DefinePK

Abstract

In a democracy there is scarcely any public question of greater importance than the standard of living of the common people. It is essential to know the actual level of this standard of living, and whether it is improving or deteriorating. There can be two types of standards of living. One is the standard of living of the society as a whole, and the other is the standard of a group within the society. It is perfectly possible for the standard of the society as a whole to be improving, while that of one or more groups within the society is declining. Moreover, if the distribution of economic power in the society is very unequal, it may happen that the group, the standard of which is declining may constitute a very large proportion, even a majority, of the total population.