The Distribution of Income

Abstract

POLITICAL Economy is frequently called the dismal science. Just as frequently it is denied the name of science at all, and the denial is fully justified as regards many books on Political Economy, which are full of vague speculation and rhetoric. A book like the present, however, shows the reality of the science, and how far, indeed, it is from being more dismal to the ordinary man than any other science which requires close thinking to understand it. A little reading of the present book will, indeed, prove to any intelligent reader that the analysis of the processes of exchange, which it is the function of Political Economy to examine and explain, is full of constant interest. Mr. Smart's special object is to show the distribution of the aggregate of what people call their individual incomes, and incidentally he throws a great deal of light on the production of the incomes themselves and what is meant by it, as well as on the automatic organisation of industry, which is the condition of the production and distribution. As a corollary, he discusses, from a somewhat novel point of view, the question of the socialistic organisation of society, by which so many think the present organisation can be superseded; and the proof he furnishes that production and distribution cannot but go hand in hand, and that equitable distribution is better provided for by the present organisation than in any other conceivable way, will be found most striking, and impossible for the Socialists to answer.

The Distribution of Income.

By William Smart, &c., Adam Smith Professor of Political Economy in the University of Glasgow. Pp. xv + 341. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1899.)