So, also, of the potatoes in the barrel.
And like that barrel and those potatoes, the retail store in which we find them was itself produced through many Economic specializations and many stages of industrial progress, each of which, from the extraction of iron from natural mineral deposits and the taking of timber from natural forests, was a production by Man of Artificial Objects from and upon and within the sphere of Natural Resources down to the placement of that artificial structure, the retail store, upon its Natural-Resource site at an advantageous point for delivering finished products to ultimate consumers.
As to that barrel of potatoes and that retail store upon the floor of which it rests, so of all Economic phenomena. They belong respectively, according to their respective Economic characteristics and pursuant to natural law, in one or another of the three categories or Basic Facts which we have respectively identified as Natural Resources, Man, and Artificial Objects.
Pursuant to natural law? Certainly. But where do we get any natural law in Economics? To quote a sarcastic attempt at refutation, “Do we pick it off the trees?” Yes, some of it we pick off the trees. Who can intelligently observe the growth and fruitage of a tree without recognizing operations of natural law? How do trees grow except by operation of natural law? And except by operation of natural law, how do men’s bodies grow? Is it enough to answer that the growth of the body is a problem of physical science, which is subject to natural law, whereas Economic science contemplates a lawless lot of phenomena? Or men’s minds, do they unfold without the aid of any natural laws of human mentality? And what of social or mass mentality—shall we call it “public opinion” or “herd instinct”?—how does that phenomenon originate and develop except through processes of natural law?
As with a tree, so with the whole physical universe, inclusive of the human body. And as with the human body, the physical body and the social mass, so with the mental equipment. Must not all, for their very existence and for their development also, be dependent upon and in all their activities responsive to natural law in one or another of its jurisdictions—responsive happily or unhappily according to their degree of conformity or defiance, of devotion or indifference?[3]
[3] For an extended and impressive discussion of the application of natural law to Economics, see “Natural Law in Social Life”, by W. R. Lester, M. A., published by The United Committee for the Taxation of Land Values, 11 Tothill Street, London, S. W. 1, England. For a specific application to the coal industry, see minority report on the bituminous coal problem by Warren S. Blauvelt (formerly of Terre Haute, Ind., latterly of Troy, N. Y.) in the Proceedings of the National [American] Conference on Social Work at its fifty-third session in 1926.
Individual activities, whether physical or mental, if that discrimination be permitted, assuredly work out well or ill as they harmonize or run counter to natural law. This must be true also of social activities. The choices made by human beings, and the influences which affect their choices, operate to produce harmony or discord in Economic relationships in so far as they harmonize or are in conflict with natural Economic law.
Economics being the science of a certain range of social activities, “the science of mankind making a living,” as it has been aptly called—a science, and not a mere collection of odds and ends of information—the same conclusions must be true of the science of Economics as of the physical sciences. Both are scientific in so far and only in so far as they are within range of natural law.
It is, indeed, a common contention in scholastic Economic circles that the science of Economics is not governed by natural law as the physical sciences are. The answer would seem to be conclusive, in so far as that contention is true, that Economics cannot be a science at all.
Nor are some of the Economics of modern universities strictly scientific. They disclose a tendency to confuse business customs with Economic science as if they were identical. This characteristic of those “business colleges” of a previous generation seems to have charmed the “scientific” Economists of some of our universities. But Economic science and business customs or arts are not identical. Business arts and customs which conflict with natural Economic law are as certain to culminate in disaster as is the life of a man who, approaching a wide and deep chasm, attempts to walk across it without a bridge. Such a bridge cannot be created, it must be produced in accordance with natural physical law. The same is true of Economic processes. As physical science cannot create, but can only discover and apply natural physical laws, neither can Economics create, but must be content to discover and apply natural Economic laws.