Parkinson, Webbs, Von Mises and Hobson 239income.” Governments have limitless public revenues, there
fore expenditures rise eternally to meet them. The continual rise
in government spending is the result of this law. Individuals have
to regulate their spending within the budgetary constraints of
their incomes. If government officials would apply the same
standard for their agency as they do for their personal finance,
this problem would cease to exist. Governments, says Parkinson,
must learn to ask first what the country can afford, rather than
begin by determining what they need. Parkinson claims that if a
nation would limit its spending to a certain percentage of the
national income, the problems of continual rising expenditures,
and taxes would cease.
Parkinson takes several aspects of human nature and applies
their implications to the problems of business and government.
If business and government were to recognize these human
tendencies and organize accordingly, many of the problems of
waste, inefficiency, duplication of effort, ineffective use of time
and money, and stagnation could be eliminated. Parkinson’s
contribution to economic theory lies in his attempt to have us
recognize that the tendencies inherent in our human nature have
profound economic implications, and to ignore the way human
beings act is to avoid solutions to some of our serious economic
problems.
Beatrice Potter Webb (1858-1943) and Sidney Webb (1859-
1947)
Beatrice and Sidney Webb were English Socialists, who
through their involvement with the Fabian Society contributed
greatly to making socialism respectable in England. The Fabian
Society was a small group of English intellectuals who saw
socialism as the best means to organize an economic system and
set out to convince others through their writings. George Ber
nard Shaw was perhaps the most famous member of the group,
but the leadership was clearly in the hands of the Webbs.
Essentially, there are two kinds of socialism—revolutionary
and utopian. Revolutionary socialists like Marx contend that
only through violent revolution can capitalism be displaced.
Utopian socialists like Owen claim that all the problems of
society can be solved through the institution of socialist commu