Page:Confessions of an Economic Heretic.djvu/148



economics of welfare has, of course, to meet the difficulty that no agreed standard of valuation for welfare on its higher levels is attainable. Whereas the growth or decline of economic wealth, reckoned in terms of money, is capable of exact measurement, the welfare related to it is not. For, as we see, it will depend upon the human costs and utilities embodied in this wealth and will vary with its distribution both in processes of production and of consumption. Nor is that the only difficulty. Our theory demands that the human values embodied in economic goods shall be “real” in the sense that they contribute to the benefit of the individual and the community as organic wholes. This consideration debars us from accepting as welfare goods which may express the mistaken immediate desire for enjoyment in disregard of the long-range organic value. Some considered conception of a human personality as a whole is evidently necessary to the right interpretation of welfare. But those who would argue that the State as representing the long-range interests of welfare of the community is alone capable of applying the organic standard go too far. For though it is true that some of the greatest benefits from an enlightened government take shape in