social reform are concerned with institutional arrangements. Our religious systems are more and more emphasizing the note of "social service."

With the reaction from individualism has come a protest against our habit of considering the particular apart from the general. We are beginning to learn that things in general matter; and that the reality of our problems lies in their connection with social life in its varied and multifarious aspects. We are realizing that specialization, to be anything more than clerical, must have a broad basis. We are coming to see that the whole is something quite different from the sum of its parts; that society is not a mere aggregation of individuals.

Quite naturally enough the impatience that comes from the newer view of things has enough of the older thought in it to place great reliance in mechanics. It wants results and wants them now. Instinctively it turns to the state and demands legislation. But, in spite of that, we are surely, if slowly, learning that there are decided limitations upon what can be accomplished by tinkering. We know that laws must be passed, and that there are many things which immediately they can be made to do. But we are beginning to understand that in many cases they produce their results, not from their direct enforcement, but from a series of reactions which they start, and these results can only gradually appear. We are learning, too, that there are other and more delicate instruments of control, such as the educational system, codes of professional ethics, occupational associations, and even conventions and traditions, that we may use in the furtherance of our schemes, and that these delicate instruments will reach many things too subtle and too minute to be touched by the bolder and cruder machinery of the state.

In view of this it is not surprising that we are at last learning that we do not have to be forever in a hurry. We must pay for what we get. Perfect societies are not El Dorados or Klondikes to be stumbled upon. A Utopia, even if it can be realized, cannot be juggled out of a hat by a social magician. We must through development gradually assume the social form we desire. Only knowledge is obtained; wisdom is attained. Even our socialists, who, only yesterday, were promising us "a new heaven and a new earth," have learned that there is a tomorrow.

And withal, in our radicalism, if you choose to call it such, we are becoming more conservative. If we have begun to ask impertinent questions about classes, property, and social arrangements generally, it is not because we are condemning, but only because we are socially inquisitive. We would prove all things in order that we may hold fast to that which is good. Yet more clearly than ever before

we realize the vastness, complexity, and even the mysteriousness of our social system. We know that we understand how various institutions and agents work very imperfectly. We know that many that seem to us to be without responsibility are intimately associated with some very important functions. We are not quite sure that we could create agencies which would perform the same functions more efficiently or with less cost. These things incline us to caution, to take easy steps, to examine results carefully before proceeding, and to use very flexible programs. But, if our knowledge is small, and if the difficulties are great, the call is for a greater determination, a more farsighted vision, a more careful, comprehensive, and patient study, and greater deliberation about ways and means.

In view of this particular crisis in our development we must consider our problems. We must recognize the part which the older society, the older institutional system, and the older individualistic thought have played and are still playing. We must as clearly recognize the newer tendencies, both in the institutional system and in the newer attitudes toward our economic arrangements. Many of these problems we shall find to be old. When the universe was contrived many antagonisms were left. The enigmas of rich and poor, of waste and poverty, of privilege and oppression, have been presented to us by the many ages which they have baffled. As likely as not we shall leave them as part of our heritage to succeeding generations. Some of them appeared with the machine-system, and have become more and more conspicuous as the newer technique conquered the continent. Of these are the problems connected with huge aggregates of wealth, such as railroads and capitalistic monopolies. Some come from incompatibilities between advancing and stationary aspects of social development. The legal problem involved in employer's liability is typical of this class. Some are manifestations of a later stage of the machine culture. Of this kind are the problems of the relationship of wealth to welfare in a society organized upon a pecuniary basis. Some have to do with the ends which industry should be made to serve. The problem of reorganizing industry to serve the needs of war and of converting it back to the uses of peace is a bundle of enigmas of this kind. Of some of these problems we have long been conscious. The events of the decade before the war brought others before us. The many problems raised by the war and the many changes following in its wake forced us to look less superficially at our industrial arrangements and revealed many things there which we had only remotely suspected. Who knows but there are many others which are with us, but which we cannot see because of intellectual blindness? But, old or new, familiar or unfamiliar, evident or invisible, all of these problems are part and parcel of modern indus

trialism. They are all involved in the gigantic pecuniary system which knits together our social life. The oldest of them is with us a problem very different in form from its earlier prototype which confronted our ancestors. They are all aspects of the larger question., Can our society determine the direction of its own development?

