Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II | Page 2

a
wider public interest in so many economic subjects, that both in range
and in treatment this work necessarily grew to be more than a revision.
Except in a few chapters, occasional sentences and paragraphs are all of
the specific features of the older text that remain. Suggestive of the
rapid changes occurring in the economic field is the fact that a number
of statements made in the manuscript a few months or a few weeks ago
had to be amended in the proof sheets to accord with recent events.
The author's debt for information, inspiration, and assistance in various
phases of the work is a large one. The debt is owing to many,--authors,
colleagues, and students. A few of the sources that have been drawn
upon will be indicated in a pamphlet following the plan of the "Manual
of References and Exercises in Economics," already published for use
in connection with Volume I; but the limits of space will prevent a
complete enumeration. I wish, however, in particular, to acknowledge
gratefully the aid and friendly criticisms given in connection with the
chapters on money and banking, on labor problems, and on the
principles of insurance, respectively, by my colleagues, E.W.
Kemmerer, D.A. McCabe, and N. Carothers.
In completing, at least provisionally, the present work, the author
cherishes the hope that it will be of assistance not only to teachers and
to students in American colleges, but also to citizen-readers seeking to
gain a better and a non-partisan insight into the great economic
problems now claiming the nation's conscience and thought.
F.A.F.
Princeton, N.J., October, 1916.

MODERN ECONOMIC PROBLEMS

PART I RESOURCES AND ECONOMIC
ORGANIZATION

CHAPTER I
MATERIAL RESOURCES OF THE NATION
§ 1. Politico-economic problems. § 2. American economic problems in
the past. § 3. Present-day problems: main subjects. § 4. Attempts to
summarize the nation's wealth. § 5. Average wealth and the problem of
distribution. § 6. Changes in the price-standard. § 7. A sum of capital,
not of wealth. § 8. Sources of food supply. § 9. The sources of heat,
light, and power. § 10. Transportation agencies. § 11. Raw materials for
clothing, shelter, machinery, etc.
§ 1. #Politico-economic problems.# The word "problem" is often on
our tongues. Life itself is and always has been a problem. In every time
and place in the world there have been questions of industrial policy
that challenged men for an answer, and new and puzzling social
problems that called for a solution. And yet, when institutions, beliefs,
and industrial processes were changing slowly from one generation to
another and men's lives were ruled by tradition, authority, and custom,
few problems of social organization forced themselves upon attention,
and the immediate struggle for existence absorbed the energies and the
interests of men. But our time of rapid change seems to be peculiarly
the age of problems. The movement of the world has been more rapid
in the last century than ever before--in population, in natural science, in
invention, in the changes of political and economic institutions; in
intellectual, religious, moral, and social opinions and beliefs.
Some human problems are for the individual to solve, as, whether it is
better to go to school or to go to work, to choose this occupation or that,
to emigrate or to stay at home. Other problems of wider bearing

concern the whole family group; others, still wider, concern the local
community, the state, or the nation. In each of these there are more or
less mingled economic, political and ethical aspects. Economics in the
broad sense includes the problems of individual economy, of domestic
economy, of corporate economy, and of national economy. In this
volume, however, we are to approach the subject from the public point
of view, to consider primarily the problems of "political economy,"
considering the private, domestic, and corporate problems only
insomuch as they are connected with those of the nation or of the
community as a whole. Our field comprises the problems of national
wealth and of communal welfare.
What then are our politico-economic problems in America? They are
problems that are economic in nature because they concern the way that
wealth shall be used and that citizens are enabled to make a living; but
that are likewise political, because they can be solved only collectively
by political action.
§ 2. #American economic problems in the past.# With the first
settlements of colonists on this continent politico-economic problems
appeared. Take, for example, the land policy. Each group of colonists
and each proprietary landholder had to adopt some method of land
tenure whether by free grant or by sale of separate holdings or by
leasing to settlers. In one way and another these questions were
answered, but rapidly changing conditions soon forced upon men the
reconsideration of the problem as