ITS SOLUTION of the problem of efficiency was what com-
mended the competitive model to the economist. Efficiency
has long been a near fetish of economists and, in the begin-
ning, there was a strong humanitarian basis for this preoc-
cupation. Until the nineteenth century, grinding poverty had
at all times and in nearly all places been the fate of all but
a minority of mankind. For the relief of this poverty, nothing
could be quite so important as to get more production from
existing manpower and resources. Indeed, in a world where
there was little unemployment, no other remedy for poverty
was available given current income distribution and the con-
siderable political discomfort and frustration that was fre-
quently the fortune of those who advocated more equitable
distribution of income. The prospect of alleviating poverty,
Marshall observed, "gives to economic studies their chief and
their highest interest." ¹

For the businessman and the political philosopher, by con-
trast, the appeal of the competitive model was its solution of
the problem of power. This is still the basis of its hold on
the American conservative. Indeed, for most Americans free
competition, so called, has for long been a political rather
than an economic concept.

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