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with the productive plans or schemes of entrepreneurs) gets an income determined on the principles of rent.

Space does not permit a full exposition of even the salient points of M. Lavergne's system, but two of its features deserve some notice. In the first place, only the net income going to absolutely free capital in the form of loanable funds is called interest. Income arising from the ownership of the concrete, material instruments of production is called rent. The distinction made is closely allied to that emphasized in Marshall's discussion of quasi-rent, although Lavergne does not concern himself with the difference between the long-time and short-time points of view. A second noteworthy point is the treatment of marginal productivity. Diminishing productivity does not appear as an all-pervading principle, determining the proportions in which the factors in production are combined. Instead, labor and free capital (loanable funds, viewed not as a separate factor, but as a necessary instrument in the employment of all the factors in production) are regarded as the active, variable, factors; while land, specialized capital, and the entrepreneur's plans are viewed as the passive, constant, factors. Thus profits appear as a species of differential rent, but otherwise the theory bears little resemblance to Walker's well known ideas on this point.

I am inclined to think that a more thorough acquaintance with what other theorists have done in the past, as well as with what is being done at present, would have made M. Lavergne less arrogant in his general attitude toward these others, and more dubious as to the soundness of all parts of his own constructive work. As it is, the book leaves the impression that the author has cared less whether his theories were sound than whether they were novel. This is especially unfortunate, for there is much evidence that he has theoretical power and tenacity.

ALLYN A. YOUNG.

Washington University.

Le Conflit des Doctrines dans l'Economie Politique Contemporaine. By CHARLES BROUILHET. (Paris: Felix Alcan. 1910.

Pp. viii, 306. 3.50 fr.)

This is not a discussion of value doctrine or of distributive theory, as one might imagine, but a plea for radicalism in politics and in legislation. The author is not a socialist, but a radical-as in some degree all men of good sense have now-a-days to

be. He is a believer in state intervention rather than a follower of the classical tradition; whereby he recognizes that he is not likely to find great favor among the current custodians of economic authority in France.

Something of the method and the point of view of the work can be inferred from the following:

La physiocratie inspirée par Quesnay fonde tout son système sur une division tripartite de la société: A la base, une classe de producteurs, les exploitants du sol; au-dessus, une classe de propriétaires, dont fait partie l'Etat et qui prélève son revenu sur celui de la première classe; en marge des deux, la classe des parasites, c'est-a-dire de toutes les personnes qui vivent des services rendus aux membres des deux classes précédentes. La richesse n'est obtenue que par la première classe; mais des droits sur elle circulent pour aboutir entre les mains de la deuxième et de la troisième (p. 6). Aucune refutation sérieuse n'a été faite de cette théorie, elle exprime une vérité historique éternelle. .Partout et toujours il y a eu une classe qui a produit, une autre qui a d'autorité préléve sur elle, une troisième qui s'est ingeniée à vivre en rendant des services aux deux autres (p. 6, 7).

Les salaires, revenus de la première classe, n'ont aucune force ascensionnelle spontanée. Ils semblent avoir tiré de l'action volontaire des hommes tout ce qu'ils pouvaient et s'arréter là (p. 8).

University of Missouri.

H. J. DAVENPORT.

Contemporary Social Problems. A Course of Lectures Delivered L

at the University of Padua. By ACHILLE LORIA. Trans-
lated from the Italian with the permission of the author by
JOHN LESLIE GARNER. (London: Swan Sonnenschein and
Company; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1911. Pp.
vii, 156. $1.00.)

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In the preface the author says "anyone who seeks in these pages a profound and rigorous analysis of our social organization will be disappointed. However the mere posing of a question, by inducing people to think, may not be fruitless.' The point of view is that of the advanced radical economist. The first chapter develops his familiar thesis that "under the most diverse phenomena of contemporary social life, the profound, the essential cause is some economic fact." In the following chapters he traces the development of economic freedom and the modern limitations of liberty; reviews the theories of property; concludes that "Malthus' law has become a dead letter"; thinks that political economy and socialism are drawing closer together; discusses the social significance of natural selection; and, after an unsatisfac

tory consideration of social evolution, asserts that we face a social revolution that will transfer power from a class to society as a whole. In general his conclusions present nothing new, though in some cases he makes good statements of commonly accepted views. They are marred by an occasional surprising assertion and by dogmatism on contested points as in the following: "Throughout his too short life Christ was a socialist and his communist theories undoubtedly led to his tragic end"; "the English require anyone ennobled by the King immediately to change his name, a wise custom, thanks to which the name of the family is not disgraced later by the degenerate descendants of the noble”; "the human conflict instead of favoring the stronger individual always aids the weaker." The mentioning of one of Zola's characters to prove that the offspring of great men are apt to be imbeciles exemplifies an occasional unscientific argument. All in all the book does not seem a very useful one.

