either by the increasing share of the workers, or by the needs and uses of an enlightened State, or by both, this economic disease would be remedied. A sound distribution, thus attained, would react in fuller, more regular, and more productive activity through-out the economic system, imparting an order and a progress to society not otherwise attainable.
The thesis is no new one. It has a considerable history in the course of modem economic thought. But it has almost always been vitiated by some extremity of statement or by association with attacks upon the virtue of personal thrift. I have here endeavoured to avoid both these mistakes, and to present the theory as an essential factor in the principles of social progress. In particular, I have sought to set the doctrine in its true relation to those mainly or exclusively financial explanations of trade depression which are so prevalent at the present time, and to indicate the true and important ways in which the ill-controlled credit system operates to enhance the fluctuations of trade.
I desire here to express my deep obligation to Mr. Sidney Webb and Mr. R. H. Tawney, who have read these chapters in manuscript and have made many valuable suggestions and corrections.
J. A. HOBSON.
Hampstead
July, 1922.
