ABSTRACT
The politician uses the language of welfare economics: he expounds his achievements in terms of increases of the national income; and he justifies measures hurtful to some by claiming that others have so profited as to make the balance of alterations favorable. The glaring precedence of economics over political science in the counsels of government does not seem to me due so much to the nature of the problems as to the attitude of economists as against that of political scientists. The economists have been more daring. They have forged ahead because they have wanted to be effective and have to that end ventured assumptions. In the dismal days of equilibrium theories, which showed that under frictionless conditions, not to be found in reality, a general equilibrium would result about which nothing much could be said, the Western mania for measuring stood economics in good stead.
