586 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 
describing their methods of treating economic phenomena as primarily ‘ statical,’ 
even if they are not quite at one in the meaning they attach to the adjective. 
Both regard a statical doctrine as, in a sense, only an introduction, though a 
necessary one in their eyes, to ‘a more philosophic treatment of society.’ It is 
not, indeed, easy to see how a whole abstract system can be made an essential 
preliminary ; if, as the former writer tells us, ‘ the function of analysis and deduc- 
tion in economics is not to forge a few long chains of reasoning, but to forge 
rightly many short chains and single connecting-links ’—a place which all sensible 
historic economists would readily grant to it. However, the distinction between 
static and dynamic is a significant precaution, if only the ordinary reader can bear 
it in mind. If ‘actual society is always dynamic,’ and ‘because of this continual 
evolution the standards of wages and of interest to-day are not what they will be 
ten years hence,’ it is evident that the lonely figure of ‘the marginal shepherd’ 
would give little help in settling, let us say, the Australian shearers’ strike. And 
this, perhaps, is why a younger American economist already referred to, who retains 
the old orthodox preference for a short way with dissenters, becomes a little 
restive, ‘The static state,’ he says, is ‘a heroic assumption of doubtful utility.’ 
Possibly he fears that, if the appearance of the promised ‘dynamic’ theory is long 
delayed, the assumption may be as dangerous as some other ‘heroic’ remedies 
have been. 
Until that time comes, and looking only at the several ‘ static’ systems them- 
selves, we find that there is hardly a single point in the whole theory of distri- 
bution on which there is as yet any approach to unanimity. What was the one 
doctrine associated with the name of Ricardo which survived the wreck of 1870- 
1880? It was the so-called ‘Ricardian’ doctrine of the rent of land. Most 
British economists cling to the conception still, and regard the distinction between 
land and other instruments of production as one of the first importance, Indeed, 
they have gone further, and have applied the marginal idea and the term ‘rent’ to 
all surpluses derived from the possession of differential advantages. It then 
becomes natural to see ‘ quasi-rent’ or ‘analogies to rent’ in every direction. 
But, from seeing a peculiar thing everywhere, the transition is easy to seeing no 
peculiarity’anywhere, And thus it is not only the Austrian writers who are 
disposed to rubZout the distinction between land and other instruments of 
production; the chief American theorist, Professor Clark, throws the whole 
Ricardian doctrine overboard. He is daring enough to say that the arguments 
advanced to prove that ‘rent does not enter into price’ would ‘ prove that wages 
and interest are also residual amounts, having no price-making power; and this 
is an absurdity.’ A growing band of American disciples accepts this view; and 
in recent text-books,‘like those of Professors Fetter and Seligman, the beginner 
is calmly told that the doctrine still taught by high authority in England ‘is now 
being abandoned by economic students,’ 
The same contention reaches our ears when we approach any other part of 
the field of distribution. What, for instance, is profit? Is it a return for the 
business man’s share in the work of production? Is it a marginal product? Or 
does it arise because the owners of the real ‘factors of production’ do not succeed 
in getting thei ‘marginal products’? Is there, after all, normally no absolute 
net profit (Unternehmergewinn) apart from interest, wages,and insurance? On 
all these points discord reigns among what would seem to be equally competent 
theorists. Or take interest. What is the explanation of the fact of interest P 
Large Austrian books have been translated which dismiss all previous explanations 
with contempt, and instruct us that the true solution is the discounting of future 
goods, This view, which our leading English economist condemns as ‘one-sided,’ 
has, nevertheless, found some acceptance in England, and it is accepted wholesale 
in the Dutch treatise which has been recently translated for our benefit because of 
its unique combination of reasoning power with knowledge of affairs. If there 
were time we could take the remaining topic of distribution, viz., wages, and 
entangle ourselves in the like perplexity. It may be enough if we notice in passing 
that, on such a vital question as whether trade-unions could effect a general rise of 
wages, not cnly would opinions differ, but those who agreed in their answers would 
get at them in quite different ways, 
