control awl it givcs cOHsiderable freedom of selection. §§ 4, 5. Large and small holdillgS. Allotments. Co-operation. ~ 6. COll-tiict between llUblic aUll pri vate interests in the matter of building on open spaces • • pp. 335-:H:J

Chapter XI. General view of Distribution. ~ 1. Resrune of the gene-ral theory of equilibrium of demand and supply. §§ 2-4. III the last eight chapters is traced a thread of continuity trausverse to that in Book V., and establishing Il uuity between the causes that govern the nonnal values of the various agents and appliances of production, matcrial aHd human. § 5. The yarious agents of productioll are the sole source of employment for one another. How an increase of capital enriehcs the field for the employmcnt of labour. § 6. Relations between the interests of different classes of workers in the same trade. § 7. Trade·unions and combinations among employers tend to make the problem of distrihu· tion indetermiIlatc . .pp. 346-am

Chapter XII. The In8.uence of Progress on Value. § 1. The rich-ness of the field of employment for capital and labour in a new country depends partly on its access to markets in which it can sell its goods and mortgage its future income for present supplies of what it wallts. § 2. England's direct gains from the progress of manufactures have been less than at first sight appears, but those from the new means of transport have been greater_ § 3. Changes in the labour values of corn, meat, house-room, fuel, clothing, water, light, news and travel. § 4. Progress has raised the labour value of English land, urban and rural, taken together. J 5. The increase of capital has lowered its proportionate but not its tot income. §§ 6, 7. Cbanges in the earnings of different indus-trial classes. § 8. Earnings of exceptional ability. § 9. Progress bag probably lessened incollstallcy of employment. § 10. Broader influence of progress. Standard of Comfol't atld Btandal'd of I.lje. § 11. Pro-gress in relation to leisure. The wastefulness of excessive work. § 12:. In some trades shorter hours combincd with double shifts would bring almost unmixed gain. § 13. But in many trades shortening the hours of labour would lessen the output. ~§ 14, 15. Fallacies underlying the opinion that a gencrallcssenillg of tne hours of labour would raise wages. § 16. Genf'ral conclusion as to the good and evil of a re(luction of the hours of labour . pp. 358-38:.1

Chapter XIII. TradeaUnlons. § 1. Early history of Trade·unions. § 2. General organization. § 3. Opening of inquiry as to the influcnce they can exert on wages. Recapitulatiou of effects of 8. penn anent limita-tion of the supply of labour. §§ 4, 5. Transition to effects of temporary limitations, by strikes or otherwise, of the supply of labour_ Disadvan-tage in bargaining of the isolated workman without reserve. Cbim of Unions to make economic friction side with, instead of against, tho work.

XIV CONT1£NTS.

man; and thus to raise wages generally. §§ 6-8. Rej oinder by oppo-nents of Unions. § 9. The issue turns mainly on the question whether Unions on the whole hamper business and lessen production; aml this needs some detailed study of their chief modes of proc-edure under the heads of:-§ 10. Strikes; § 11. Fixed local minimum wage; amI § 12. ricce·work. § 13. In t.rade!! much subject ico foreign competition Unions generally follow an enlightened policy and facilitate business. § 14. Other trades in which strong Union!'! may on the whole facilitate business. § 15. Influence on the National Dividend exerte{1 by eombinations of employers alld of employed in trades not much subject to external compe. tition. §§ 16, 17. Influence of Unions on the character and efficiency of .the worker. § 18. Facts seem to show that, other things being equal, wages are generally high in trades that have strong Unions relatively to those that have not; hut they do not enable us to fletermine what is the dIf'ct of Unions all the agf,'1'l'gate of wages. §§ 19, 20. Swnmary and general conclusions, Moral and economic aspects of the problem. Power and responsibility of public opinion . pp. 390-427

Refe.rencea fv the" Principles" are ge.ll£rally applicable tv its 8ewnd and tbird Editions, except when" Ed. 111." is added. Most ()f them are applicalJle (11.80 to the .first Edition, if £t be re.membered that Book VI. of the first Edition was ah801""~d into the latter part 0/ Book V. 0/ the secoml alld tltird; and that ConsCf[nenfly Book VI. 0/ the new editt'ons eorrel$ponds to Bvok VII. ofthefirat Edition.

BOOK L

PJUcLIJlIINAHY ~Ul\VEY.

ClIAPTElt 1.

l:\'THOnUCTIOx.

§ 1. Pur.lTICAL BCONo)[Y, or EcoxQ;\ucs, is ;~ study of man's ;l,.ct.ions in the onlin(l,ry uusine.ss of life; it Economics is inquires how he gets his income and how he a study of

W"eaith, and a uses it. Thm; it is on the one Hide a study of part of the welLlth, and on the other, and more important study of man. side, a pl\rt of the Btudy of man. For man's character 11,18 been moulded i)y his every-day work, a.nd by the material re-sources which he thereby procures, more th,m by any other influence unless it be that of his religious ide

2 1l00K I. CH. I. §§ 1, 2.

his work, by the thoughts and the feelings which it suggests, and by his relations to his associates in work, his employers or his employes.

And very often the influence exerted on a perRon's character by the amount of his income is hardly less, if it is less, than that exerted by the way in which it is earned. Poverty causes It make::; little difference to the fulnes,.; of life degradation. of a family whether its yearly income is £1000 or £5000. But it makes It very great difference whether the income is £30 or £150: for with £150 the family has, with £30 it has not, the materia.l conditions of a complete life. It -is true that in religion, ill the family affections and in friendship, even the poor may find scope for many of those faculties which are the source of the highest happine~s. But the condition::; which ::;urround extreme poverty, especially in densely crowded places, tend to deaden the higher faculties. Those "\vho have been mlled the Hesiduum of our large towns have little opportunity fur friendship; they know nothing of the decencies and the quiet, amI very little even u-f the unity of family life; and religion often fails to reach them. No doubt their physical, mental, and moral ill-health is partly due to other muses than poverty, hut this is the chief cause.

And in addition to the ltesiduum there are vast numbers of people both in town and country who are brought up with insufficient food, dothing, and house-room, whose education is broken off early in order that they may go to work for wages, who thenceforth arc engaged during long hours in exhausting toil with imperfectly nourished Lodies, and have therefore no chance of developing their higher mental faculties. Their life is not necessarily unhealthy or unhappy. Hejoicing in their affections towarus God and man, and perhaps even possessing some natural refinement of feeling, they may lead livet' that are far less incomplete than those of many who have more material "rcn,lth. But, for all that, their poverty is a great nnd almost unmixt)d evil to them. Even when they

lNT!tODUCTION. 3

are well, their wearine::;:,; uften amounts Lu paiu, while t}leir pleasures are few; and when sickness comes, the suffering caused by poverty increases tenfold. And though a contented spirit may go far towards reconciling them to these evib, there are others to which it ought not to reconcile them. Overworked and undertaught, weary and careworn, without, quiet and without leisure, they have no chance of making the best of their mental faculties.

