e to a glorification of the
existing system of society, to a defence of all manner of indefensible
things; and a cross-grained attitude towards all projects of
reform. It is a short step; but it is one which it is quite
unjustifiable to take. For the evils of our economic system are too
plain to be ignored; too many people have harsh personal experience of
the wastefulness of its production, the injustice of its distribution;
of its sweating, its unemployment and slums. And when the attempt is
made to plaster over evils, such as these with obsequious rhetoric
about the majesty of economic law, it is not surprising that the
spirit of many men should revolt and that they should retort by
denying the existence of order in the business world, by declaring
that the spectacle which _they_ see is one of discord, confusion and
chaos. And then we are engulfed in a controversy as stale, flat and
unprofitable as that between the "theorist" and the "practical man."

The truth is that the language of praise and obloquy is quite
inappropriate. In the first place, it may be well to note that the
order of which I have spoken manifests itself not merely in those
economic phenomena which are beneficial to man, but hardly less in
those which work to his hurt. Even in those alternations of good and
bad trade, which spell so much unemployment and misery, there is
discernible a rhythmic regularity like that of the process of the
seasons, or the ebb and flow of the tide. This is not an elegance to
be admired. Furthermore, in so far as the order comprises adjustments
and tendencies which are beneficial (as, indeed, is mainly true),
there is no warrant for assuming that these are either adequate to
secure a prosperous community or dependent upon the social
arrangements which happen to exist. Let us, therefore, refrain from
premature polemics and examine in a spirit of detachment some further
aspects of the elaborate, but yet unorganized, cooperation of which so
much has been already said.

Sec.4. _Some Reflections upon Joint Products_. A quite inadequate idea of
the complexity of this cooeperation is obtained by dwelling on the
numbers of people who participate in it, or the immense distances over
which it extends. The deficiency can be partially supplied by
referring to some of the more obvious of the many subtle
interconnections which exist between different commodities and
different trades.

There are innumerable groups of commodities