THE POVERTY OF ECONOMICS.

NZ Truth, Issue 605, 20 January 1917, Page 8

THE POVERTY OF ECONOMICS.

Dear "Truth,"— Poverty is a negative virtue. So is sleeping bn one feather. -It is too much or too little feather, therefore it is a waste of one good feather. On the other hand, if the sleeper was a non -producer and lay on enough feathers to make a comfortable couch, there would still be poverty. This because no amount of non-utility will make a community rjcher. Poverty exists m a superfluity as well as m a scarcity. I was m doubt about a poverty of morality until I read the mighty "Atom's", hypercriticisms. It was the same superfluity or non-utility m words with which I had dealt before. Here was the thing much discussed m "Truth" — a poverty of morality— -In ideas; m economics. A multiplication of misty obscurity of thought which though adding something to the gaiety of nations, adds nothing material m ideasto the sum of human knowledge. "Atom" should know that. One article well read is better than fifty misread. . He. has not been just. He. has misquoted the words and substitutes "Ajax's" Ideas for economics. He imagines a good deal, but he has not yet began to understand economics. There was a small boy once who always wanted something, but he could not tell right what it was. His father gave it to him "some," and it cured the disease — although the boy could not sit down for quite a while. Reading between the lines the * dope "Atom" is anxious the workers should tuck m is the stodge or cinder and dough of capitalist economics, which only capitalist human ostriches arid sharks can tuck m and get blowed out upon like a grampus or a porpoise. One may shut his eyes to facts, but they have an awkward way of bobbing up unexpectedly. There must, however, be some virtue m capitalist economics to keep the avolrdiapois of "Fat" steadily balanced. This virtue is' a fact,' but it assumes such intransigent shapes sometimes, that its ' own mother Is not prepared to stand by her offspring. The intelligence of a whale is a fact. One time capitalist economics was human. Now it is inhuman — an untamed intractable beast. A little virtue serves to ■] keep a heap of sin alive m economics, as m morals\ In connection with capitalism, nothing is so evident as the, poverty of its economics and poverty of its morality. The bulk is out of all proportion to its ■ "beautiful" virtue and "beautiful" utility — that is if we consider that a capitalist is a human being. There are some people who assert that this is gravely open to question. Some people are paralysed by the capitalist horror. The blood freezes m their veins when they observe its appalling dimensions. It knocks all religion, all romance out of life. The monster confronts them even m their dreams. They cannot get it out of their minds; they are afraid of"Mt for their children. There are "sports" whom capitalism hypnotises. It thrills them. They admire power. They profess to admiro the animal, but the admiration and the suggestion of killing prove the innopence of their faith and lack of sincerity, logic, ana force m Jheir ideas. They think they, are all m this fight, but they are not by a heap. If "Ajax" cannob paint the lily, it is unquestionable "Atom" cannot knock .spots off it. The general position assumed In "Economics" by "Ajax" is radically unsound. Even m the capitalist state we are not dealing with a piece of machinery Invented by capitalists or with the economic environment alone, but with deeper forces. We are dealing with a cosmogony apart from the physical environment peculiar to Itself, and reacting from Itself with an organism which can grow and develop or be modified almost indefinitely as the variation and distribution of the species on the earth show and evolution now going on proves. But only according to the laws of individual and the social economy of living organisms. It Is a pity "Atom" did not bring his intelligence to bear on one of tb© four obIjectlona raised. '"Atom" says the functions of Government are to govern the subjects. Tho subjects can govern, dominate, rule for themselves. It is tho objects, not the subjects, which may be out; pf place and want putting In place. Here are some more ant) -climaxes of "Atom's" statements which nullify themselves, and nullify "Atom's" comments on "another plug 1 " who considered a knowledge of economics not necessary. He says, "Fat thinks tho same thing." He then goes on to say economics deal with the actual, and is what the capitalists practice. Ho advises me to stick to the . "prcatical" to avoid "theory." How can capitalists put In practise that which he says they disregard? If the capitalists make good without a knowledge of economics, why laugh at another plug for Baying: such know- ' ledge Is not a necessary condition of success? — Yours, etc., "T.A.E."