Although then some of the evils which commonly go with poverty arc not its necessary consequences; yet, broaJ.ly speaking, "t!:e destruction of the poor i0Deir poverty," and the study of the causes otpovcrt"y IS the study of the causes of the degradation of a large part of mankind.

§ 2. Slavery was regarded by Aristotle as an ordinance of nature, and so probably was it by the slaves Is poverty nc~ themselves in olden time. The dignity of man cessary? was proclaimed by the Christian religion: it has been as~ serted with increasing vehemence during the last hundred years: hut it is only through the sprea.d of educa.tion during quite recent times that we are beginning at last to feel thc full import of the phrase. Now at last we are setting our~ selves seriously to inquire whether it is necessary that there should be any so-called "lower classes" at all: that is, whether there need be large numbers of people doomed from their birth to hard work in order to provIde for others the requisites of a. refined and culturecl life; while they themselves are pre~ vented by their poverty and toil from having ,"ny share or part in tlmt life.

The hope that poverty and ignorance may gradually he extinguished derives indeed much support from the steady progress of the working chtsses during the present century. The steam-engine has relieved them of much exhau~ting and degrading toil; wages Imve risen; education has been improved and become more general; the railway and the printing~press have enabled. members of the !'lame tl'ade in

1-2

4 BOOK 1. eH. 1. §§ 2, 3, 4.

different parts of the country to communicate easily with one another, and to undertake and carry out bro!1U and far-seeing lines of policy; ,,,,hilc the growing demand for intel-ligent ·work has caused the nrtisnn classes to increase so rapidly that they now outnumber those whose labour is entirely um;killed, A great part of the artisans have ceased to belong to the "lowe1' c]i\sses" in the sense in which the term was originally used; ,tlld some of them already lead a more refined and noble life than did the majority of the upper classes even ;\ century ago.

This progress has done more than anything else to give practical interest to the question whether it is renJly impossible that 1.111 ::;hould stnrt in the world with a fail' chance of leading a cultured life, free from the pains of poverty and the stagnating influences of excessive mechanical toil; and this question is being pres:::;eu to the front by the growing earnestness of the age.

The question cannot be fully ans,verc(l by economic science; for the 1~IlSWer depends partly on the moml and political cap1tbilities of hUm11ll nature; and on these matters the economist has no special meallS of information; he must do as others do, and guess as best he can. But the answer depends in ,t great measure upon facts ~LllU inferences, which are within the prc)Yinee of economics; and this it is which gives to economic studies their chief and their highest in-terest.

§ 3. It might heLye been expected that a science, which Reasons why deals with questions so vital for the well-being of Economics is k" 1 d 1 } "f in the main of lllan Ill(, woul have engagec t Ie attentIOn 0 recent growth. many of the ahlest thinkers of every age, and ho now well advanced townrds maturity. But the hearing of economics on the higher well-being of man has been over-looked;

INTRODUCTION. 5

of those conditions of industrial life, and of tho~e methods of production, distribution and consumption, with which modern economic science is concerned, are constantly changing, and that their present forms are only of recent date l •

§ 4. It is often said that the modern formH of businoH~ are distinguished from the earlier by being more

Competition. competitive. But this account is not quite sati."l-factory. The strict meaning of competition seem:;:; to he the racing of one person against another, with speciaJ reference to bidding for the sale or purchase of anything. This kind of racing in business is no doubt both more intense n.nd more widely extended thlLn it used to be: but it is only a secondary, and one might almost say, an accidental consequence 'from the fundamental characteristics of modern business.

There is no one term that will express these characteristicR adequately. They nre, as we shall preHently see, It certain independence and habit of choosing one's own courRC for ono-self, a. self-reFance; a deliberation and yet a promptness of choice and juJgment, and 1t l~~~bit of forecasting the future and of shaping one':-; COUl'He with reference to distant aims. They may amI often do cause people to compete with one another; but Oil the other hnnd they mny tend, and just now indeed they are tending, in the direction of co-operation amI combination of all kind:-; good and evi1. But these tendeneie:-; towards collective ownel'Hhip

6 BOOK I. CH. r. § 4.

difierent from those of earlier times, Lecause th€y are the result not of custom, not of any passive drifting into asso-ciation with one's neighbours, but of free choice by each individual of that line of conduct which after careful delibe-ration seems to him the best suited for attaining his ends, whether they are selfish or unselfish.

Further the term "competition" not only fails to go to the root of the matter, and thus errs by defect; it also errs by excess. For it has gathered about.it evil savour, and has come to imply a certain selfishness and indifference to the well-being of others. Now it is true that there is less delibe-rate selfishness in early than in modern forms of industry; but there is also less deliberate unselfishness. It is the delibe-rateness, and not the selfishness, that is the characteristic of the modern ago.

Custom in a primitiye society extends the limits of the Man is not family, and prescribes certain duties to one's more selfish neighbours which fall into disuse in a later civi-than he was, lization; but it also prescribes an attitude of

hostility to strangers. In ,1 modern society the obligations of family kindness become more intense, though they are concen-trated on a narrower area; and neighbours are put more nearly on the same footing with strangers:" In ordinary deal-ings with both of them the standard of fairness and honesty is lower than in some of the dealings of a primitive people with their neighhours, but it is much higher than in their dealings with strangers. Thus it is the ties of neighbourhood alone that have been relaxed. The tieR of family are in mrmy Wrtys stronger than before; family affection leads to much more self-sacrifice and devotion than it used to do. And again sympathy with those who are strangers to us is ft, growing ROUl'{;e of a kind of deliberate unselnshness that never existed before the modern age. That country which is the birthplace of mouern competition devotes a larger part of its ill(:ome t.han any othf~r to charitable uses, and spent twenty

IN'l'HODUCTION. 7

mil1iowl on purchasing the freedull of the slaves in the \Vest Indies. In every age poets and social reformers have tried to stimulate the people of their own time to a nobler life by enchanting stories of the virtues of the heroes of old. But neither the records of history nor the contemporary observa-tion of backward l'[tces, when carefully studied, give any support to the doctrine that man is on the whole harder rmd harsher than he was, or th;).t he w;).s ever more willing than he is now to sacrifice his own h;).ppiness for the benefit of others in cases where custom and law have left him free to choose his own course. Among races whose intellectual ClLpa-city seems not to have developed in any other direction, and who have none of the originating power of the modern busi· ness man, there will be found many who show an evil sagacity in driving a hard bargain in a market even with their neigh-bours. No traders are more unscrupulous in taking advantage of the necessities of the unfortunate than the corn-dealers and money-lenders of the East.

Again, the modern era, has undoubtedly given new open-ings for dishonesty in tmde. The advance of nor more dis-knowledge has discovered new ways of making honest. things ;).ppear other than they are, and has rendered possible many new forms of adulteration. The producer is now far removed from the ultimate consumer j and his wrong-doings are not visited with the prompt and sharp punishment which falls on the head of a person who, being bound to live and die in his native village, pbys ;). dishonest trick on one of his neighbours. The opportunities for knavery are certainly more nUmerous than they were; but there is no reason for thinking that people avail themselves of a larger proportion of such opportunities than they uRed to do. On the contrary, modern methods of trade imply habits of trustfulness on the one side and a power of resisting temptation to dishonesty on the other, which do not exist among IL backward people. J nstances of simple truth and personal fidelity are IIlet with under all social

8 BOOK I. OR. I. §§ 4, 5.

condition:-;: hut those who have tried to establish a busines8 of modern type in a. backward country find that they can scarcely ever dflpend on the native population for filling posts of trust. Adulteration and fraud in trade were rampant in the middle ages to an extent that is surprising when we com;ider the difficulties of wrong doing without detection at that time.

