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This paper examines the proposition advanced by some commentators that divorce petitioning in England and Wales fluctuates in accordance with the changing real value of legal aid. Direct evidence, from divorce figures and details of legal aid provision, is examined and shown not to fit the hypothesis. Indirect evidence drawn from Magistrates' Court proceedings and income provision by the National Assistance Board also fails to support the proposition. It is concluded that the proposition is false, and that increased divorce petitioning reflects more fundamental social changes than amendments to legal aid provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to establish that three distinct types of intellectual innovation have been accompanied by, and partly produced by, social processes set in motion by over-production of personnel. Over-production occurs when there is a rapid growth in the number of persons qualified to occupy positions involving expertise, without a corresponding increase in the number of positions available. It generates competition among eligible persons for scarce rewards, which, in turn leads them to seek new audiences for their special services and new sources of economic support. Those experts engaged in competition tend to select and emphasize ideas and techniques which improve their Own career opportunities. As a result, competition promotes intellectual innovation. It is argued that over-production, accompanied by competition for scarce rewards, has been partly responsible for religious innovation in North African Islam, artistic change in nineteenth century French painting, and intellectual development in modem science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]