THE COMING AGE

Hokitika Guardian, 19 December 1930, Page 7

THE COMING AGE

(Exchange). Under the rather cryptic and provoking title, “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren,” that ingenious and brilliant thinker Mr Maynard Keynes lias contributed recently to the “Nation” some arresting and suggestive articles on the economic future of the world. Mr Keynes’ first object is to disabuse people’s minds of the pessimistic ideas now so widely prevalent—that human progress is slowing down, that modern civilisation is more or less a failure, and that neither prosperity nor happiness awaits the world in the years to come. Between the revolutionaries who believe in nothing but violent change and the reactionaries who are afraid even to make experiments, the world is in a bad way just now, and Mr Keynes has said what he can to cheer us up. Perhaps the most amazing fact in human history is the immensity of the progress that humanity has made in all the arts of life during the last four hundred years. Most people have entirely failed to realise that, as Mr Keynes puts it, “almost everything which really matters” in a material sense to human brings man already possessed in the very infancy of man kind. “Language, fire, the domestic animals that we have to-day, wheat, barley, the wine of the olive, the plough, the wheel, the oar, the sail, leather, linen and cloth,” bricks and notteiry, the precious and the baser metals, even “banking, statecraft, mathematics, astronomy and religion” —nil these things were already part and parcel of human life bo far back that there is no historic record of times and generations wholly without, them. And yet we rightly regard progress, in the modern sense of the term, ns covered by only the last four centuries,

How is this remarkable fact to he explained? Mr Kevnes holds that “the modern age opened with the accumulation of capital that began in the eighteenth century.” In other words, it was not till voyages and discoveries, the development of oversea trade, the charting of the new oceans, and the exploitatjqn of the new worlds made possible the immense material advancement that has marked the past four hundred years, that moredn history really began. ‘ Science and technical invention, applying themselves to production and the material improvement of human life on a gigantic scale, ’’ have completely transformed our existence, to such a degree that, according to Mr Kevnes’ estimate, the standard of livinu has been raised at least fourfold in Europe aud America since the opening of the nineteenth century.

The point which Mr Keynes next tries to emphasise is this, that the material progress which has done so much for mankind in so short a time is sti’l operating, and that even more marvellous results may be expected from it within the comparatively nenr future. “We may he on the eve of improvements in the efficiency of food product-

ion ns great ns those which hnve already taken place in mining, manu-

facture and transport. In quite, a few years we may he able to perforin all tlie operations of agriculture, mining and manufacture with a ojunrter of the human effort to which we been accustomed.” This means that, as Mr Keynes remarks elsewhere, "mankind is solving its economic problem,” and he ventures to predict that "the standard of life in progressive countries a hundred years hence will be between four and eight times as high as ■it is to-day.” This may sound but coTd comfort to those who are struggling with doubts and fears of losses, with privation and even with despair, in this age of mental and moral chaos, political confusion and economic depression. But Mr Keynes strives to console us with the thought that the sorrows and burdens which now afflict us are but "growing pains,” the incidental symptoms of the transformation through which the race is passing. Within a brief century men mav no longer find the need for securing the means of subsistence the dominant and haunting care of their waking or sleeping hours. Then, for the first time, they will be able to devote themselves to the real problems of life. "When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to afford to assess the money motive at its true value.” Man will then be "free to return to some of tho most sure and certain principles of religion aud traditional virtue— that ayariqe is a vice and the love of money is detestible. We shall once more value ends above means. and prefer the goods to the useful.” To most of us this may read like the fantastic dream of a visionary. But we mav at, least appreciate the ingenuitv and the insight that have enabled Mr Kevnps to develop such a picture from the forbidding and depressing conditions of existence that surround mankind today.