The term "competition" is then not well suited to describe the special characteristics of industrial life in the modern age. 'Ve need a term that does not imply any moral qualities, whether good or evil 1 but which indicates the undisputed fact that modern business is characterized by more self-reliant habits, more forethought, more delibemte and free choice. There is not any onc term adequa.te for this purpose: but Economic ¥HEEDOl\I OF INDUSTRY AND EWl':EHPIUSE, or more Freedom. shortly, Eco~1£.. mEDO:\I, point~ in the right direction, and may be used in the ahsence of a. hetter.

Of course thi~ ueliberate and free choice may lead to a. cer-tain departure from individual freedom, when co-operation or combination seems to offer the best route to the ue;ired end. The questions how far the~e deliberate forms of association are likely to destroy the freedom in which they had their origin, and how far they are likely to be comlucive to the puhlic wea.l, will occupy a large share of our attention iowards the end of this treatifo;(~.

§ 5. "The word VALUE JJ says Adam Smith "has two ~

different meanings, and sometimes expresses the Value.

utility of some particular ohject and sometimes the power of purchasing other goods whieh the possession of that object conveys. The one may be called value in usc, the other value in excha.nge." In the place of "value in liRe" which is a misleading expression, we now speak of "utility; JJ while instead of "value in exchange JJ we often say "exchange-value" or simply H value."

The value-t.ha.i is, the excha.nge vnlue-of one thing in tcrmf.! of another at any place and time, is the amount of that

INTRODUCTION. 9

second thing which can Le got there and then in exchange for :the first. Thus the tcnn value is relative, and expresses the relation between two things ~Lt a particular place and time.

Civilized countries generally adopt gold or silver or both as money. Instead of expressing the values of lead and tin, and wood, and corn and other things in ten'llS of one another we express them in terms of money in the first instance; and call the value of each thing thus expressed its price. If we know that a ton of lead will exchange for fifteen sovereigns at any place and time, while a ton of tin will exchange for ninety sovereigns, we say that their prices then and there are £15 and £90 respectively, and we know that the value of a ton of tin in terms of lead is six tons then and there.

The price of every thing rises and falls from time to time and place to place; and with every such change the purchasing power of money changes so far as that thing goes. If the purchasing power of money rises with regard to some thingR and at the same time faUs equally with regard to equally important things, its general purchasing power (or its power of purchasing things in general) has remained station-ary. It is true that this way of speaking is vague, because we have not considercd how to compare the importance of different things. That is a difficulty which we shall have to deal with later on: but mennwhile we may accept the phrase in the vague but quite intelligible usage that it has in ordi-nary discourse. Throughout the earlier stages of our work it will be best to speak of the exchange value of a thing at any place and time a,

OHAPTER II.

THE GROWTH OF FREE INDUSTH.Y AND ENTERPRISE.

§ 1. TIlE growth of Economic Freedom has been slow Early dvili- l1nd fitful. Early civilizations were necessarily zations. in warm climates because no great advance in culture can be made except where there is a considerable Influence of surplus above the bare necessaries of life; and climate. in a cold climate man's whole energies are ab-sorbed in providing these necessaries, unless he is aided by accumulated wealth and knowledge. But a warm climate lowers energy Itnu in consequence the great body of workers in the old civilizations of the East were of a submissive and unenterprising character; and were kept to their work by the discipline of the ruling ca.stes. These ruling castes had generally come at no distant date from a morc bracing climate, either in mountainouR regions or in the distant North. They devoted thenH,elves to war, to political and sacerdotal func-tions, and sometimes to art; Lut they avoided manual work, and left that to serfs and :-;laves. The manual labour classes scarcely even conceived the idea of freedom; but looked to custom as the great protector against arbitrary oppression. Influen!;e of It is true that some customs were very cruel; !;ustom. hut if cu:-;toms were merely cruel they speedily destroyed the lower classes and therefore also the upper classes who rested on them. And in consequence those raceH which have had a long history arc also those whose customs have on the whole been kindly, and the good largely pre-dominates over the evil in the records of the influence of custom on J\lo;"d a~ weH It:-i physil'al well-heing.

GROWTH Ul

12 BOOK I. CH. If. §§ 2, :1.

wily in the fine ::l.r'ts, and they were not backward in those of war. They took pride in magnificent expenditure for public purposes; and they took equal pride in a careful husbanding of the public resources, in clear Itnd clcnll State budgets, and in systems of taxes levied equitahly and based on sound business principles. Thus they led the way towards modern industl'il~] civilization; and if they had gone on their course undisturhed, and retained their first love of liberty and socbl equality, they would probably long ago have worked out the solutions of many social and economic problems which we are only now beginning to fa.ce. But after being long troubled by tumults and war, they at last succumbed to the growing power of the countries by which they were surrounded. For lllenn\,,'hile the forces of feudalism had grown in strength ILnd had at last been merged in the great monarchies) especially those of Spain) Austria and l?mnce j and they gradunlly wore out or destroyed the free

! cities, whose materinl :-;treugth resteu on It much narrower hasis.

§ 3.

New forces promoting freedom.

But the hopes of progresR were again mi,

GRuWTH O}

CHAPTER III.

TH~ GIW\,"'TH OF FltEE DlDUS'l'H,Y ANJ) ENTERl'RlI:IE,

CONTINUED.

§ 1. E:-:GLAXIJ',s g\'ogmphieal po::;itioH eau::;ed her to be peu-The character pled I,y the ::;troncrctit members of the strongest of English- o. men. race::; of northern Europe; a proces::; of natural .selection brought to her shores those lIleili ben; of each fmcces-.sive migratory wave who were most daring and self-reliant. Her clim,ttc ioS better :t(laptc(l to .su,stain energy than any other in the northern hemi:·'phere. She is dividc(} by no high hills, and no part of her territory it> more than twenty miles from navigable water,

GROWTH OF l

16 BOOK I. CII. III. §§ 1; 2.

large farms cultivated by fltrmers, who rent the laml from its owners

GROWTH OF ECONOMIC FREEDO:\l, 17

security enable everyone to adjust his conduct as he has de-cided that it is his interest to 00, amI fearlessly to commit his person and his property to new and distant under-takings.

In short, the same causes which have enabled England and her colonies to set the tone of modern politics, have made them also set the tone of modern business. The same qualities which gave them political freedom gave them also free enterprise in industry and commerce.

