Robert Schalkenbach Foundation

Table of Contents

• Book I: The Meaning of Political Economy



• Book II: The Nature of Wealth



• Book III: The Production of Wealth



• Book IV: The Distribution of Wealth



• Book V: Money -- The Medium of Exchange and Measure of Value

Dedication

Take, since you bade it should bear,
These, of the seed of your sowing—
Blossom or berry or weed.

Sweet though they be not, or fair,
That the dew of your word kept growing;
Sweet at least was the seed.

-- Swinburne to Mazzini

To
August Lewis of New York
and
Tom L. Johnson of Cleveland, Ohio,
who, of their own motion, and without suggestion or thought of mine, have helped me to the leisure needed to write it, I affectionately dedicate what in this sense is their work.

Introductory Epigraphs

But let none expect any great promotion of the sciences, especially in their effective part, unless natural philosophy be drawn out to particular sciences; and again unless these particular sciences be brought back again to natural philosophy. From this defect it is that astronomy, optics, music, many mechanical arts, and what seems stranger, even moral and civil philosophy and logic, rise but little above their foundations, and only skim over the varieties and surface of things, viz., because after these particular sciences are formed and divided off they are no longer nourished by natural philosophy, which might give them strength and increase; and therefore no wonder if the sciences thrive not when separated from their roots.

-- Bacon, Novum Organum

___

   For tho’ the Giant Ages heave the hill
  And break the shore, and evermore
  Make and break, and work their will;
  Tho’ world on world in myriad myriads roll
  Round us, each with different power
  And other forms of life than ours,
  What know we greater than the soul?

—Tennyson