They had the right idea that wealth consisted solely
of material things used to promote the welfare of certain human beings.
Their idea of capital was somewhat confused. They apparently decided
that capital was merely that part of capital used to produce profit.
Prices, exchanges, commercial statistics, and financial operations
comprised the subject matter of these older economists. It would have
been considered "unscientific" to take into account the human factors
involved. They might study the wear-and-tear and depreciation of
machinery: but the depreciation or destruction of the human race did
not concern them. Under "wealth" they never included the vast, wasted
treasury of human life and human expression.
Economists to-day are awake to the imperative duty of dealing with the
whole of human nature, with the relation of men, women, and children to
their environment--physical and psychic as well as social; of dealing
with all those factors which contribute to human sustenance, happiness
and welfare. The economist, at length, investigates human motives.
Economics outgrows the outworn metaphysical preconceptions of nineteenth
century theory. To-day we witness the creation of a new "welfare" or
social economics, based on a fuller and more complete knowledge of the
human race, upon a recognition of sex as well as of hunger; in brief, of
physiological instincts and psychological demands. The newer economists
are beginning to recognize that their science heretofore failed to take
into account the most vital factors in modern industry--it failed
to foresee the inevitable consequences of compulsory motherhood; the
catastrophic effects of child labor upon racial health; the overwhelming
importance of national vitality and well-being; the international
ramifications of the population problem; the relation of indiscriminate
breeding to feeble-mindedness, and industrial inefficiency.
Pages:
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115