SHAW

saying that it is no use asking me or any one else who is up to date in economics to go back to the eighteenth century on the ground that we should begin at the beginning. You might as well ask us to go back to the Ptolemaic astromony. Your essay is rubbish. When you began there seemed some hope... all you needed apparently was to master what had already been worked out in abstract economics: that is, the supply-and-demand theory as completed by Jevons and the Swiss and Austrian economists, and the theory of rent. But you have not done so: you go on blundering over elementary matters and trying to ford rivers that have been bridged for half a century and you have lost all your freshness, and taken to dull abuse of the experts... The only definition of a luxury that I have ever been able to arrive at is something that would not be produced if the user had to earn it instead of getting it for nothing. No other line can be drawn... Please don't send me any more essays. Buy an island and live on it with Major Douglas... have a happy time explaining to one another how to save the world from financial ruin..., 2 sides oblong 8vo., 10 Adelphi Terrace headed paper, 26th July