DEFINITION OF A SOCIAL POLICY RELATING TO THE DEPENDENT GROUP. 1
THE subject of the social treatment of dependents has been approached through several different disciplines, according to the previous training and bias of the investigator and writer. The economists have dealt with the topic as a problem of finance, of public expenditure, and of production, wages, and the distribu- tion of the product of industry. Since the money spent in public relief must be raised by taxation, and since the method of giving relief affects the efficiency of labor and the rate of wages, the economists were right in giving serious attention to this matter. 2 The Poor Law has naturally been treated by legal writers, because it was a vital part of the system of control by governments in all modern countries, especially in northern Europe and the English colonies and their offspring. The "police power" of the state covers this function. 3
The older " moral philosophy " or " moral science " sought to answer the question : " What is our duty to the very poor, and how can we best fulfil that duty ? " In reality, that is one problem of what may be called a branch of social science, differentiated as "social technology." 4 For the steps that we take in accumulat- ing facts about the Dependent Group in the classification of subgroups, in the determination of causes, in the statistical meas- urement of misery, and in the definition of social aims all cul- minate and find their supreme value in their contribution to the solution of this question : " What is our duty to the helpless poor and how may we best fulfil that duty ? "
1 Read at the Congress of Arts and Science, St. Louis, September 23, 1904. American conditions were chiefly considered in this paper.
1 Here may be mentioned, among many, Malthus, Chalmers, J. S. Mill, Fawcett, Roscher.
1 See E. FREUND, Police Power, 1904.
My article, AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, January, 1901.
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