■ Sucb a discugalon m Fatteo'ti Theory of Protperily appllea to the r^me of " nMaral ecoDomj," and passably ala'> lo that of handicraft ftTui petty trade, but does not Berioiwly loucli the modem gitnaUon. 'I'liH like U true generally for current digdwalona of thii topic. ■'■ f'ilh n( ,V(iti')n», Introduction,
a base of supplies of consumable goods or of raw materials, — as in the better days of the handicraft system.
Until the machine industry came forward, commerce (with its handmaiden, banking) was the only branch of economic activity that was in any sensible degree organized in a close and comprehensive system of business relations. " Business " would then mean " commerce," and little else. This was the only field in which men habitually took account of their own economic circumstances in terms of price rather than in terms of livelihood. Price disturbances, even when they were of considerable magnitude, seem to have had grave consequences only in commerce, and to have passed over without being transmitted much beyond the commercial houses and the fringe of occupations immediately subsidiary to commercial business.
Crises, depressions, hard times, dull times, brisk I times, periods of speculative advance, " eras of 1 prosperity," are primarily phenomena of business ; they are, in their origin and primary incidence, phenomena of price disturbance, either of decline or advance. It is only secondarily, through tlie mediation of business traffic, that these matters involve the industrial process or the livelihood of the community. They affect industry because industry is managed on a business footing, in terms of price and for the sake of profits. So long as