§ 3. Freedom of industry and enterprise, so far as its action reaches, tends to cause everyone to seek Beginnings of that employment of his labour and capital in moder,n forms

of bus mess which he can turn them to best advantage, management, this again leads him to try to obtrdn a special skill and facility in some particulnr task, by which he may earn the means of purchasing what he himself wants. And hence results a complex industrial organization, with much subtle division of labour.

The most important fonn of this division of labour for our present purpose,-the form which is most characteristic of the modern world generally, and of the English race in particular -is that by which the work within each trade is so divided up that the planning and arrangement of the business, itR management and its risks, are borne by one set of people, while the manual work required for it is done by hired labour. This may be merely a passing phase in man's development; it may be swept away by the further growth of that free enter-prise which has called it into existence. But for the present it stands out for good and for evil as the chief fact in the form 'of modern civilization, the kernel of the modern economic problem.

The power of large capitnlist manufacturers is of early origin, but it received a great impetus from the discovery of the New \Vorld and the opening up of large markets across the sea for the simple manufactures of the Old 'Vorld. AnJ

M. 2

It; BOOK I. CH, III. §§ ;:{-5.

this demand has exercised u. constantly increasing influence over the economic conditions of England.

§ 4. In the 11\tter half of the eighteenth century a series of great mechanical inventions and a wide

Rise ofthe factory extension of England's empire in America and system. Asia combined to make the changes in the con-ditions of her industry move very fast. It is true that the first effect of this Ch!1uge was not so much to inCre!1Se the size of factories, as to develop the system of con-tracting, in which 11 compn..rn.th-ely few wealthy capitalists distl'ibuteu their orders to a. great number of small masters smttered oYer the country wherever there was water-power to be h!\d; they themselves undertaking the risks of buying the raw material and. ~elling the manufactured goods. It was only when steam-power began to displace water-power that the size of the factoIies increased rapidly!. But, both in its earlier and its bter forms, the new movement tended to release the bonds that had bound nearly everyone to live in the parish in which he was born; and it developed free markets

1 The quarter of n century beginning with 1760 saw improvements follow one another in manufacture even more rapidly than in agriculture. Dnrhlg that period the transport of heavy goods was cheapened by Brindley's canals, the production of power by'Vatt's steam·engine, and that of iron by Cort's processes of puddling and rolling, and by Roebuck's method of smelting it by coal ill lieu of the charcoal that had now become scarce; IInrgreaves, Cromp. ton, Arkwright, Cartwright and others invented, or at least marle economi· cally serviceable, the spinning jenny, the mule, the cardiug machine, and the l,ower.loom; Wcdgwooll gave a great impetus to the l,ottery trade that was already growing rapidly; and there were importaut inventions in printing from cylinders, bleaching by chemical agents, and in other processes. A cotton factory was for the fir::;t time driven directly by steam.power in 1785, the last year of the lleriod. The beginning of the nineteenth century saw steam.sl1ips and steam l,rinting-presses, and the use of gas for lighting towns. Railway locomotion, telegraphy and photography came a little later. Our own age has scell numberless improvements and llew economies in production, promiuent among which are those relating to the production of steel, the tele· phone, the electric light, awl the gas·engine; amI the social changes arising from material progress nre ill some respects more rapid now than ever_ But the groundwork of the changes that have happened since 1785 was chiefly laid ill the itlH'utiollS uf the year::; 17tiO tu 1785.

GROWTH OF ECONO~nC FHEEDOM. 19

for labour, which invited people to resort to them, and to take their chance of finding employment. Up to the eighteenth century manufacturing labour had been hired, as it were, always retail; in that century it began to be hired wholesale. Up to that time its price had been in the main either nominally fixed by custom, or detennined by the in-cidents of bargaining in very small markets: the bargaining had been sometimes for the hire of labour, sometimes for the sale of its products, the workman having himself undertaken the risks of production. But since then its price has more and more been determined by the circumstanceR of supply an.d demand over a large area-a town, a country, or the whole world.

(The new organization of industry added vastly to the efficiency of production; but it brought with it great evils. Which of these evils was unavoidable we cannot The new t 11 F . t h th h . organization e" or JUS w en e c ange was mOVIng accompanied most quickly, England was stricken by a com- by great evils. bination of calamities almost unparalleled in history. They were the cause of a great part-it is impossible to say of how great a part-of the sufferings that are commonly ascribed to the sudden outbreak of unrestrained competition. The loss of her great colonies was quickly followed by the great French war, which cost her more than the total value of the accu-mulated wealth she had at its commencement. An un.; precedented series of bad harvests made bread fearfully denr.l\ And worse than all, a method of administration of the poor law was adopted which undermined the independence and· vigour of the people.

The first part of thiR century therefore saw free enterprise establishing itself in England under unfavourable circum" stances, its evils being intensified, and its benefits being lessened by external misfortunes.

§ 5. The old trade customs and gild regulations were unsuitable to the new industry. In some places they were

2-2

20 BOOK 1. CH. IIT. § 5.

abandoned by common consent: in others they were suc-Attempts to cessfully upheld for a time. But it was a fatal maintain old success; for the new industry, incapable of flourish-reu;ulations.

ing under the old bonds, left those places for others where it could be more free. Then the workers turned to Government for the enforcement of old laws of Parliament prescribing the way in which the trade should be carried on, and even for the revival of the regulation of prices and wages by justices of the peace.

These efforts could not but fail. The old regulations had been the expression of the social, moral and economic ideas of the time; they had been felt out rather than thought out; they were the almost instinctive result of the experience of generations of men who had lived and died under almost unchanged economic conditions. In the new age changes came so rapidly that there was no time for this. Each man had to do what was right in his own eye~, with but little guidance from the experience of past times; those who en-deavoured to cling to old traditions were quickly supplanted.

The new race of manufacturers consisted chiefly of those who had lnade their own fortunes, strong, ready, enterprising men: who, looking at the success obtained by their own energies, were 11pt to assume that the poor and the weak were to be blamed rather than to be pitied for their mis-fortunes. Impressed with the folly of those who tried to bolster up economic arrangements which the stream of pro-gress had undermined, they were apt to think that nothing more was wanted than to make competition perfectly free and let the strongest have their way. They glorifi~d_ i?di-vidualism, and were in no hurry to find a modern substitute for the social and industrial bonds which had kept men together in earlier times.

Meanwhile misfortune had reduced the total net income of the people of England. In 1820 a tenth of it was absorbed in paying the mere interest on the National Debt. The goods

GROWTH OJ

22 BOOK 1. CH. Ill. §§ 5, G.

free energy of English industries supplied the sinews of war against the common foe. Little was therefore heard in com-plaint against the excess of free enterprise, but much a.gainst that limitation of it which prevented Englishmen from obtain-ing food from abroad in return for the manufactures which they could now so easily produce.

