PREFACE

though  the  force  of  their  criticism  in  some  instances  is
weakened  by  a  disparagement  of  the  habit  of  individual
thrift,  which  is  not  rightly  involved  in  the  line  of  their
attack  and  which  indicates  a  failure  to  grasp  the  true
relations  between  individual  and  social  “saving.”  Their
arguments  have  received  little  attention,  in  this  country
or  in  America,  from  the  main  body  of  economists,  who
still  lean  with  childlike  confidence  upon  a  theory  of  Capital ­
  formulated  by  J.  S.  Mill,  and  afterwards  abandoned
in  its  most  essential  feature  by  its  author.  In  spite  of  the
general  acceptance  accorded  to  the  new  position  by  several
important  continental  economists,  they  stubbornly  refuse
to  re-open  what  they  have  chosen  to  regard  as  a  dead
controversy.
It  is  hoped  that  this  restatement  of  the  position,  by  its
specific  application  to  the  concrete  problem  of  the  “  unemployed” ­
  and  by  the  central  importance  assigned  to  the
idea  of  Under-consumption,  may  avoid  some  of  the  misunderstanding ­
  to  which  earlier  statements  were  liable.
By  its  explanation  of  Unemployment  as  a  natural  and
necessary  result  of  a  mal-distribution  of  consuming-power,
contained  in  economic  rent  and  superfluous  elements  of
profit,  the  argument  claims  a  distinct  place  in  the  theory  of
social  progress.
The  latter  half  of  the  book  is  an  endeavour  to  discover
and  apply  true  principles  of  remedial  treatment,  by  marking
the  outlines  of  the  larger  economic  policy  which  shall
embody  the  principle  of  progressive  consumption,  and  by
the  application  of  a  scientific  test  to  the  several  popular
remedies  or  palliatives  which  occupy  the  public  attention.