element that is amenable to law.

There is to be studied, not only the friction which obstructs the
action of natural forces, but positive perversions of the forces
themselves. Of these the chief is monopoly; and its influence, its
growth, the sources of its power, and its prospect of continuance have
to be determined. The actual tendencies of the economic system are
against it, and so--if we except a few monopolies created for special
ends--are both the spirit and the letter of the civil law. In a
country in which law held complete sway, all objectionable monopolies
would be held in repression. In order to see how much economic forces
can be made to do in this direction, the present work discusses
railroads and their charges, and some of the practices of great
industrial corporations, and tries to determine what type of measures
a government should take in dealing with these powerful agents. In
connection with monopoly and with the conditions of economic progress
a study is made of trade unions, strikes, boycotts, and the
arbitration of disputes between employers and employed, and also of
the policy of the state in connection with them, and with money and
protective duties.

It is my belief that students should become acquainted with the laws
of Economic Dynamics, and that they can approach the study of them
advantageously only after a study of Economic Statics. The present
work is in a form which, as is hoped, will make it available for use
in class rooms, not as a substitute for elementary text-books, but as
supplementary to them. It omits a large part of what such books
contain, presents what they do not contain, and tries to be of service
to those who wish for more than a single introductory volume can
offer.

An essential part of the theory of wages here stated was presented in
a paper read before the American Economic Association, in December,
1888, and published in a monograph of the American Economic
Association in March, 1889; and other parts of this theory were issued
at intervals following that date. The theory of value was published in
the _New Englander_ for July, 1881. I had not then chanced to see the
early statements of the principle of marginal appraisal contained in
the works of Von Thuenen and Jevons, and did not consciously borrow
anything from their writings, but I gladly render to them the credit
that is their due. I do not fear that I shall be supposed to have
borrowed other parts of the gene