ABSTRACT
One of the most commonly offered e:x:planations of why a people do not save, that their incomes are so low as to allow no margin over the minimum required for subsistence, has two possible meanings. If 'by minimum required for subsistence is meant an amount barely large enough to permit survival, then the general proposition is equivalent to saying that a decline in income would resuit in starvation and death. If on the 'other hand minimum requirements for subsistence are defined in terms of what a population conceives to be tolerable, then the general proposition is that the desire for consumption goods is so high 'as to consume all current production. Put in these absolute terms it seems most unlikely that the proposition is true of any human popul'ation. For it implies complete improvidence, complete failure to provide for periods when game may be scarce and crops may 'be short. In absolute terms, indeed, it implies consumption of all crops at time of harvest. It would also mean a society without tools, without homes, even without clothing, all of which depend on deferment of consumption in order to come into being and all of which furnish consumption satisfactions over a period of months or years. Not to save at 'all means not to survive.