And even trades-unions, which were then beginning that brilliant though chequered career which has been more full of interest and instruction than almost anything else in English history, passed into the phase of seeking little from authority except to be left alone. \ They had learnt by bitter experience the folly of attempting t'o enforce the old rules by which Government had directed the course of industry j nnd they had as yet got no far-reaching views as to the regula-tion of trade by their own action: their chief anxiety Wf\,S to increase their own economic freedom by the removal of the In.ws against combinations of workmen.\

~ 6. It has been left for our own generation to perceive Dangers of a all the evils which arose from this sudden in-~~::s~n ~~-free- crease of economic freedom. Now first are we dom. getting to understand the extent to which the capitalist employcr, untrained to his new duties, was tempted to subordinate the wellbeing of hiB workpeople to his own desire for gain; now first are we learning the importance of insisting that the ridl hnve duties as well as rights in

I their individual nnd in their collective capacity; now first is the economic problem of the new age showing itself to us as it really is. This is partly due to a \ .... ider knowledge and a growing earnestness. But however wise and virtuous our grandfathers had been, they could not have seen things as we do; for they were hurried along by urgent necessities and terrible disasters.

But we must judge ourselves by a severer standard. :For \ve nre not now struggling for national existence j and our resources h,\,ve not been exhausted by great wars: on the con-

GIWWTH Qt

24 BOOK I. CH. III. § G.

without the evil, of the old defence of the weak that in other ages wa.s gradually evolved by custom. And by the aid of the The influence telegraph and the printing-press, of representa-of the tete- tivc government and trade associations, it is graph and printing- possible for the people to think out for them-press, selves the solution of their own problems. The growth of knowledge and self-reliance has given them that true self-controlling freedom, which enables them to impose of their own free will restraints on their own actions j and the problems of collective production, collective ownership and collective consumption are entering 011 a Hew phase.

Projects for great and sudden changes are now, as ever, foredoomed to fail, and to cause rcaction. We are still unable to move safely, if we move so fast that our new plans of life altogether outrun our instincts. It is true that human nature can be modified; new ideals, new opportunities and new methods of action !!lay, as history shows, alter it very much even in a. few generations. This change in human nature has perhaps never covered so wide an:~·!Lrea and ~oved so fast as in the present generation. But still it is a growth, and therefore gradual; and changes of our social organization must wt1.it on it, and therefore they must be gradual too.

But though they wait on it, they may always keep a little Movement in advance of it, promoting the growth of our towards highcr social nature by giving it always some higher forms of col- new and higher work to do, some practiCtLl ideal lectivism. towards which to strive. Thus gradually we may attain to an order of social life, in which the common good overrules individual caprice, even more than it did in the early ages before the sway of individualism had begun. But unselfishness then will be the offspring of deliberate will, though aided by instinct individual freedom then will develop itself in collective freedom ;-a happy contrast to the old

GROWTH Ol!' ECONOMIC FllEEDOM. 25

order of life, in which individual slavery to custom caused collective slavery and stagnation, broken only by tho caprice of despotism or the caprice of revolution 1.

We have been looking at this movement from the English point of view. But other nations are taking their share in it. America faces new practical difficulties with such intrepidity and directness that she is already contesting with England the leadership in economic affairs; she supplies many of the most instructive instances of the latest economic tendencies of the age, such as the growing democracy of trade and industry, and the development of speculation and trade combination in every form, and she will probably before long take the chief part in pioneering the way for the rest of the world. Nor is Australia showing less signs of vigour than her elder sister; she has in-deed some advantage over the United States in the greater homogeneity of her people.

On the Continent the power of obtaining important results by free association is less than in English speaking countries; and in consequence there hI less resource and less thoroughness in dealing with industrial problems. But their treatment is not quite the same in any two nations: and there is something characteristic and instructive in the methods adopted by each of them; particularly in relation to the sphere of governmental action. In this matter Germany is taking the lead. It has been a great gain to her that her manufacturing industries developed later than those of England; and she has been able to profit by England's experience and to avoid many of her mistakes.

1 The earlier half of this Chapter is much abridged from Principle8 I. III.; the second half is reproduced with but little change.

CHAPTER IV.

l'1U~ GHOWTlI OF ECOXO:-'IIC :-5CIENCE.

~ 1. HAVING wntchecl some of the changes which have been wrought in economic conditions by the growth of free enterprise, we may next glance at tho parallel changes in the science which studies those conditions.

Modern economics had its origin in common with other sciences towards the end of the Middle Ages,

Origin ormo~ dern econo- and at first it was chiefly concerned with - the mics. b h h h monetary pro lems w io were at t n.t time of pammount interest, 118 a result of tho discovery of the mines of the New \Vorld and of other causes.

In

GIWWTH OF ECONO~[lC SCIENCE. 27

with varying degrees uf minuteness and severity, to arrange for each individual what he should produce and how he should produce it, what he should earn and how he should spend his earnings. 'The

The early regulation of trade.

natural adhesiveness of the Teutolls had given custom an exceptional strength in the early }Iiddle Ages. And thiH strength told on the side of trade gilds, of local authoritiei:i and of national Governments when they set" themselves to cope with the restless tendency to change that sprang directly or indirectly from the trade with the New ,"Vorld. In France this Teutonic bias was directed by the Roman genius for system, and paternal government reached its zenith; the trade regulations of Colucrt have become a proverb l .

§ 2. The first systematic attempt to form an ecollomie science on a broad basis was made in France The Physio-auout the middle of the eighteenth century uy a crats. group of statesmen and philosophers under the leadership of Quesnay, the noble-minded physician to Louis XV. The corner-stone of their policy was obedience to Nature, and they were therefore called PhysiucratH 2•

1 It was jU!;t at this time that economic theory first took shape amI the so-called Mercantile system became prolllillclit. The Mercantilists are commonly believed to have promoted the state regulation of trade and hldustry. But they did not. The regulations and restrictions which are found in their sys-tem belonged to the age; the changes which they set themselves to bring about were in the direction of the freedom of enterprise_ In opposition to thoso who wished to prohibit absolutely the exportation of the precious metals, they argued that it should be permitted in all ca.ses in which the trn.de would in the long fUll bring more goM and silver into the country thll.u it took out. They thus started the movement towards ecollomic freedom, which grlt-dually went OIl broadening till, in the latter half of the eighteenth century, the time was ripe for the doctrine that the well-being of the community almost always suffers when the State attempts to OPl)()se its own artificial regulations to the "natural" liberty of every man to manage his own affairs in his own way. (For details see Principles 1. IV.!.)

2 They fell into a confusion of thought which was common even among scientific men of their time, but which has been banished after a long stl"llgglo from the physical sciences. They confused ethical }ll"ilJciples of COllfOl'lllity to Nature, which ordain that certain things ought to be done, with those cau;;al

28 nOOK I. CH. IV. §§ 2, 3.

The next great step in advance, the greatest step that economics ha~ ever taken, was the work, not of a school but

of an individual. Adam Smith was not indeed Adam Smith.

his breadth the only great English economist of his time; but W,1S sufficient to include all that was best in all

his contemporaries, French and English; and, though he un-doubtedly borrowed much from others, yet the more one compares him with those who went before and those who e

GROWTH OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. 29

bent of his genius, or the special events of the time in which he wrote. During the remainder of the eighteenth century the chief economic writings were historical and descriptive, and bore upon the condition of the working chsses, especially in the agricultural districts I.

