ABSTRACT
Economic responsibility meant self-reliance and self-dependence. The old idea of free will is giving way to determinism, individualism to public control, personal responsibility to social responsibility. The common law treated industrial accidents as matters of personal responsibility and attempted to fix a personal blame. By comparison with the scope of responsibility as it has been presented here the laissez-faire economics may well be characterized as the economics of irresponsibility and the business system of free contract is also a system of irresponsibility when judged by the same standard. Liberal economics or business economics in general accomplishes much the same result by separating business sharply off from the rest of life. The economics of control is at war with the economics of irresponsibility. The sense of general responsibility is a fact, though it is weaker than the tie that binds a class, a trade, or a profession.
