CHAPTER  VI

THE  ECONOMIC  REMEDY
§  i.  The  Remedy  lies  in  a  Reformed  Distribution
of  Consuming  Power.
This  is  the  only  rationale  of  the  simultaneous  unemployment ­
  of  labour,  land,  and  capital  which  forms  the  problem
of  the  “  unemployed.”  Under-consumption  is  the  economic
cause  of  unemployment.  The  only  remedy,  therefore,
which  goes  to  the  root  of  the  evil  is  a  raising  of  the
standard  of  consumption  to  the  point  which  shall  fully
utilise  the  producing-power,  after  making  due  allowance
for  such  present  “saving”  as  is  economically  needed  to
provide  for  further  increase  of  consumption  in  the  future.
If  the  analysis  of  causes  in  the  last  chapter  is  correct,
this  remedy  can  only  be  made  operative  by  a  line  of
policy  which  shall  affect  the  ownership  of  increased
consuming-power.
Unfortunately  this  last  conclusion  was  not  admitted  by
economic  writers  whose  diagnosis  of  trade-disease  was  in
close  accord  with  that  taken  here.  The  brilliant  analysis
of  Malthus  in  particular  was  never  rebutted,  but  it  could
be  disregarded  safely  by  the  economists  of  his  day,
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