ABSTRACT
Mr. John Cummings criticises a book under the title, The Theory of the Leisure Class. Mr. Cummings's criticism is directed to three main heads: The theory of waste; the relation of the leisure class to cultural change; and the justification of leisure-class incomes. Mr. Cummings also offers a theory as to the equity of the existing distribution of property and of the incomes that accrue to the various classes in the community. In the pages which Mr. Cummings devotes to a defense of the captain of industry and his income the point of serious difference between his exposition and the argument of the book is his rejection of the distinction between "pecuniary" and "industrial" employments. The sagacity characteristic of the pecuniary employments is a sagacity in judging what persons will do in the face of given pecuniary circumstances; the sagacity required by the industrial employments is chiefly a sagacity in judging what inanimate things will do under given mechanical conditions.
