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 II THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PRESENT ECONOMIC SYSTEM It is the object of the present chapter to give a descriptive survey of the fundamental institutions and forces of the existing economic order. Our Environment. — Lying back of all of our economic activity is the fact that we live in an environment in which the things that we desire are not furnished spontaneously in unlimited quantities. Whether it be looked upon as due to the niggardliness of nature or to the insatiability of human wants, the fact is that, for the most part, the materkl things that we use must be economized. We must put forth effort and exercise self-denial in order to enjoy the good things of life. Those human arrangements which help to determine how much of effort, of self-denial, and of enjoyment is to fall to the lot of each of us are the characteristics to which we now turn our attention. There are, however, a number of social institutions which do not fall within the scope of the present chapter. We deal here only with the social conditions directly underlying our economic activity, which is but one aspect of our social life. We must leave to the sociologists and other students of society a discussion of such topics as the family, religion, morality, ceremonial institutions, and the nature of government, although, to be sure, these also have their effect upon the economic sphere and are in turn affected by it. In the present chapter also we omit a study of the economic significance of our physical environment, which receives independent treatment in books on economic geography. Private Enterprise and State Activity. — We live in an age when private enterprise, for the most part, is relied upon to furnish uswith the necessities and enjoyments of life. The cultivation of the soil, t...