NATURE  OF  THE  INDIVIDUALIST  FALLACY  47
will  be  found  less  efficient  or  less  reliable  on  the  average
than  those  whose  services  were  retained  during  the  depression, ­
  could  be  morally  and  technically  educated  above
the  level  of  their  fellows,  this  fact  would  not  prevent  the
same  external  forces  from  operating  upon  Bradford  with
the  same  effect  as  before.  Different  individuals  might  be
displaced  from  employment,  that  is  all.  A  sudden  fall
of  the  fashion  for  wearing  silk  ribbons  will  reduce  the
employment  of  Coventry  weavers,  and  no  moral  or  industrial
elevation  of  the  workers  will  affect  the  quantity  of  unemployment ­
  which  is  caused.  Even  if  it  be  allowed  that  a  rise
of  the  average  efficiency  of  the  Bradford  or  Coventry  workers
would  enable  them  to  keep  some  of  their  trade  by  underselling
the  competitors  in  other  towns  or  other  countries  in  a  time
of  depressed  trade,  they  would  only  escape  unemployment
by  throwing  out  of  work  their  weaker  competitors  in  other
places  :  the  trade  as  a  whole  would  suffer  just  as  much  from
unemployment  as  before.  The  notion  that  an  increase  of
productive  power  will  be  a  safeguard  against  unemployment
will  not  stand  for  one  moment  when  confronted  with  the  fact
that  during  each  period  of  unemployment  a  large  existing
excess  of  productive  power  is  the  most  striking  phenomenon.
Indirectly  there  is  no  doubt  that  all  forces  which
contribute  to  the  intellectual  and  moral  education  ot  the
workers  help  to  maintain  employment  in  so  far  as  they  stimulate ­
  a  demand  for  a  higher  standard  of  life,  which  will  find
expression  in  an  increased  effective  demand  for  commodities.
But  this  does  not  justify  us  in  stating  that  moral  or  technical
inefficiency  are  considerable  causes  of  unemployment  in  face
of  the  fact  that  during  periods  of  ordinarily  good  trade
most  of  those  very  individuals  whose  “  unemployment”  is
imputed  to  “  personal  defects”  are  found  to  be  in  regular