Acre or Hour ?
In the most thoughtful book I have read for years (Road to Survival) occurs a passage that should be well considered by our present-day theorists, and the American author graciously begins a preface with the compliment: " The British, more than any other people of modern times, have developed a world-wide understanding." The passage is this: "Economists write of Agricultural Revolution,' of greater productivity per farm-worker. . . . What most of them completely fail to recognise is that production per farmer is utterly meaningless apart from production per acre." This especially struck me in a recent visit to Denmark, where the small farmers, a prosperous and happy community, think almost wholly in terms of production per acre, quite regardless of the return per hour of work. They have not been taught by economists to regard work as an evil. They think it good and satisfying. It is thanks to them that Danish Socialism is in the wise but logically contradictory position of being opposed to nationalisation!
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