§ 3. But at the beginning of this century Htatesmen and merchants, with Ricardo 2 at their head, again Ricardo and threw themselves into problems of money and his followers. foreign trade with even more energy than they used to do when these questions were first started in the earlier perioo of the great economic change at the end of the l\Iiddle Ages; and so long as they were well within their own province their work was excellent 3.

There was however a certain narroy.rness in their views of social and economic problems. The people whom they knew most intimately were husiness men; and they sometimes expressed themselves RO carelessly as almost to imply that

1 Arthur Young continued the inimitable records of his tour, Eden wrote a history of the poor which has served both as a basis and as a model for all succeeding historians of industry; while Malthns showed by a careful investi-gation of history what were the forces which had as a matter of fact controlled the growth of population in differellt countries and at different times.

2 Ricardo himself, and many of his chief followers were much influenced by Bentham. See Principles I. IV. 4 and 5 on this subject and for a further notice of the character of Ricardo's work.

8 The theory of currency is just that part of economic science in which but little harm is dons by neglecting to take much account of any human motives except the desire for wealth; and the brilliant school of deductive reasOllillg which Ricardo led was here on safe ground. They next addressed themselves to the theory of foreign trade and cleared away many of the fia ws which Adam Smith had left in it. There is no other part of economics except the theory of mouey, which so nearly falls within the range of pure deductive reasoning. It is true that a full discussion of a free trade policy must take account of many considerations that are not strictly economic; but most of these, though important for agricultural countries, and especially for new countries, had little bearing in the case of England.

During all this time the study of economic facts was not neglected in England; and indeed the public and private collections of statistics and the economic histories that were produced in England at the end of the last century and the beginning of this, may fairly be regarded as the Ol"igin of systematic historical and statistical studies in economics.

so BOOK 1. CH. IV. §§ 3. 4. an other Englishmen were very much like thUl:m whom they knew in the city. Partly indeed for the sake of simplicity, they argued as though everyone were quick to find out where his own pecuniary interest lay, and to seek it to the neglect of all other considerations. They often spoke of In.hour as 11 commodity without staying to throw themselves into the point of view of the workman; and without dwelling upon the allowances to be ma.de for his human passions, his in-stincts and habits, his sympathies and antipathies, his class jeuJousies and class adhesiveness, his want of knowledge and of the opportunities for free and vigorous action. ,.~hey therefore attributed to the forces of supply and demand 11 much more mechanical and regubr action than is to lie found in real life: and they laid down laws with regard to profits and wages that did not really hold even for Engln..nd in their own time.

]Jut their most vita.l fault was that they did not see how liable to change are the habits and institutions of industry. In particular they did not see that the p.overty of the poor is the chief caU:'l.e of that weakness and inefficiency which are the causes of their poverty: they had not the faith that modern economists have in the possibility of a vast improve-ment in the condition of the working classes.

§ 4. 'Vhen we come to compare the modern view of the Mitl and vital problem of the Distribution of Wealth with m?dern econo- that which prevailed at the beginning of the mlcs. century we shall find that over and above all changes in detail and all improvements in scientific accuracy of reasoning, there if.! a fundamental change in treatment; for, while the earlier economists argued as though man's character and efficiency were to be regarded as a fix.ed quantity, modern economif.!ts keep constantly in mind the fact that it is a product of the circumstances under which he has lived. This change in the point of view of economics is partly due to the fact that the clmngef.! ill human nature (111 ring the last fifty

GROWTH OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE. ~l

years have been so rapid as to force themselves on the attention; partly to the direct influence of individual writers, socialists and others; and partly to the indirect influence of the general growth of scientific knowledge, and especially of biologyl.

The first important indication of the new movement was seen in John Stuart Mill's admirable Principles of Political Economy2.

~lill's followers have continued his movement away from the -p~ition taken up by the immediate followers of Uicardo j and the human as distinguished from the mechanical element is taking a more and more prominent place in eco:lOmics. The new temper is shown alike in J evons' subtle analysi::. of utility and other many-sided and original work, in Cliffe Leslie's historical inquiries, and in the \vritjngs of Bagehot, Cairnes, and others who are yet living.

England has recently made great advances in wealth and in knowledge, in temperance and in earnestness. A higher notion of social duty is spreading everywhere. In Parliament, in the press and in the pulpit, the spirit of humanity speaks more distinctly and more earnestly than it did. Mill and the economists who have fol1owed him, have helped onwards this general movement, and they in their tUrn have been helped onwards by it. At the same time the historical basis of the science is becoming broader, and its reasonings more careful and precise. This greater exactness is showing that many of. the older applications of general reasoning were invalid, because no care had been taken to think out all the assumptions that were implied and to see whether they could fairly be made in the special cases under discussion; and many dogma."l have been destroyed which appeared to be

1 On this point see Principles I. IV. 7. 2 He had been educated by his father in the straitest tenets of DenthlUU

and Ricardoj and in 1830 he wrote an essay on economic method in which he proposed to give increased sharpness of outline to the abstractions of the science. But in his Pl'inciples, written in 1848, he took account of all sides of human lIatnrf', and 1U11lerecl closely to the fnrts of life.

32 BOOK 1. CE. IV. § 4.

simple only because they were loosely expressed; but which, for that very reason, served as an armoury with which partisan disputants (chiefly of the capitalist class) have equipped themselves for the fray.

This destructive work might appear at first sight to have diminished the value of processes of general reasoning in economics: but reany it has had the opposite result. It has cleared the ground for newer and stronger machinery, which is being steadily and patiently built up. It has enabled us to take broader views of life, to proceed more surely though more slowly, to be more scientific and much less dogmatic than those good and great men who bore the first brunt of the hattIe with the difficulties of economic problems; and to whose pioneering work we owe our own more easy course. But this brings us to consider the scope and the methods of economics as they are now umlerstood 1.

1 In America, in Austria amI France, in Italy and the Netherlands, and above all in Germany, the last fifty years have seen imp0l'tant contributions to economic science. Germans have taken the lead in the "comparative" study of economic, as well as of general history. They have brought side by side the social and industrial phenomena of different countries and of different ages; have so arranged them that thcy throw light upon and interpret one another, and have studied them all in connection with the suggestive history of jurisprudence. It would be difficult to overrate the value of the work which they and their fellow workers in other countries have done in tracing and explaining the history of economic habits and institutions. It is one of the great achievements of our age; and an important addition to our real wealth. It has done more than ahnost anything else to broaden our ideas, to iucrease our knowledge of ourselves, and to help us to understand the central plan, as it were, of the Divine government of the worM.

On the recent progress of economics abroad, see Principles I. IV. 8.

OHAP'rER Y.

THE SCOPE OF .ECONO~UC:;.

~ 1. All aspects of social life are connected with one another: none can be studied profitably without taking some account of the others. But when the attempt is made to discuss them in one unified social science, the Relation of results are not satisfactory. One thinker after economics to

other branches another proposee broa.d generalizations, which of social fascinate men's minds for a time, but seldom science. endure for long the test of severe scrutiny. Thus, in social as well as physical science, experience shows that solid progress can be made only by hreaking up broad problems into parts, and working at each separately: and the economist is follow~ iug the best examples that have Leen set by othel' ~cientific students when he gives his chief attention to certain limited aspects of social life, while yet taking some account of all others 1.

