SOCIAL SECURITY AND WELFARE.

Few areas of inquiry in the field of economics demonstrate more clearly the importance of an institutional approach to the discipline than the area of social insurance. At a time when one wing of economics is finding more and more uses of mathematics in the development of the theoretical analysis of the behavior of markets and prices, another wing, more concerned in the role of the human factor in the economic equation, is seeking the aid of the full spectrum of social science to discover the interrelations of economic policy and the enhancement of our way of life. It is good that this is so. The traditions of the discipline of economics are broad enough and deep enough to encompass a widely varied attack upon the essential problem of how man organizes his productive efforts to assure the best possible livelihood for himself and his fellows. It is a matter of personal taste and predilection whether one prefers to analyze by the most precise methods the operation of any or all measurable phenomena or to range more widely in the exercise of both analysis and judgment in developing new structures and devices for the improvement of the economic machinery of our society. The economist with a mathematical bent warms to the deductive process of a tightly reasoned demonstration from assumed economic premises. If the premises are approximations of reality and the deductive process is sound, results of much value to understanding are achieved. As in all scientific proof, however, the essential consideration in the evaluation of results is in large measure aesthetic. Is the solution neat and tidy? Is it beautifully symmetrical and simple? Does it "click" into place and fit situations other than those used in the demonstration? On the assumption-the basic faith of all scientists-that this is an orderly world, such an aesthetically satisfying solution may reveal truths of far-reaching application. They may eventually change the premises of all future policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]