Economics--Volume II MODERN ECONOMIC PROBLEMS BY FRANK A. FETTER, PH.D., LL.D. PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 1916 TO THE MOTHER WITH A YOUTHFUL HEART AND SYMPATHETIC INTEREST IN ALL THINGS HUMAN TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I. RESOURCES AND ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION. 1. Material resources of the nation 2. The present economic system PART II. MONEY AND PRICES. 3. Nature, use, and coinage of money 4. The value of money 5. Fiduciary money, metal and paper 6. The standard of deferred payments PART III. BANKING AND INSURANCE. 7. The functions of banks 8. Banking in the United States before 1914 9. The Federal Reserve Act 10. Crises and industrial depressions 11. Institutions for saving and investment 12. Principles of insurance PART IV. TARIFF AND TAXATION. 13. International trade 14. The policy of a protective tariff 15. American tariff history 16. Objects and principles of taxation 17. Property and corporation taxes 18. Personal taxes PART V. PROBLEMS OF THE WAGE SYSTEM. 19. Methods of industrial remuneration 20. Organized labor 21. Public regulation of hours and wages 22. Other protective labor and social legislation 23. Social insurance 24. Population and immigration PART VI. PROBLEMS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION. 25. Agricultural and rural population 26. Problems of agricultural economics 27. The railroad problem 28. The problem of industrial monopoly 29. Public policy in respect to monopoly 30. Public ownership 31. Some aspects of socialism Index FOREWORD The present volume deals with various practical problems in economics, as a volume published a year earlier dealt with the broader economic principles of value and distribution. To the student beginning economics and to the general reader the study of principles is likely to appear more difficult than does that of concrete questions. In fact, the difficulty of the latter, tho less obvious, is equally great. The study of principles makes demands upon thought that are open and unmistakable; its conclusions, drawn in the cold light of reason, are uncolored by feeling, and are acceptable of all men so long as the precise application that may justly be made of them is not foreseen. But conclusions regarding practical questions of public policy, tho they may appear to be simple, usually are biased and complicated by assumptions, prejudices, selfish interests, and feelings, deep-rooted and often unsuspected.