§ 2. 'Vhat then ~~"~~,theJimiw of those soci~.J_§.t.!!..qies which the economist regards as his special domain 1 To answer this· we must first consider what are the advantages which have enabled economics, though far behind the more advanced physical sciences, yet to outstrip every othOl' branch of social

1 As Mill sa.ys (On Comte, p. 82):-" A person is llot likely to be a good economist who is nothing else. Social phenomena acting and re.a.cting on one another, they cannot rightly be understood apart; but this by no means proves that the material and industrial phenomena of society are not themselves sus-ceptible of useful generalizations, but only that these generalizations must necessarily be relative to a given stage of social advancement." On the whole aubjcct see Dr Keynes' Scope and Method 0/ Political Economy.

;l

34 nOOK r. ClI. v. §§ 2, S.

science. _For it would seem reasonable to conclude that any broadening of the scope of the science which brings it more closely to correspond with the actual facts, and to take account of the higher aims of life, will be a gain on the balance pro-vided it does not deprive the science of those advantages: but that any further extension beyond that limit would cause more loss than gain.

The advantage which economics has over other branches of social science appears to arise from the fact that}t concerns Economics itself chiefly with that class q£ _actio~;th-emo-chiefly con_ tives of which are measurable, and therefore :~~:~r:~i~ specially suited for s~i;~·tifi~ treat!D-ent. "'"-'An motives. opening is made for the methods and the tests of exact science as soon l1S the force of a person's motives can be measured by the sum of money, which he will just give up in order to secure a desired satisfaction, or again the sum which iH jm;t required to induce him to undergo a certain fatigue.

But here a little explanation is needed. The economist does not attempt to weigh the real value of the higher affec· tions of our nature against those of our lower: he does not balance the love for virtue against the desire for agreeable food. Such measure. But he estimates the incentives to action by their ment correM effects just in the same way as people do in COIDM sponds to the .practice of lUon life. He makes no strange assumptions, ordinary life. no arbitrary hypotheses; but he follows the course of ordinary conversation, differing from it only in taking more precautions to make clear the limits of his know· ledge as he goes. These precautions are laborious, and make some people think that economic reasonings are artificial. But the opposite is the fact. For he does but bring into promiM

~ence those assumptions and reservations, which everyone makes unconsciously every Jay.

J."or instance, if we find a rrw.n in doubt whether to spend a few pence on a cigar, or a. cup of tea, or on riding home

THE RCOPF. 01

36 BOOK I. CH. V. §§ 3, 4.

most easily part with, i.e., each will give up what i~ measured to him by just £1: but the intensities of the satisfaction given up may not be nearly equal.

Again the desire to ~~n a i>hilling is a much .stronger Illotive to a poor nmn with whom mOlley is scarce than to a rich one. A rich man in doubt whether to spend a shilling on a single cigar, is weighing a,gainst Olle another smaller pleasures than a poor mall, who is doubting whether to spend a shilling on a supply of tobacco that will last him for a month. The clerk with £100 It year will walk to business in a heavier rain th,Ln the clerk with £300 a year; for a six-penny omnibus fare measures a greater pleasure to the poorer man than to t.he richer. If the poorer man spends the money, he will suffer more from the want of it [Lfterwards than the richer would. The pleasure that is measured in the poorer man's mind by sixpence is greater than that measured by it in the richer man's mind.

These dimculties can however be avoided. For if we take Allowance for averages sufficiently broad to cause the personal the different peculiarities of individuals to counterbalance one utilities of money to rith another, the money which people of equal incomes and poor. will give to obtain a pleasure or avoid a pain is a sufficiently a.ccurate measure of the pleasure or the pain. If there are a thousand families living in Sheffield and another thousand in Leeds, each with about £100 a-year, and a tax of £1 is levied on all of them, we may be sure that the loss of pleasure which the tax will cause in Sheffield is very nearly equal to that which it will cause in Leeds: and similarlyany-thing that increased all the incomes by a £1 would give com-mand over very nearly the same amount of additional pleasure in the two t,owns.

But next suppose that instead of falling on families with an income of about £100 a-year, the loss fell in each of the two towns on 600 families w!th an ILVerage income of £50 and on 400 families with an average income of. £100; then,

THE SCOPE OF ECONOMICS. 37

although the loss of pleasures to the pooror group would be much greater than to the richer, yet the aggregate loss in Leeds might be tnken to be nbout the same as in Sheffield; because in each case it was distributed in equal proportions among the richer and the poorer. And in fact it happens that by far the greater number of the events with which eco-nomics deals affect in n .. hout equal proportions all the different classes of society; I'lO that if the money measures of the hap-piness caused by two events are equal, there is not in general 'any very great difference hetween the amounts of the happi-ness in the two cases.

Next it must be remembered that nobody's actions are all

bO'overned by careful calculation j in fact even the

It is not as-most deli~~ate persons are much under the in- sumed that all fluence of habit and impulse. But on the other ~~~:~~r~~e. hand habitltself is largely based on deliberate choice: and further the side of life with which economics is; specially concerned is that in which man's conduct is most deliberate, and in which he most often reckons up the advan-t~ and disadvantages of any particular action before he enters on it. It is that side of his life in which, when he does follow habit and custom, and proceed for the moment without calculation, the habits and customs themselves are most nearly sure to have proceeded from closely watching the advantages and disadvantages ()f different courses of .conduct_

§ 4_ Thus" money" or "general_ p~rchasing power" o~ "command over material wealth," is the centre around which economic science clusters; this is so, not because money 0 material wealth is regarded as the main aim of human effort, nor even as affording the main subject-matter for the study of the economist, but beeausc in this world of ours it is the one convenient means of measuring human motive on a large scale; and if the older economists had made this clear, they would have escaped many grievous misrepresent.ations. The splendid teachings of Cadyle and Ruskin as to the right aims

38 BOOK 1. (JH. V. §§ 4, 5.

of huml1ll cmleavuur lLnd the right uscs of wealth, would not

Economic motives are

then have been marred hy bitter attacks on eco-nomics, based on the mistaken belief that that

notexcIusively science had no concern with any motive except selfish.

the selfish desire for wealth, or even that it inculcated a policy of sordid selfishness!.

(So far from confining their attention to selfish motives,

economists have always given n. prominent place to the unselfish sacrifices which men make in oroer to secure corn· forttLble provision for their families. The grounds for doing t11i." ftre obvious on the principle which we have adopted. For family affection nets with so much uniformity in any given stage of civilization that its effects can be systema-tically observed, reduced to law [Lnd measured; and it is there-fore reasonable for economists to take it always into account; while yet they do not attempt to study the working of many oth~ benevolent and self-sacrificing motives whose action is irreg~ar. But the greater p!1rt of those actions, which are due to' a feeling of duty and love of one's neighbour, cannot be classed, reduced to law and measured; and it is for this reason, and not because they are not based on self-interest, that the machinery of ecoU:omics cannot be brought to bear on them.