To find an answer to such a question would involve a quest into all of life. Here we must modestly limit ourselves to a general survey of the current aspects of modern industrialism. Our procedure makes it imperative, first of all, clearly to realize that our system is developing and that in this development the various aspects of social life mutually influence each other. To that end it is well, first of all, to ask ourselves whether, or in what sense, we can control the development of industrial society. To be sure such an inquiry is a rather abstract one for the beginning of our study. But it has two distinct advantages. In the first place it gives us a large problem which can gradually be translated into more specific questions and general concepts which can little by little be given a content in the pages that follow. Second, it makes us conscious of the social importance of our task and prevents our losing sight of what we are about in a study of its details. After we have considered the problem of the control of industrial society, by inquiring into the "forces" causing development, the means of control we possess, and the theory of control that we are to make use of, we shall turn to a short historical account of how industrial society came to be what it is. This should serve the double purpose of illustrating the problem of control in a developing society and of revealing something of the nature of the industrial society with which we have to deal. The emphasis in this historical sketch falls appropriately upon "the antecedents of modern industrialism" and upon the series of changes which have given society its current structure and which we call "the industrial revolution." The partial control which we are to exercise over development is to come from our handling of particular problems. Accordingly we must next consider a number of somewhat different. problems, always with a clear idea of their relations to each other and to the developing whole. The few which will be treated are typical of the many which confront us. These fall into two somewhat distinct groups, the first centering about the problem of the organization of industrial society, the second concerning themselves with human values and the welfare of the various groups which make up society as affected by the structure of modern industry.

The primary question in the first group is that of the mechanical perfection with which price organizes society. The problem is complicated by the rhythm of the business cycle. Associated with it is

the more difficult question of whether such an organization, quite apart from its mechanical perfection, can be made to serve the ends. we would have it serve. This involves, among other things, a consideration of the extent to which, and the means by which, it can be adapted to an end outside itself, as, for instance, effective service in warfare. An aspect of this larger problem of organization is the question of the extent to which the economic entity should be made to correspond to the political entity; this appears most clearly in the issues which center in the tariff. Internal problems of organization, of tremendous social consequence, particularly in the tendencies implicit in their gradual solution, are found in the regulation of railroads and capitalistic monopolies.

Of the second group of problems, perhaps the most comprehensive is that of the control of population, quantitatively and qualitatively, through immigration and through births. Its proper solution should do much to lessen the intensity of the other social problems. A second, somewhat less baffling, but still extremely difficult, is that of eliminating economic insecurity from the lot of the wageworker. A third, perhaps most evident in the program of trade unionism, is concerned with the rise of group- and class-consciousness, the spirit of group solidarity implicit in so much of the recent social legislation, and the clash between the institutional systems of individualism and of collectivism. These questions, clearly explicit before the war, have been restated in such ways that they cannot be escaped. The position of the hand worker in the industrial order and the nature and extent of the control which shall be accorded the laborer over industry and industrial processes are matters' that press for intelligent solution. A great part of the change which is impending will doubtless be accomplished by the voluntary consent of the parties affected, or, at least, through other agencies of control than the government. But, despite the fact that for the moment the prestige of the state as an instrument of direction is eclipsed, and industrial matters can never be adequately dealt with by a highly centralized authority, some increase in state activity in behalf of the individual seems inevitable. This makes imperative the problem of elaborating the new fiscal policy entered upon in the last few years whose object has been the finding of new sources of revenue. Finally, whether ominous or prophetic, we need to note a rising spirit of protest which demands a radical reconstruction of our whole scheme of social life and values.

Such a quest promises no guaranteed solutions of perplexing problems. It will not yield magical formulas for disposing of the enigmas which have perplexed the generations. It will give no assurance that

succeeding ages will have no baffling and bewildering questions to disturb their peaceful repose. It will furnish no open sesame to a social Utopia. On the contrary, quite likely it will show that the perfect society is far in the future. It may even convey the dismal lesson that our limited resources will ever prevent the emancipation of the sons of Adam from bondage to social economy. But the search should yield some positive results. It should put us in position to essay further quests into particular aspects of our industrial system. It should prevent our dissipating our energies in an attempt to realize the unattainable by impossible methods. It should save us from thraldom to social and economic alchemy. Even more important, it should show us that our problems are in process of gradual solution; that they have long-time aspects much more important than the immediate issues which we see; and that vision, as well as emotion, is called for in dealing with them. Here and there, too, we should pick up bits which together we can weave into a partial and tentative program. If our quest makes this beginning, it will have served its purpose.

B. THE NATURE OF ECONOMIC PROBLEMS

3. What an Economic Problem Is Like3

In this day of rapidly changing values, particularly in economic life and thought, it is difficult to determine what an economic problem is, whence it comes, what gives it currency, and whither it is going. To the end of understanding a problem aright, the following list of general characteristics is given. Here they are put down in abstract terms; the materials given in the pages that follow should enable the reader to translate them into the more tangible concepts in which he does his ordinary thinking.

The title commits this volume to the domain of current economic problems; but currency is not a mere matter of the transitory and ephemeral aspects of economic life, such as are noted in the morning paper. The most recent industrial merger, the latest bit of legi lation, the court decision just announced do not mark out its province. The economic questions currently discussed and subject to immediate political action do not fix its bounds. Such things as these, distinct as they seem to be, are mere passing phases of larger and more complex problems. For their beginnings we must look into the far-distant past; their ends it is not yet vouchsafed to us to see. They are in process of gradual solution. The issues which they involve are much more intricate and subtle and much less comprehensible than 3An editorial, 1915, 1919.