Such then, is the subject matter of economic science spread out in some detail. But behind all these there are practical questions which give the chief motive to our interest in the subject; and though not within the actual range of the science, it will be of interest to us to hear the same authority state them. They vary very much from time to time. The earlier economists were occupied with the need of removing restrictions on free commerce, and government regulation generally, and they glorified economic freedom. We ask with Marshall:
“How should we act so as to increase the good and diminish the evil influences of economic freedom, both in its ultimate results, and in the course of its progress? If the first are good and the latter evil, but those who suffer the evil do not reap the good, how far is it right that they should suffer for the benefit of others?”
“Taking it for granted that a more equal distribution of wealth is to be desired, how far would this justify changes in the institution of property, or limitations of free enterprise, even when they would be likely to diminish the aggregate of wealth? In other words, how far should an increase in the income of the poorer classes and a diminution of their work be aimed at, even if it involved some lessening of national material wealth? How far could this be done without injustice, and without slackening the energies of the leaders of progress? How ought the burdens of taxation to be distributed among the different classes of society?”
“Ought we to rest content with the existing forms of division of labour? Is it necessary that large numbers of the people should be exclusively occupied with work that has no elevating character? Is it possible to educate gradually among the great mass of workers a new capacity for the higher kinds of work, and in particular for undertaking co-operatively the management of the businesses in which they are themselves employed?”
“What are the proper relations of individual and collective action in a stage of civilization such as ours? How far ought voluntary association in its various forms, old and new, to be left to supply collective action for those purposes for which such action has special advantages? What business affairs should be undertaken by society itself acting through the Government, imperial or local? Have we, for instance, carried as far as we should the plan of collective ownership and use of open spaces, or works of art, of the means of instruction and amusement, as well as of those material requisites of a civilized life, the supply of which requires united action, such as gas and water and railways?”