§ 5. There is another direction in which the range of The desire for economics h,LS been wider "than is commonly money is the thought. 'Vhen the motive to a man's action is result of many various mo~ spoken of aR supplied by the money which he tives. will earn, it is not meant that his mind is closed to all other considerations save those of gain. For even the most purely business relations of life assume honesty and good faith; while many of them take for granted, if not

1 It is pointed out in PI'1:nciples I. v. 4, that a theory of economics similar to our own might exist ill a world ill which there was no private }Jropert,. in material wealth, and no money, provided that motives could be measured, ns for instance by transferable honours.

UIE SCOPE OF ECONOMICS. 39

generosity, yet at leaRt tile absence of meanness; and the pride which every honest man takes in acquitting himself weH, is an important factor of economic efficiency. Again, much of the work by which people earn their living is pleasurable in itself j and there is truth in the contention of socialists that more of it might be made so. Indeed in busiue!;!; work, that seems at first sight unattractive, many persons find a distinct pleasure, which is partly direct, and partly arises from the gratification which the work affords to their instincts of rivalry and power. ~\ Just as a race-horse or an athlete strains every nerve to get "'in advance of his com-petitors, and delights in the strain; so a manufacturer or a trader is often stimulated much more by the hope of victory over his rivals than by the desire to add something to his fortune.\ t-

But again, the desire to make money does not itself necessarily proceed from motives of a low order, even when it is to be spent on oneself. Money is a means towards ends, and if the ends are noble, the desire for the means is not ignoble. The lad who 'works hard and saves all he can, in order to be able to pay his wayafterv{urds at a University, is eager for money j but his eagerness is not ignoble. In short, money is general purchasing power, and is sought as a means to all kinds of ends, high as well as low, spiritual as well as material.

The earlier English economists paid almost exclusive at-tention to the motives of individual action. Motivestocol. But it must not be forgotten that economists, lective action. like all other students of social science, are concerned with individu~ls chiefly as members of the social organism. As a cathedral is something more than the stones of which it is built, as a person is something more than a series of thoughts and feelings, ',60 the life of society is something more than the , ~~ sum.,of the lives of its individual members. \ It is true that the action of the whole is mooe up of th!1t of itR constituent

40 BOOK r. Cll. V. §§ 5, 6.

parts; and that in most economic prohlems the hest starting-point is to be found in the motives that affect the individual, regar{led not indeed as an isolated atom~ but as a member of some particular trade or industrial group; but it is also true, as German writers have well urged, that economics has a great and an increasing concern in motives connected with the collective oWllf'!rship of property and the collective pursuit of important aims. Many new kinds of voluntary associl1tion are growing up under the influence of other motives besides that of pecuniary gain; and the Co-operative movement in particular is opening to the economist new opportunities of measuring motives whose action it had seemed impossible to reduce to any sort of law.

§ 6. To conclude provisionally: We study the actions of indi-viduals, but_~tHdy .them" iJ..l~latiol];~~.!!Lill.e; and concern ourselves but little with personat peculiarities of temper and character. We take as little notice as possible of individual The individual peculiaritieR of temper and character. W e watch regarded as a the congw~.to£ a whole class of people~soinetimes :~~s~~~aIOf an the ;;hole of a ~i~n~i;e;'only tho8eliving

.~. ""-'-'-group. in" a certain district, mo.r~~I). those engaged l!! ... some.,.partlcular,.,tra.de~_a~, s_

THE SCOPE OF ECONOMICS. 41

estimate yery closely the payment tlw,t will he required to produce an adequate Hupply of labour of any grade, from the lowest to the highest, for a new tmde which it is proposed to start in any place. And, when they visit n fa.ctory of a kind that they have never seen before, they can tell within a shilling or two a week what any particular worker is earning, by merely observing how far his is a skilled occupation and what strain it involves on his physical, mental and moral faculties.

And, starting from simple considerations of this kind, they can go on to analyse the causes which govern the local distribution of different kinds of industry, the terms on which people living in distant places exchange their goods with one another, and so on. They can explain and predict the ways in which fluctuations of credit will affect foreign trade, or again the extent to which the burden of a tax will be shifted from those on whom it is levied on to those for whose wants they cater, and so on.

In all this economists deal with man as he is: not with an abstract or "economic JJ man; but a man of flesh and blood j influenced by egoistic motives and shaping his llUsiness life to

~ a great extent with reference to them; but not . b h f "I" f" kl d Economists a ave t e ral tIes 0 vamty or rec essness, an deal mainly

not below the delight of doing his work well for :ci:t:eo:~tS~~~ its own sake, nor below the delight in sacrificing the life ofa fic-himself for the good of his family, his neighbours, titious being.

or his country, and not below the love of a virtuous life for its own sake. They deal with man as he is. But being concerned chiefly with those aspects of life in which the action of motive is so regular that it can be predicted) and the estimate of the motor-forces can be verified by results, they ha.ve established their work on a scientific basis I.

1 Some further considerations, chiefly philosophical and logical, beariug 011 this subject will be found in Principles I ......

CHAPTER VI.

METHOD;'; OF STUDY. NATURE OF ECONOMIC LAw,

§ 1. I']' is the business of economics, as of almost every other science, to collect fa

METHODS 01

44 !lOOK I. CH. VI. §§ 3~5.

§ :1. On the other hand, thel'e is need at every stage for The explana- anaIysiH, that is, for taking to pieces each complex tion ofob- part and studying the relations of the several" $erved facts involves rea_ parts to one another and to the whole: and in soning. doing this we are constantly making inferences, that is, short steps of reasoning both inductive and deductive. The process is substantially the same whether we are explain-ing what has happened or predicting what is likely to happen.

IEXPlanation and prediction are really the same mental opera-tion; though they are worked in opposite directions, the ono from effect to cause, the other from cause to effect I. Observation may tell us that one event happened with or

after another, but only by the aid of analysis and reason can we decide whether one was the cause of the other, and if we reason hastily we are likely to reason wrong. "\Vider ex-perience, more careful inquiry, may show that the causes to which the event is attributed could not have produced it un-aided; perhaps even that they hindered the event, which was brought about in spite of them by other causes that have escaped notice~.

forces resemble mechanical rather than chemical forces, because their action in combination can often be predicted with some certainty from their separate action; and how this fact enables deduction to go a little further in economics than it otherwise would. The classical economists are-often supposed to have forged long chains of deductive reasoning: but they did not: they had too much common sense and practical knowledge of the affairs of life to attempt it.

1 It is only when we go beyond a first step that a great difference arises between the certainty of prediction and the certainty of explanation: for any error made in the first step of prediction will be accumulated and intensified in the second; while in interpreting the past, error is not so likely to be accu-mulated; for observation or recorded history will probably bring a fresh check at each step.

2 If we arc dealing with the facts of remote times we must allow for the changes that have meanwhile come oyer the whole character of economic life: however closely a problem of to-day may resemble in its outward incidents another recorded in history, it is probable that a closer examination will detect a fundam