H I the sake of business, and not conversely ; and the
prioress and activity .of industry are conditioned by the outlook of the market, which means the presumptive chance of business profits.
All this is a matter of course which it may seem simply tedious to recite.' But its consequences for the theory of business make it necessary to keep the nature of this connection between business and industry in mind. The adjustments of industry take place through the mediation of pecuniary transactions, and these transactions take place at the hands of the business men and are carried on by them for business ends, not for industrial ends in the narrower meaning of the phrase.
The economic welfare of the community at large is best served by a facile and uninterrupted interplay of the various processes which make up the industrial system at large ; but the pecuniary interests of the business men in whose hands lies the discretion in the matter are not necessarily best served by an unbroken maintenance of the industrial balance. Especially is this true as regards those greater business men wliose interests are very extensive. The pecuniary operations of the.«e latter are of large scope, and their fortunes commonly are not permanently bound up with the smooth working of a given sub-process in the industrial system. Their fortunes are rather related to the larger conjunctures of the industrial 1 See Sombart, Kapilrillirm«», vol. I. ch. VIIL
system as a .whole, the interstitial adjustmenta, ot to conjunctures affecting large ramifications of the system. Nor is it at all imiformly to their interest to enhanne the smooth working of the industrial system at large in so far as they are related to it. Gain may come to them from a given disturbance of the system whether the disturbance makes for