Introduction

All the items in this book deal in one way or another with the choice of economic policies and institutions designed to cope with the inevitable clashes between three basic economic objectives: first, citizens’ freedom of choice in markets for jobs and for the satisfaction of their wants (Liberty); second, avoidance of any resulting intolerable contrast of poverty side by side with great riches (Equality); and, third, the use of available resources in ways which will produce the technically highest possible average standard of living (Efficiency). But there is one particular clash of objectives in this general category which binds all the items in this book particularly closely together, namely the problems raised by the fact that the setting of money prices and in particular of money wage rates has very strong effects both upon the distribution of income and also upon the effectiveness of the economy in finding the most efficient levels of employment and of outputs of various goods and services.