1-28-47 LVK 53×65 Origin of the Theory-The Theory in the Hands of the Trades Unions-Criticism and Rejec- tion of the Theory-Real Source of Wages- The Economy of High Wages-The Mistake Origin of Malthus's Theory-Its Purely Tem- porary Nature - Criticism and Rejection of the Theory-Insidious Results of the Theory 12 The Ricardian Labour-Value Theory-Its History Criticism and Rejection of it-Its Per- nicious Effects in Modern Socialism The Ricardian Theory of Rent-Its History— Criticism and Rejection of it-Its Pernicious SECTION I.-The Reasons for the Decline of Dutch Commerce under a Free Trade System SECTION II.-The Reasons for the Prosperity of English Trade under a Protective System. History of the Four Great English Industries: SECTION III.-The Reasons for the Prosperity of the Trade of the United States under INTRODUCTION THE nineteenth century has been consecrated to the religion of democracy. Loud and swelling have been the platitudes which have trumpeted forth the advent of a new era, the coming millennium, the glorious time in which all men shall be equal, free, and happy, when wars and industrial competition and individual ambitions shall cease. And endless have been the formulas, theories, and quack nostrums which have been put forward in the cause of the great movement of democratic advance. There are not wanting signs that this movement has spent its force and that the reaction is at hand. The twentieth century is already setting its face towards a return upon the experience of the nineteenth. Men are at last grasping the cardinal fact that the mere forms of constitutions and institutions are of slight account in human life; that what is of vital importance is the spirit which fills those forms. On every hand the cry is for efficiency in all departments of public life-political and economic -and by the side of this cry the old shibboleths of the nineteenth century, democracy and socialism, are falling into contempt. A On the Continent constitutional government is an admitted failure, and the tendency is to kick out paper constitutions and to revert to strong rule. In the great self-governing colonies and in the American Commonwealth not less than in England itself, thinking men are shocked by the political corruption or the hopeless administrative inefficiency which characterises democratic rule. Equally so in the economic domain. The paralysing influences of the labour movement and the blind futility of the socialist movement are matter of every-day observation. Not merely is public opinion ripening to throw off the incubus of the everlasting labour movement, but also the actual trend of events in the domain of international commerce is bringing us to the threshold of strife. This book is written in the firm persuasion that such a reaction and such a strife are inevitable, and that their approach is only a question of time. Now, if battle is to be joined, the great essential is that the ground should be marked out and the issue clearly stated. What is the nineteenth century social democratic movement and what is its basis? Strange as the assertion may sound, this question has never yet been quite properly raised. The attitude of the first half of the century towards the movement was one of an absolute and disdainful non possumus, |