ontroversy:

"And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war."

[Footnote 1: _Narcissus_, by Samuel Butler and Henry Festing Jones.]

CHAPTER IX

LABOR

Sec.1. _A Retrospect on Laissez-faire_. When, a century and a half ago,
the foundations were being laid in the Western world of systematic
economic theory, the public attention was much occupied with a
subject, which indeed has not ceased to hold it: that of the failings
of Governments. The general interest in that topic was shared by the
pioneers of economic thought, of whom, in Great Britain, Adam Smith
was the most notable. It was indeed their practical concern with the
concrete economic issues of the day which very naturally gave the
impetus to their scientific quest. It was hardly less natural that
they should have expressed their opinions on these concrete issues
with considerable emphasis.

Now the keynote of their practical conclusions was that Governments
were doing immense mischief by meddling with a great many matters,
which they would have done better to leave alone. In this they were in
general agreement with one another; incidentally--let there be no
mistake about it--they were right. But, as invariably happens in
public controversy, their opinions became crystallized in a compact
formula, or cry, with unduly sweeping implications. This was the cry
of "_laissez-faire_." Let Governments preserve law and order; and
leave the economic sphere alone. The economists picked no quarrel with
this formula; it served well enough for workaday purposes to indicate
the lines of policy which they rightly thought essential in their day.

The history of this cry is the history of every cry which has won a
wide acceptance from mankind. It did good work for perhaps half a
century; but then many crimes were committed in its name. The
instrument which had been forged to clear away a noxious tariff jungle
and the monstrous laws of Settlement, was turned against Lord
Shaftesbury and the Factory Acts. Not only was inaction recommended
to Governments as the highest wisdom; other institutions, like trade
unions, were warned off the economic grass. An ideal of perfect
competition became an idol to which much human flesh and blood were
sacrificed.

But, what is more to our present purpose, the idea took root of an
intimate association between the laws of economics and the policy of
_laissez-faire_. People who opposed some long-overdue meas