HKB
scientific study of modern industry to seek to discover how the forces of conscious reform can reasonably work in relation to the economic forces whose operations have been already investigated.
In other words, what are the chief lines of economic change required to bring about a readjustment between modern methods of production and social welfare? The answer to this question requires us to amplify our interpretation of the industrial evolution of the past century, by producing into the future the same lines of development, that they may be justified by the appearance of consistency with some rational social end. The most convenient, and perhaps the safest way to meet this demand is to indicate, with that modesty which rightly belongs to prophecy, some of the main reforms which seem to lie upon the road of industrial progress, rendered subordinate to larger human social ends.
Sec. 2. So far as the waste of economic maladjustment consists in the excessive or defective application of various kinds of productive force at different points of industry, upon the existing basis of individual initiative and control, the reforms which are desirable must be considered as contributing to the more complete establishment of "free" competition in industry.