Note 260 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

When we were preparing the first edition of this work, we thought the distinction between countries with open and with closed resources had not been made before. Since we read Lange’s book on the labour problem and saw that the author speaks in the same sense of open and closed countries or open and closed economy. We give here the passages of most interest, bearing on the subject. “There is a great difference between the economy of open and closed civilized countries. In the former there is still an abundance of land fit for cultivation, of which every labourer has the free use; in the latter all land has been taken into cultivation and appropriated. This difference is so fundamental, that it would be best to formulate a separate economic theory for either of the two cases and then, in applying the theory to the facts, to examine how far, in every instance, the characteristics of open or closed economy are present. The latter proceeding is always necessary, for the important distinction we have made is a relative one, no country presenting exclusively the conditions of either open or closed culture.” In another chapter the author dwells more at length on the idea, laid down in the last sentence. “The earth still contains large territories, not yet taken into cultivation, which in a certain sense are open to every one; but there are such factors as habits, prejudices, etc., which bind people to their own country, and there are further material impediments to emigration from old civilized countries, which are so great, that the economy of such countries may practically be regarded as closed, without being such in an absolute sense. On the other hand, even in the most open colonial country there are always circumstances which make the occupation of uncultivated land difficult and so the economy of such a country presents some characteristics of a closed economy. Between these two types there are numberless intermediate stages and therefore economic life is in reality subject to the influences of both open and closed economy. But in theory a sharp line of demarcation must be drawn between these two states of society; for only so can we attain to a right understanding of real economic life”260.