When a business man understands these peculiari ties of human wants, he gets a new idea of the real meaning of over-production. A particular industry may turn out more goods than people want at the price which covers their cost of production, but men will never produce goods in excess of human wants if production is properly adjusted to the variety of those wants. An overproduction of shoes is tanta mount to the underproduction of certain other things.
M. Sociology and sociologist is more interested in the consumption of wealth than in its production, for social institutions and customs• depend very much on the way people spend their money, on the number and character of wants they gratify. The moralist regards money as the root of all evil; the economist thinks of it as the end and aim of busipess; the sociologist regards it as the source of all that is good in material civilization. The sociolo gist sees in. the human desire for wealth one of the principal springs to human action. Ile has. learned from the study of various peoples that those who want little do little and are anemic and inefficient.
The "wantlessness of the poor" is well known to every social worker. Give the poor man new wants, says the sociologist, and you will give him ambitiO7 that will lift him out of poverty. Life indeed would be simpler if we could all model ourselves after Di °genes, that old Greek philosopher, to whom Alex ander, the world conqueror, offered to grant any favor he might ask. "Please stand out of the sun" was all that Diogenes wanted him to do. It is re ported of Diogenes that be lived in a tub and that he aimed to reduce his wants to a minimum, having, for example, thrown away his wooden cup when he chanced to see somebody else drinking out of the palm of his hand. If human beings were all like Diogenes the problems of sociology and economies would not exist, nor any of the remarkable institutions of iard ern society. "Every want," said Daniel Webker, "not a low one, physical as well as moral, Nvhich the human heart feels that brutes cannot do or feel, raises man by so much in the scale of existence." Social and industrial progress is impossible in any community or country where the natural -wants of men are stifled in their development. In India at one time, under the influence of the doctrines of Brahma the people were divided into castes. In the artificial social system thus created men had no hope of rising from one caste to a higher ; each had to be satisfied with the state in which he found himself. Under such
conditions the development of a fine civilization was impossible.
Sociologists are interested in the consumption of wealth because of the bearing it has on social welfare.
Take, for example, the drinking of alcohol. To the economist alcoholic beverages constitute wealth quite as much as wool, leather, or gold. He is interested in its cost of production and in its price, in the de mand for it and supply of it. And all these matters are of interest to the business man. The sociologist is especially concerned about the effect which the con sumption of liquor has upon a community. He finds that excessive consumption of it tends to fill the jails and almshouses and lessen the productive powers of the community. Hence he says to the business man, "If you wish to protect business from harm and con serve the buying power of the people on whom you depend, you must regulate this industry." In the United States it is easier to earn money than it is to spend it wisely. The right consumption of wealth, the proper coordination of our wants and their satisfactions, are matters upon which the welfare of society depends. Thus far science has given too little attention to the problems involved in the consumption of wealth. They concern business men quite as much as they do economists and sociologists.
11. Poverty and inconipetence.—The economist is interested in the cause of poverty and he finds it as a rule in the inefficiency of the poor, in their lack of productive power, in their ignorance, in their inability or unwillingness to perform any valuable service for society. The sociologist thinks most of the social institutions made necessary by the poor. He dis covers among paupers great numbers of defectives, delinquents and criminals, and puzzles over the prob lem of their treatment. In a properly organized society there should be no defectives, delinquents or paupers ; the ultimate aim of both economics and sociology is their elimination. They are consumers of wealth, but not producers. They are a drag upon business. Here is a task which the conscientious business man must not shirk. He must endeavor gradually to bring about such a reconstruction of so ciety that poverty and its attendant evils shall .not exist, and in this work he must look for aid and guid ance to the sociologist as well as to the economist.