ABSTRACT
While it is not in the pecuniary interest of those who have hitherto really directed or influenced the affairs of the State, to make any change in economic conditions in order to prevent unemployment, i t is not possible, even with the best will, ever to effect a radical cure in the capitalist system, because it is one which it is impossible to organize on its economic side for the common interest, as it is based essentially on private property in the means of production, and consequently on the conflict of individual interests. The evil can only be cured by making a fundamental change affecting the very basis of
the present social economy. It will repay us to inquire into this ; and we must therefore try in the first place to discover the causes of unemployment, and then consider the conditions necessary for the provision of steady work for all, in the modern world-wide economic system with its extreme division of labour and its industry on the grand scale.
