THE END OF LAISSEZ-FAIRE

possible scale of what is most strongly desiredas measured by exchange value.

The beauty and the simplicity of such atheory are so great that it is easy to forget thatit follows not from the actual facts, but froman incomplete hypothesis introduced for thesake of simplicity. Apart from other ob-jections to be mentioned later, the conclusionthat individuals acting independently for theirown advantage will produce the greatestaggregate of wealth, depends on a variety ofunreal assumptions to the effect that theprocesses of production and consumption arein no way organic, that there exists a sufficientforeknowledge of conditions and requirements,and that there are adequate opportunities ofobtaining this foreknowledge. For econo-mists generally reserve for a later stage oftheir argument the complications which arise—(i) when the efficient units of production arelarge relatively to the units of consumption,(2) when overhead costs or joint costs arepresent, (3) when internal economies tend tothe aggregation of production, (4) when the

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