Page:Confessions of an Economic Heretic.djvu/43



two main lines of this departure lie in the development of a “humanist” interpretation of the processes of production and consumption, and in the revolt against the accepted theory of laisser-faire as a security for the welfare of the community regarded as a productive and consumptive whole.

The need for the humanization of economic science and art was intensified by the study which I gave to Ruskin in the mid-nineties. Here again the initiative was not mine but came from Sir Charles Mallet, who asked me to write the book which I published in 1898 under the title John Ruskin: Social Reformer. I had read and admired Unto this Last some years before, but had regarded it rather as a passionate rebellion than as a critical and constructive work. The violence of its assault upon modern processes and the demand for “captains of industry” to dominate economic life repelled me. But when I took it up again and read it in conjunction with Munera Pulveris, which sets forth in logical order Ruskin’s claim to be a scientific thinker, I recognized that his insistence upon interpreting the terms “wealth” and “value” in their proper meanings “welfare” and “vitality” was not