ficiency due to
the failure of the industrial mechanism to adjust itself to the demands
made upon it. In that case the remedy for the waste is superior
adjustment of the present system to itself. On the other hand, if the
waste is the result of friction generated within the system, there must
be some change in the system before it can be eliminated. The latter
explanation seems to tally with the facts more thoroughly than does the
former. Certainly, the unrest, bitterness and general sabotage which are
encountered throughout the industrial order would point to the
conclusion that the economic system is generating its own condition of
chaos.

Sabotage, or "go slow," is becoming the dominant note of the entire
economic system. "Get the most you can out and put the least possible
in," is the theory upon which both workers and owners are operating.
There has been much comment upon the tendency of the workers to use the
go slow tactics. The real withholding of productive effort, however,
takes place among the owners and managers of industry.

Industrial leaders are well versed in the law of monopoly profit:
"Minimum product at maximum price." The railroad men have rephrased the
law thus: "All that the traffic will bear." Industry has been organized
and capitalized and is now owned by a group whose interests lie, not in
the extent of production, but in the volume of profit. When profit is no
longer forthcoming, the owners practice the conscious withholding of
efficiency. In accordance with this general policy the control of
industry is shifting from the hands of engineers into the hands of
financial experts "who are unremittingly engaged in a routine of
acquisition, in which they habitually reach their ends by a shrewd
restriction of output; and yet they continue to be entrusted with the
community industrial welfare, which calls for maximum production." ("The
Engineers and the Price System," Thorstein Veblen. Huebsch. 1921. p.
40-41.) The recent cry of the American farmer: "Produce only what you
need for your own keep," is a crude effort to imitate the successful
tactics of the business world in limiting production to the volume that
will yield the greatest possible profit to the owner.

War-menace constitutes another indication of the chaos existing in
modern economic society. The purpose of economic activity is to produce
wealth. The purpose of war is to destroy it. The two are therefore in
direct antagonism; yet the gre