654 PONTIFICIAE ACADEMIAE SCTENTIARVM SCRIPTA VARIA - 2¢ 
of goods and leisure which, in terms of time required, add up to 
a fixed amount determined by the existing working population 
and technical knowledge. To express the same thing in 
another way, we might say that the choice between products 
and leisure is not merely a possibility, but a necessity, if full 
employment is to be maintained. (There does not exist the 
alternative of not choosing). Technical progress, which cha- 
racterises our societies and which brings with it that choice, 
does not come — so to speak — under the form of a gift which, 
by being always susceptible of being refused, only could add 
to, and never diminish, the pre-existing wealth. It comes 
under the form of a flow, which cannot be stopped and has to 
be continually channelled in new directions, which themselves 
have to be discovered anew because the old ones saturate. This 
entails an ever-standing problem of utilization, under a fixed 
restriction represented by condition (V.12); a problem for 
which the failure to find solutions may cause damage to the 
previous situation. 
Before closing our comments on condition (V.12), we may 
add that there is a third way of keeping equilibrium over time. 
This would be io regard — as indeed we have done — the 
variations of the r/s as determined by the evolution of con- 
sumers’ preferences, but to have among them at least some #,’s 
which are not dependent on such preferences and which are 
flexible enough and capable of being influenced in such a 
way as to keep condition (V.12) satisfied. This is not a fanciful 
remark; it is in fact an important one, on practical grounds. 
It means that, if there is an external Agent or institutional 
Organization that is interested in keeping full employment, it 
is possible for this Agent or Organization — when any other 
mechanism which might have been put into operation fails — to 
act and to attain the aim of full employment simply by inflating 
total demand. 
10] Pasinetti - pag. 84