ABSTRACT
In a great neo-classical economic text written more than 100 years ago, Alfred Marshall made the point that social systems have inertia that enables them to carry flaws and imperfections along with them, to the detriment of the members of those social systems.
Adam Smith was yet careful to indicate many points in which the system failed…. But many of his followers with less philosophical insight, and in some cases with less real knowledge of the world, argued boldly that whatever is, is right…. they did not see that the very strength of the system as a whole enabled it to carry along with it many incidents which were in themselves evil.
(Marshall 1898:325)