ABSTRACT
The debate to which Howard refers-between the increase production school and the more just and equitable distribution school-continues unabated a century later-with the former school’s argument labelled ‘trickle-down theory’: the benefits of economic growth will dribble through even to the least fortunate, so it is unwise to adopt policies that could inhibit that growth, however regressive they might appear. Thus, economists and politicians debate the question: a common assumption has been that economic development at first increases wealth disparities but then decreases them as mass education diffuses skills and reduces the economic ‘rent’ to qualified workers. But this assumption, current in the 1960s, has been shattered by sharp increases in income disparity, at least in the United States and Britain, in the 1980s and 1990s. Howard seems to be developing a concept that Garden Cities will prove uniquely advantageous locations for encouraging new small enterprises which will diffuse wealth widely. Implicit here is the notion of the economy as highly dynamic-a concept that would later be developed by Joseph Schumpeter in his theory of economic development through ‘new men’ introducing technological or organizational innovations. In 1898 it was a remarkably original idea, though the germ of it can be found in Marshall’s Principles (commentary page 55).
