K— ECONOMIC yClENOE AND STATISTICS. 137 



inheritance and bequest are correlatives. Therefore, if rights of inheritance 

 were altered, capital would dry up, and workers would suffer. The worker 

 lias no real right to be annoyed or sulky at a system which really benefits 

 him, and in which the appearance of social injustice is an illusion ; there- 

 fore we can ignore the fact that he actually is annoyed and sulky. Great 

 businesses give the worker something he would not otherwise liave — they 

 depend on the right of accumulation, and therefore inheritance laws are 

 sacrosanct." 



Now I would say that since what people think, however unjustifiably 

 or erroneously, affects their conduct and motives, and has, therefore, 

 economic significance, these ideas are, as existing features of conduct, 

 economic /ads or ingredients. But to say they represent actual economic 

 truths, or logical economic analysis, would be very inexact. 



VI. The Problem To-day. 



Before we can approach to any conclusions upon inheritance laws as 

 an economic factor, we need research and analysis to give answers to a 

 number of specific questions, some of them quite central and critical in 

 making an economic contribution to the subject, and others less important, 

 but helpful. 



First, we have those which depend upon an inductive study of periods 

 and places, and which can at best be only broadly indicative of the pre- 

 disposing causes : 



1. Has distribution tended to become more unequal under freedom 

 of inheritance or beqiiest as tinie has gone on l 



2. Is it most unequal where freedom is greatest ? 



3. Is there any evidence that the actual standard of life and oppor- 

 tunity of a person of given powers has failed to improve under such a 

 system, or has improved at a less rate than it would have done under 

 another system ? 



4. Is there any evidence that the actual modal standard is highest 

 wherever and whenever inequalities, however caused, are least ? 



5. Ignoring the proportions in which aggregate wealth or income is 

 distributed, and focussing upon the increase in the aggregate wealth or 

 income of separate communities, is there anj' evidence that the rate of 

 increase is greater or less in communities with most liberal rights of 

 bequest ? (This is similar to 3 stated in another way, and disregards the 

 effect upon average wealth which an increase or decrease of population, 

 stimulated by increasing prosperity, may have.) 



Second, there is the group of questions bearing on the importance 

 of inheritance amongst all the factors which proniote inequality. 



6. What other factors besides inheritance are held to promote or niain- 

 tain inequality, and what is their relative importance in such causation ? 



7. What proportion of the number of recipients of the larger incomes 

 draw such incomes wholly from invested sources ? What proportion of 

 the total amount of income drawn liy the recipients of the larger incomes 

 comes from sources unconnected with their personal toil or enterprise ? 

 (This is essential to help us find the relative importance of inheritance under 

 question 6.) 



