The first issue to be settled is whether socialism has a right to exist Are its allegations concerning the present system true? Is industry proceeding on a principle of fraud? I wish to test the power of recent economic theory to give an exact answer to this question.

In the brief preface is expressed the hope that 'it may be found that these principles settle questions of agrarian socialism. … Though the process was savage the outlook which it afforded was not wholly evil.

John Bates Clark (January 26 1847 – March 21 1938) was an American neoclassical economist.