Economic Maturity: An Industrial View

Abstract

IT IS not the writer's wish to add to the theoretical discussion of his subject but rather to point out some of the human reactions involved in attempts to reduce the theory of maturity to a working system Economics is only the study of human nature in its bread-and-butter relations.What we call economic laws are merely statements of the ways in which human nature reacts to particular conditions. As conditions change, reactions change, even though the underlying motivation (usually self-interest) remain constant. Thus, the change from an agricultural to a predominantly manufacturing economy does not change human nature; but it changes profoundly its ways of expressing itself. The change from a handicraft economy of limited output to a machine economy of mass production and large fixed capital has brought into play a whole new set of reactions-virtually laws. Those new laws fitting new conditions are no more repealable by statute than is human nature itself or the law of gravitation. We may debate their precise formulation and how best to use them; it is futile to debate their force.