The Change in the Distribution of the National Income - 1880-1913 #245649

The disturbances arising from the war have caused a redistribution of real income, and have brought to the front in their acutest form the old questions, how command over the purchase of material goods is obtained by individuals, why it is so obtained, whether the continual distribution of wealth on the pre-war basis is inevitable, or a new equilibrium can be established? There is no doubt that this distribution has been considerably modified since 1914, and I have several times been asked to estimate the nature and magnitude of the modifications; but it is equally certain that we have not yet arrived at equilibrium either in prices, incomes, or wages, and that a statement which might be true for January 1920 would not be applicable to a date six months before or after. I feel compelled to leave this tempting question to those who are content to make hazardous estimates, or who have better access to and more confidence in the sporadic information on which such estimates must rest. I prefer to turn to an aspect of the subject which can be surveyed with less uncertainty, from which we can at least command the whole field of phenomena, namely, the consideration of the changes which took place in the period before the war, which led to the distribution of income which I described early last year. Such a study is indeed essential if we are to have the power of determining the possibility of permanent modifications.