EFFECT  OF  UNDER-CONSUMPTION

93

shape  or  degree  impair  the  obligation  of  individuals  to
make  provision  out  of  their  current  incomes  for  future
contingencies  of  sickness,  unemployment,  old  age,  etc.,
nor  does  it  lend  the  least  suggestion  of  disparagement  to
any  policy  of  “saving,”  either  on  the  part  of  an  individual
or  a  community,  which  takes  the  shape  of  deferred
consumption.  Such  right  distribution  of  spending-power
over  periods  of  time  belongs  to  the  conduct  of  every
rational  man  or  society  of  men.  The  only  limit  is  that
imposed  upon  the  total  fund  of  sound  investment  at  any
given  time  by  the  quantity  of  current  consumption  in  the
community,  and  the  impossibility  of  forecasting  and  providing ­
  for  any  save  a  very  small  proportion  of  the  consumption ­
  of  the  future.
Appendix  B.
Effect  of  Under-Consumption  o?i  Employment.
It  seems  best  to  reserve  one  important  point  in  the
Economics  of  Saving  for  separate  statement  here.  The
admission  made  in  the  text  of  this  chapter  that  oversaving ­
  or  the  establishment  of  socially  unnecessary  forms
of  capital  gives  as  much  employment  while  it  is  going  on
as  spending  does,  and  that  the  attempt  to  work  an
excessive  number  of  factories,  etc.,  may  for  a  time  yield
full  employment,  is  liable  to  be  misunderstood.  It
may  appear  that,  after  all,  no  net  increase  of  employment
would  be  caused  by  a  well-adjusted  balance  between
saving  and  spending,  and  that  the  malady  is  only  one
affecting  the  distribution  of  employment,  and  not  the
total  volume;  that  the  only  effect  of  over-saving  is  to