Page:Confessions of an Economic Heretic.djvu/153

 desirable life. Two considerations debar it. From the standpoint of human economics, it may be better to produce a volume of goods below the “optimum” if thereby the human costs of production are reduced. Most populational “optimists” do not take into account costs of production but only utilities of consumption. This consideration of costs, however, is closely linked with that of leisure and the whole range of non-economic factors in human welfare. The importance of leisure, as we realize, grows greater with every increased mechanization and standardization of work. But though, in a sense, this leisure is itself an economic product, its translation into desirable and beneficial modes of living belongs to free personality and lies outside the field of “optimum productivity.” Some uses of leisure will, of course, produce high forms of economic goods but .other uses will yield vital values so individually qualitative as to negate comparison. My whole argument is that the economic system in a progressive civilized society forms the basis of a higher personal and communal life whose values evade strict measurement.

But are all people to be deemed equally capable of these intrinsically higher vital values? If they are, then the economic problem seems soluble on the basis of such distribution of work and wealth as will give equal leisure and liberty of personal growth to all. But if they are not equal, does not our conception of maximum human welfare require us to take account