Essentials of Economic Theory

thrown into the foreground in the science of Social or "Political" Economy.[1] It is an organized system of industry in which we are engaged, and it is that which we care most to understand. Until recently we have had a far less satisfactory understanding of the social element in industry--that is, of the relations that men who are producing wealth sustain to each other--than we have had of such general facts as a primitive producer needs to know. We have had, for example, much information concerning the materials which the earth contains and the way to make them useful. We have had a practical knowledge of what wealth is and of the mode of creating it, and we have been able to identify it as we have seen it either in the raw or the finished state. We have known what labor is, how it proceeds and what helps it needs to enable it to make clothing, to prepare food, etc. We have not known as much about the way in which the modern market for such products is regulated, and how a modern tailor or baker shares gain