146 ROOT MATTERS IN SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PROBLEMS. 



the world at large, its defined local division of labour and 

 individual rights in large areas of land — would be altogether 

 impossible. 



Among the conflicting opinions of Political Economists, 

 Socialists, and Communists, there is at any rate this one 

 fundamental point of agreement, viz., that by a proper 

 division of labour or services, the sum total of human 

 satisfactions are greatly superior, and are enjoyed by vastly 

 greater numbers than would be possible to men were each to 

 work in a state of isolation, and each one obliged to attempt 

 to create the whole round of his own requirements. Let us 

 take it for granted, then, that division of services is a 

 necessity ; but while so doing let us bear in mind that the 

 greater satisfaction of wants in the aggregate may be attained, 

 and yet owing to an imperfect scheme of distribution a 

 sufficiency, nay, even the minimum of primary satisfaction 

 necessary to maintain life, may fail to reach many ; and hence 

 it may appear that much of the idleness, pauperism, crime, 

 misery and death experienced in crowded centres is due to 

 the defects of distribution. 



Let us therefore examine this root difficulty, free from the 

 clouds of irrelevant or less urgent considerations. Division 

 of labour without facilities for exchange may render a unit 

 more helpless in such a scheme than he would be in a savage 

 state. Much ingenuity and ability has been exercised by- 

 many writers in showing to us, as Bastiat does, the glorious 

 provisions of one of the so-called social harmonies (Liberty 

 alias Competition) in preventing monopoly, and in effecting 

 the distribution of wealth. And it may be at once conceded 

 that human society does reap all the advantages claimed on 

 behalf of competition. 



The question, however, is not — Does competition effect 

 much good ? That may be readily conceded. But confining 

 attention to the minimum of primary wants alone — Do the 

 combined effects of division of services, competition and 

 modes of exchange now existing, provide for the preservation 

 of due proportions hdween the different classes of services, so as 

 to ensure the production of primary needs in sufficiency for 

 the wants of all ; and are the means of exchange sufficiently 

 perfect to secure with more or less certainty a due modicum 

 of primary needs to all. In a word, is the " all for each " as 

 effectively complete as the " each for all ? " 



If this latter provision be defective — and this unfortunately 

 seems too true — can the defects be removed ? And if this be 

 impossible — can the evils be minimised to any extent ? All 

 possessors of services must be enabled to secure primary- 

 wants, or they perish. Eeferences to the wide distribution 

 of wealth in exchange or commercial value ; or to standard 



