5o 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



WELFAEE AND THE NEW ECONOMICS 



By Professor SCOTT NEARING 



UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 



ECONOMIC thought is undergoing a profound and rapid trans- 

 formation. Linked, as it must ever be, with the problems of 

 government, economics has been drawn into the maelstrom of progres- 

 sivism which has gripped the western world. Vainly do the classicists 

 protest. Futility grips the throats of the doctrinaires. Economic 

 science is being wrenched from its eighteenth-century setting and 

 thrown bodily into the arena of twentieth-century discussion. How 

 sound is this tendency? With what disquietude or satisfaction should 

 men view the efforts of economists to take their places " on the firing 

 line of progress " ? 



Society was ruled during the middle ages by arbitrary laws, enacted 

 by the church, or by the state, acting (theoretically) for the church. 

 The light of the semi-democratic civilization of Greece and Eome had 

 faded from the political horizon. Despotism, the patron saint of the 

 time, reigned supreme with fate, her next of kin. 



Here and there a bold spirit arose, contending with authority, 

 questioning theological dogma, and calling men to thought and free- 

 dom. Cells and gibbets harbored many such. Above them, the bul- 

 warks of social tradition loomed stolidly, proclaiming abroad the 

 noisome doctrine that, while a true believer might slay twenty Moham- 

 medans in the name of Jesus, he might not think one original thought 

 in the name of truth. 



Yet the light broke. From questioning the infallibility of a cor- 

 rupt and dissolute church, men turned to question the infallibility of 

 the Scripture. They would at least read for themselves. So theolog- 

 ical dogma was thrust aside here and there, by the braver hearts who 

 began to ask of all things: 



1. What is it? 



2. Why is it? 



3. How can we employ it for our advantage ? 



Similar questions had arisen in classical days, but the age of Scrip- 

 ture had overshadowed them. Now they were asked again, with re- 

 doubled vigor. 



Gradually the answers were formulated. The first question re- 

 sulted in classification, which is the foundation of constructive thought. 

 The question "Why?" gave rise to evolutionary science. The world, 



