Recent Developments in American Economic Policy [antikvár]

Recent Developments in American Economic Policy.^ 1. The Shifting of Collective Needs. The common use of words as well as the traditional science of economics, in economic pohcy generally, used to understand the administration of material productive life and of the circulation of goods in connection therewith, through the intervention of the community. This interpretation may be traced to a purely materialistic conception of the idea of economy which not only prevails in the thoughts of outsiders but has also played an important role in the development of our science up to the present time. For it was this materialistic conception of economy alone that rendered it possible for scientific research to concentrate itself upon a comparatively limited group of problems, thereby avoiding the division of its attention. Materialistic conception has rendered valuable services to the development of the science of economics. Recent research, however, has proved that our economic activities do not by any means confine themselves to the sphere of material production and the circulation in connection therewith. For instance, it has in the first place demonstrated by way of criticism that a considerable part of our activities about material production and circulation do not belong to the sphere 1 The present study may be regarded as an extension in the direction of applying the ideas set forth in the author's earlier work entitled „A gazdaságpolitika tudományos alapkérdései'-' (,,The Fundamental Scientific Questions of Economic Pohcy") Budapest 1927. The particulars dealt with here were placed at the author's disposal through the kindness of the National Institute of Public Administration of New York, the Department of Economics of the Public Library of New York, and the Library of Columbia University. For verbal advice his thanks are due also to Edwin R. A. Seligman and Henry Rogers Sláger, professors of Columbia University. The Hungarian edition of the present study was pubhshed early in 1929.