Page:Confessions of an Economic Heretic.djvu/79

 reasonable and disinterested he may think himself to be, can be sure he is evading all of them. The psychology of a situation where one’s own personal interests stand in sharp opposition to one’s cherished intellectual code carries possibilities of tragic or of comic error. It is evidently impossible for me to carry further this analysis, though it was necessary in order to present the proper limitations to my “objective” thinking.

This attitude of detachment was strengthened by my virtual abandonment of University Extension work in the beginning of the new century and the devotion of most of my energy towards articles and books developing my welfare economics. Most of the articles written for the Manchester Guardian and the Speaker had a political import such as Free Trade, the Referendum, Imperial Expansion. But, as already indicated, here as in my published books, ethics in the sense of human valuations was continually asserting its sway over economics and politics. This trinity of forces did not, however, imply the acceptance of any absolute conception of “the good life” such as ethical teachers have sometimes seemed to claim. For the substance of “welfare” itself must shift with the changes that take place in economic and political institutions and activities. This dynamic conception of welfare, while precluding a separate monetary or other economic criterion, demands that economic activities shall be brought continually into