Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE COMPETITIVE SYSTEM In the last chapter we stated the problem which the world has to solve — the provision of the necessities and conveniences of life in as full and free a manner as possible to all its inhabitants, and without waste. To say that this problem is absolutely solved is, of course, untrue. But nevertheless the necessities and conveniences are actually produced, perhaps not so economically or so fully as is possible, and certainly not without very great inequalities in distribution. The existing system of production and distribution is extremely complex. Indeed it would seem at first glance that there is no system at all, but merely a more or less haphazard production which results in a certain degree of efficiency. As a matter of fact the methods of production and distribution at the present time do not represent a conscious organization of the means of production. They represent rather a gradual growth and development from past times, helped here and there by conscious attempts at remedying the structure of the system as it broke down from time to time. Still there seem to be certain principles which have governed what arrangement there was in the different periods of growth, and in the present chapter we shall try to see if there are any which can be said to control our present system. Economic Freedom — The keynote to modern economic life is found in the idea of economic freedom. The phrase must be carefully explained, however, for the idea involved is a direct revolution from that which governed our organization a century ago. In the older society which preceded ours it was believed that each individual had his place. It was the duty of the group to care for the individual and the individual was responsible to the group. This idea may...