HERBERT E. MILLS.

Vassar College.

Bulletin Mensuel de l'Institut de Sociologie Solvay. Edited by DR. EMILE WAXWEILER, Director of the Institute. (Brussels: Institut de Solvay.)

Probably the ablest scientific review devoted to sociology is the Bulletin Mensuel of the Solvay Institute of Sociology, Brussels, Belgium, of which the first number was published January, 1910. It is in the strictest sense a scientific periodical, being devoted to the review of all articles and books which contribute in any way to the explanation of the phenomena of the social life, whether they are published under the titles of biology, physiology, psychology, or those of the several social sciences, history, law, political economy, science of religions, ethnography and sociology. The review is divided into two parts, the first of which contains in place of original articles a dozen or more critical reviews of significant articles and books along sociological lines. These critical discussions include works pertaining both to human sociology and to general biology, physiology and psychology so far as they have a bearing upon sociology. The second part of the Bulletin is devoted to a "monthly chronicle," giving lists of recent works along all lines which might pertain to the social sciences and brief reviews of the more important of these works. There is also a portion of this monthly chronicle devoted to scientific news of ac

tivities in social lines in various parts of the world. The Bulletin is thoroughly international in its scope, reviewing articles and books in all European languages and paying, one may add, especial attention to those published in the United States.

An idea of the scope of the work can perhaps best be obtained by giving a list of the critical discussions contained in the first half of the April issue. These critical discussions contained the following wide variety of titles: "Variations in the effects of cerebral lesions of the same localization, according to the degree of culture of individuals"; "Mental reactions and social reactions”; “Evolution and revolution in epochs of social reorganization"; "Persistence of primitive organization in English society of the Middle Ages"; "The determinism of successive adaptations in the financial administration of the Romans"; "Conflict of adaptations in social evolution"; "Concerning the connections between technical inventions and their influence upon the organization of industry"; "Concerning the rôle of manufacturing on a large scale upon the concentration of certain industries"; "An example of the theoretic exaggeration of the social power of money"; "The formation of oligarchies in political parties"; "The rôle of logical systems in the movements of opinion"; "The apparent social character of prayer"; "The influence of political factors upon the evolution of .religions"; "The evolution of assemblies"; "The conditions of the penetration of new ideas in primitive mentality"; "The rôle of sociology and that of statistics in the explanation of social facts"; this last is an able and penetrating criticism of certain portions of Ellwood's Sociology and Modern Social Problems.

This periodical can be commended to economists and other students of society, as showing perhaps more clearly than any other periodical now published what the scientific sociologist of the present is aiming at.

La Formation des Prix, des Denrées Alimentaires de Première Nécessité. By ALBERT DULAC. Librairie des Sciences Politiques and Sociales. (Paris: Marcel Rivière et Cie. 1911. Pp. 158. 2 fr.)

The author of this very excellent little book is a recognized authority on the present methods of marketing agricultural products in Europe. In the past he has made some valuable contributions concerning rural coöperative societies of various kinds, and

concerning free exchange in grains. In this volume he goes farther into an analysis of the mechanism of the market, and into the theory of prices than formerly.

The first part of the work is devoted to an analysis of the difference between the classes dealing with each other, the buyers and sellers. Here we get definitions of consumers and producers, and a statement of the extent to which buyers correspond to consumers and sellers to producers. Here, too, is a study of the line of demarcation between raw materials and finished products, and of the different forces at work when a raw material is being sold and when a finished product is placed on the market. This early analysis is necessary to an understanding of later conclusions. Thus, when dealing in perishable agricultural products the vendor and the producer are often the same person and the vendee and consumer are likewise the same, but when the product to be sold is a grain, for example, the vendor and the producer may remain the same, while the vendee is not at the same time the consumer. Here subjective forces do not influence the vendee in the same way as if he were a consumer.

The author also treats of the status and services of the intermediary agents and accumulated costs, and shows how these differ when we have in mind perishables, as different from non-perishables; also when we have in mind goods which must go through some manufacturing process, as different from those which do not pass through any factory. This carries the writer to a consideration of many of the complex forces which are at work and which influence prices.

His analysis is clear, and although one may not agree with some points, the subject is here presented in such a way that the volume must be admitted to be a useful addition to the altogether inadequate library on agricultural economics.

JOHN LEE COULTER.

Bureau of the Census.

NEW BOOKS

ADAMS, C. B. Social economy; or the economics of social production. (New Orleans: The author. 1911. 35c.)

BANCHI, J. Questioni economiche davanti alla morala cattolica. (Vicenza: Galla. 1910. 3.50 1.)

BONAR, J. Disturbing elements in the study and teaching of political

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