ISO SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



the loss to the landlords — but only if individuals are treated in some sense 

 as equal. Otherwise how can the loss to some, and that there was a 

 loss can hardly be denied, be compared with the general gain ? If the 

 incomparability of utility to different individuals is strictly pressed, not 

 only are the prescriptions of the welfare school ruled out, but all pre- 

 scriptions whatever. The economist as an adviser is completely stultified, 

 and, unless his speculations be regarded as of paramount aesthetic value, 

 he had better be suppressed completely. No ; some sort of postulate of 

 equality has to be assumed. But it should be carefully framed and used 

 with great caution, always subject to the proviso ' unless the contrary can 

 be shown.' In the case of the free market arguments there is usually no 

 characteristic attaching peculiarly to the beneficiaries of restriction other 

 than that they are beneficiaries. In the case of the uneven distribution 

 of income, there are many special characteristics of the rich as a class to 

 which due consideration must be given. 



(ii) Objection may be raised on more general grounds which appear to 

 me to have greater weight. The distribution of income is intimately 

 connected with the balance of social and political forces, the study of 

 which is outside the economist's province. In prescribing here he knows 

 without being told that there are other considerations. This is not to say 

 that he should avoid all questions with political entanglements, for then 

 again he would be almost completely stultified. Most vested interests 

 can whip up some political support. It is a matter of degree and sense 

 of proportion. 



It might further be urged that since redistribution is a straightforward 

 matter widely understood, the economist might well leave it alone, since 

 he can but reinforce in technical language an argument already before 

 the public. Projects of redistribution, however, may have complicated 

 ramifications which the economist is especially qualified by his other 

 training to trace out. For instance, in his Public Finance Prof. Pigou has 

 worked out with great elaboration the principles and consequences of a 

 redistributive system of taxation. It may safely be said that this work 

 would have been beyond the powers of any but a highly trained economist. 



II. 



General Theory of Value and Distribution (Static Theory). 



We now enter the territory which has increasingly come to be regarded 

 as the special domain of the economic theorist. It is here that we find the 

 laws relating to the succession of phenomena, claiming a high degree of 

 authority, on which prediction is based. 



It is not altogether clear why this department of thought has been 

 so greatly elevated. The trouble may have begun with Ricardo. He 

 wrote : ' in different stages of society, the proportions of the whole 

 produce of the earth which will be allotted to each of these classes, under 

 the names of rent, profit, and wages will be essentially different ... to 

 determine the laws which regulate this distribution is the principal problem 

 of Political Economy.' Why the principal problem ? We are not told. 



