Introduction

Abstract

The writer about to add his shovelful to the enormous dustpile of gold standard literature owes an apology or rather an apologia. So much has been written on the subject, so many eminent economists have spoken their minds about it that a new contribution cannot hope to claim the attention of a weary and oversatiated public without first giving a statement of the reasons which have led its author to believe that there is anything more to be said.

The real difficulty, then, has its roots not in this or that economic problem, but in the fact that the form of public life in which the economic capabilities should develop themselves is altogether inadequate to the magnitude of these latter. José Ortega y Gasset