ABSTRACT
THAT what Adam Smith called in 1776 ‘the natural progress of opulence’ should be customarily regarded by modern western society as the principal affair in its economic history is at once natural, symptomatic and unfortunate. It is natural because the ‘progress’ which has been achieved has exceeded in the past century that of any preceding century; symptomatic because it is viewed—or was viewed in Britain and America between about 1830 and 1930—with a very high degree of self-congratulation and satisfaction; and unfortunate because this pre-occupation with the increase in wealth has obscured the many and profound social changes which that increase has entailed. Of no country is this more true than of the United States, where, in spite of the fact that extreme variations in living conditions are to be found co-existing in different parts of the country even to-day—as is natural enough over an almost continental area—living conditions have on the whole changed so greatly and so fast that what men mean by ‘living’ has itself been transformed in the course of a few generations. To speak in these circumstances merely of a standard of living—whatever degree of accuracy is achieved, and it is hard to achieve much—must of itself go far to obscure the real issue.
