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The article reports on the economic essentials of the idea of lasting peace. In these days many people regard the idea of a lasting peace with cynicism. History reveals that armed conflict between organized communities has been endemic throughout all civilization. This way of thinking contains an important truth that one must therefore face, but it also contains an even greater falsehood. Men have fought throughout the ages, but not always for the same reasons. In a changing world dynasties have assumed somewhat less importance than formerly. Among economists there has been a great deal of discussion in recent years of that system of relations which is known as international trade. It is generally agreed that something needs to be done about tariffs and subsidies and dumping, about monetary standards and exchange rates, about migrations of capital and population, about colonies and raw material supplies. Many proposals have been made along these lines that are wholly admirable so far as they go.

The article presents the author's views on institutionalism and economic development. The author contends that the most significant distinguishing mark of the institutionalist way of thinking is its emphasis upon the dynamism of technology. This point has not escaped its critics. Most scholars have found it impossible to dissociate Thorstein Veblen's conception of technology as a dynamic factor in economic development from the now obsolete rubrics in terms of which he couched it, and so have dismissed the whole idea as no less preposterous than the primitive utopia of savagery. But in doing so, they have thrown out a thriving infant with his dirty bath water. As regards whole cultures, it is now well established that there is no single series of "stages," through which all have passed in regular succession. In particular is this true of kinship systems and other social structures, as well as of taboos, ceremonial rites, and tribal legends and beliefs, none of which seem to have evolved through any soft of regular succession. Nevertheless, the arts and crafts of all peoples do seem always to have developed in the same direction, from simpler and cruder tools and operations to finer, more complex, and more effective ones.

The article presents a discussion related to institutionalism and economic development. For many years it has seemed that the most significant distinguishing mark of the institutionalist way of thinking is its emphasis upon the dynamism of technology. This point has not escaped its critics. As far back as 1935 Frank H. Knight, a discerning though hostile critic, remarked that economist Thorstein Veblen and his followers seem to think that technology embodies some "inscrutable" force that impels it forward, and with it the whole economy. Except for the implications of the word "inscrutable," this is indeed the case. As the author tries to show that there is nothing inscrutable about it, and its importance for an understanding of the process of economic development can scarcely be overemphasized. This idea came to Veblen from the then infant science of anthropology. During his fallow years when, following completion of a Ph.D. in philosophy, he was unable to obtain an academic appointment, he retired to the family farm and for seven years read voraciously and widely.