The Economics of Consumption

In the brief space and time at his disposal, the writer can do little more than state a few of the most important problems connected with a subject of such magnitude and complexity as the Economics of Consumption. In its relation to fundamental economic theories of production, distribution, and exchange; in its vital connection with almost numberless special economic and social problems such as wages and working conditions, standards of living and family budgets, poverty, unemployment and crime, immigration and tariff legislation, the tax system, etc., and finally in its dependence upon numerous technical studies of food, clothing and other utilities that minister directly to the wants of man-consumption is at once the tangible bond and motive force of the present economic order. Man, as a consumer of economic goods and services- and we all must be consumers-is the end and aim of all the economic activity involved in the production, distribution and exchange of wealth. On the ancient theory, however, that what touches Caesar first shall be last served, consumption has received scant attention aside from its general recognition as one of the classical divisions of economic science. With the rapid growth of colleges of home economics for the scientific study of the highly technical aspects of the problem, a more complete development of the Economics of Consumption is certain to follow.