SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC THEORY
11
part to advertise abroad the urgent need for straw and
to call for students to produce it.’
No one should fail to read Dr. Clapham’s witty and
penetrating article on ‘ Empty Economic Boxes’ in the
Economic Journal, 1922, and Professor Pigou’s rejoinder.
Says the economic historian, weary of analysis :—
I myself did not appreciate how completely empty
the boxes were until I had given a number of public
demonstrations with them. And if more acute minds
are not likely to be so misled, the rank and file surely
are. Unless we have a good prospect in the near future
of filling the boxes reasonably full, there is, I hold,
grave danger to an essentially practical science, such
as Economics, in the elaboration of hypothetical con-
clusions about, say, human welfare and taxes in relation
to industries which cannot be specified.’
Professor Pigou remarks that Dr. Clapham ‘ maintains
three separate things ; first, that his economic boxes, so
long as they are empty, cannot have practical usefulness ;
secondly, that, even if they were filled, they would not
have practical usefulness ; thirdly, that they cannot be
filled’. When he deals with the third he concludes, ‘ To
declare, of a piece of work that has not yet been seriously
tackled, that it is impossible, is, in my judgement, at
least premature. Something, I believe, might be ac-
complished if economists would take counsel with leaders
of business, expert in particular branches of production.
Of course, if Dr. Clapham, or anybody else, goes to them
and says, “ My dear fellows, an © analytic’ up at Cam-
bridge wants to know if your industries obey the laws of
diminishing, constant, or increasing returns ”’, no great
illumination is likely to result. But, if he were to ask
them to discuss the conditions, as regards the relation
between aggregate output and cost, under which various
important articles have been and are being produced—
which is really asking a great deal more—I for one do
not believe that he would always come empty away.
Nor need we rely only on the general judgement of people
