INTRODUCTORY

5

There is no benevolent autocrat adjusting the supply of
labour in all the variety of modern industries. No supreme
dictator decrees that, from the results of this year’s labour, a
certain portion shall be reserved to assist in performing next
year’s tasks more efficiently. Yet the extent to which
labour is in excess in some localities and industries, deficient
in others, is, generally, but slight. When it exceeds its usual
amount it promptly attracts attention, but attention is
practically confined to the fact that adjustment is, at the
moment, defective, and not directed to the equally, nay
more, striking fact that the vast mass of labour does not
manifest this failure of adjustment. These points are not
made for the sake of suggesting that present social arrangements
 are not capable of great improvement, but rather
with the end of directing attention to the fact that, in any
proposed modification, we must look for guarantees that
the new order will achieve as substantial a degree of
efficiency in adjusting the resources of society to its needs
as the old, as well as for the assurance that defects in the
old order will be remedied in the new. The mere substitution
 of one set of ills for another is hardly worth much
effort, though the new ills appear no greater than the old.
When realised, they might prove worse. We propose,
'n this volume, to study the main outlines of the economic
Organisation of modern society. By this is meant that part
of social organisation which is related to human wants and
human efforts directed to the satisfaction of those wants.
We have to study men as producers of wealth, and to
consider how the kinds of wealth which are produced
depend on what men want to consume. We shall enquire
to the principles which govern the exchange of one kind
of wealth for another, and determine how much is assigned
to each class of those whose joint efforts are requisite for its
Production, The influence of various institutions on the
ficiency for production of the groups of men whom they
affect will require consideration, and the reaction on producon
 of the division of the product among the different
classes of persons concerned in its production. Our subject,
then, is certain aspects of man’s relation to wealth, We