this quest must touch the seat of ita vital motives. Industrial depression means that the business men engaged do not see their way to derive a satisfactory gain from letting the industrial process go forward on the lines and in the volume for which the material equipment of industry is designed. It is not worth their while, and it might
even work them pecuniary harm. Commonly their apprehension of the discrepancy which forbids an aggressive pursuit of industrial business is expressed by the phrase " overproduction." An alternative phrase, intended to cover the same concept, but leas frequently employed, is " underconsumption." ^
The controversial question as to the tenability of any given "overproduction" doctrine may, for the present purpose, be left on one side ; it lies outside the theory of business and it has no merits or demerits for the purposes of a theory of business. The point of interest here is rather the ground of its acceptation among business men and the meaning which this notion has for them ; that is to say, it is chiefly of interest here to inquire into the habits of thought which give cogency and effect to the dogma of " overproduction " aa practically held by the body of business men, — what it practically means, why the dogma is held, and what is its effect on the course of business enterprise.
" Overproduction," or " underconsumption," as
' it is met with in the views of business men, is neither a vacant dogma nor a shifty apology wherewith to cover their own delinquencies, but a very
; concretely real state of affairs. It is a state of affairs that prevails when business is persistently