This suggests the only principle of selection that was used. Obviously so small a group cannot represent current economic opinion in all its phases. But many phases are represented. Men have been drawn in who were interested mainly in the theory of prices, or the history of theory, or in quantitative measurement, or in regional comparison, or in the labor movement, or in legal economics or in proposals for economic reorganization. And naturally they have looked at economic development from their own angles of effort; and have said what really was obvious in their choice of a field, that the problems in it seem to them to be of perhaps greater importance than those in any other. It will be evident, however, that there has been an exceptionally good temper and a willingness to grant, if not first, then an immediate second place to other kinds of effort. No one of us believes, I think, that his own program is a panacea. Far from it, indeed. Every back seems turned, these days, upon Utopia; and ours, it seems, among the rest. It will be said, I suppose, that this book is a sort of a manifesto of the younger generation; and in a sense it is that, though none of us, I think, has meant to put first in his writing the critical attitude. We were bound, as a part of a tradition, from which we could not separate ourselves if we wished, to consider the work of our predecessors and to appraise its worth to us now. There has been no hesitation about this, as there should not have been. But in all of us there is a deep sense of the debt we owe to the generation that was our training school, though we may feel, more or less, that their contributions to theory and their attitudes toward industrial life, were of doubtful value in many cases. There would always be some who would feel this more than others; and this difference is reflected here. Contrasts of Professor Bye's and Professor Knight's work with that of Professor Clark or Professor Wolfe, bring the difference out quite clearly. One sense in which it can be said that the contributors here are of the younger generation is that none of us has published a book of the traditional sort called The Principles of Economics (though several of the group have such books under way) and so cannot be said to have given definite theoretical hostages. Another sense in which it could be said is that most of us are really younger in age; also that we have been trained largely in American Universities whereas our teachers were trained in Germany, and are therefore face to face with the conditions of a different and more complex life than they faced at our age. Some others, however, such as Professor Mitchell and Professor Wolfe, not being so young as most of the rest of us, have, however, evidently thought that the matter of years was not so important as the matter of mental flexibility; and we, thinking of them as belonging to us, rather than to the really old generation, and wanting them to cooperate with us, have been content not to raise the question. We have thought that it might be valuable for a new group, mostly specialists rather than general theorists, to define our positions in the general field. And this is that definition. Personally I have a considerable regret that a larger number of the younger economists could not have been included. I do not think that most people realize the gathering force of the renaissance of economic thought we are having in this country; nor how long a list could be made of younger men who are doing work of the utmost importance for our industrial civilization. However I hope that those who have not written for this book will find in it somewhere a representation of their thought. It has certainly been drawn from a number of different schools. Both deductivists and inductivists are here. So are the neo-classicists and the institutionalists. So are the marginalist logicians and the experimentalists. So are the behaviorists and the functionalists. But above all, I hope that they will see that when one comes to really stating his theoretical position and to justifying it, he finds himself in many essentials at one with others who may at first have thought of themselves as having an entirely different orientation. For modern economic thought is merging, as it was bound to do, with all our many modern forums devoted to the exchange of opinion-the journals, the association meetings, the publication of books-in a common stream flowing toward a common sea. That has never seemed so clear to me as it does now after working upon the manuscripts of this book; and I think it will appear just as clearly to any careful reader of these papers. Out of this gathering and merging in a coöperative intellectual enterprise of younger economists will come results that cannot at all be forecast from where we stand at present because there never has been anything comparable to it in the whole history of past thought. But it stirs the imagination profoundly; in it, and in the like coöperations of the other sciences, together with the possibility of their successful interchange of thought, there lies the possibility of a remade world—no less. For the convenience of the reader who may wish to know something more about any individual writer here than appears from reading his contribution, a sort of "who's who" is appended which gives a résumé of the intellectual history of each author. Included in it is a complete bibliography of the published writings of each of us. Also, so that what is significant in recent economic development may be made more completely available to anyone who cares to read further, and especially, of course, for the use of students of economics, a bibliography is appended. It is what might be called a "synthetic' bibliography. Professor Wolfe submitted the first list and it was sent, then, for additions, to as many of the contributors as could be reached. It, therefore, does not represent the opinion of any one of us concerning what is important in recent economic literature, but, rather, includes what each of us thought to be the most significant contributions he knew of. This will help to repair the omission of so many important thinkers from the list of the contributors here. As editor, I have certain acknowledgments to make. Mr. E. J. Allen labored beyond all reason to make a useful index; Mr. E. E. Neff worked over the manuscripts and proofs in such fashion as to enlarge a debt to him that was already unconscionably large; all the contributors exhibited such forbearance and such a compromising disposition as, if the whole of the matter could ever be known, would appear most truly remarkable. And they were not only patient: they were interested and helpful beyond my deserts, who proved to be a most importunate editor. I can only acknowledge these debts; there is no way of paying them. Columbia University January, 1924. REXFORD GUY TUGWELL |