【正文】 Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit by Frank H. Knight, . First edition, 1921. Hart, Schaffner amp。 Marx。 Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, The Riverside Press, Cambridge. Preface Author39。s Preface Part I Introductory The Place of Profit and Uncertainty in Economic Theory Theories of Profit。 Change and Risk in Relation to Profit Part II Perfect Competition Theory of Choice and of Exchange Joint Production and Capitalization Change and Progress with Uncertainty Absent Minor Prerequisites for Perfect Competition Part III Imperfect Competition through Risk and Uncertainty The Meaning of Risk and Uncertainty Structures and Methods for Meeting Uncertainty Enterprise and Profit Enterprise and Profit (continued) The Salaried Manager Uncertainty and Social Progress Social Aspects of Uncertainty and Profit Footnotes About the Book and Author Preface This series of books owes its existence to the generosity of Messrs. Hart, Schaffner amp。 Marx, of Chicago, who have shown a special interest in trying to draw the attention of American youth to the study of economic and mercial subjects. For this purpose they have delegated to the undersigned mittee the task of selecting or approving of topics, making announcements, and awarding prizes annually for those who wish to pete. For the year ending June 1, 1917, there were offered: In Class A, which included any American without restriction, a first prize of $1000, and a second prize of $500. In Class B, which included any who were at the time undergraduates of an American college, a first prize of $300, and a second prize of $200. Any essay submitted in Class B, if deemed of sufficient merit, could receive a prize in Class A. The present volume, submitted in Class A, was awarded second prize in that class. J. LAURENCE LAUGHLIN, Chairman University of Chicago J. B. CLARK Columbia University HENRY C. ADAMS University of Michigan EDWIN F. GAY . Evening Post THEODORE E. BURTON New York City Author39。s Preface There is little that is fundamentally new in this book. It represents an attempt to state the essential principles of the conventional economic doctrine more accurately, and to show their implications more clearly, than has previously been done. That is, its object is refinement, not reconstruction。 it is a study in pure theory. The motive back of its presentation is twofold. In the first place, the writer cherishes, in the face of the pragmatic, philistine tendencies of the present age, especially characteristic of the thought of our own country, the hope that careful, rigorous thinking in the field of social problems does after all have some significance for human weal and woe. In the second place, he has a feeling that the practicalism of the times is a passing phase, even to some extent a pose。 that there is a strong undercurrent of discontent with loose and superficial thinking and a real desire, out of sheer intellectual selfrespect, to reach a clearer understanding of the meaning of terms and dogmas which pass current as representing ideas. For the first of these assumptions a few words of elaboration or defense may be in place, in anticipation of the essay itself. The practical justification for the study of general economics is a belief in the possibility of improving the quality of human life through changes in the form of anization of wantsatisfying activity. More specifically, most projects of social betterment involve the substitution of some more consciously social or political form of control for private property and individual freedom of contract. The assumption underlying such studies as the present is that changes of this character will offer greater prospect of producing real improvement if they are carried out in the light of a clear understanding of the nature and tendencies of the system which it is proposed to modify or displace. The essay, therefore, endeavors to isolate and define the essential characteristics of free enterprise as a system or method of securing and directing co 鰋perative effort in a social group. As a necessary condition of success in this endeavor it is assumed that the description and explanation of phenomena must be radically separated from all questions of defense or criticism of the system under examination. By means of first showing what the system is, it is hoped that advance may be made toward discovering what such a system can, and what it cannot, acplish. A closely related aim is that of formulating the data of the problem of economic anization, the unchangeable materials with which, and conditions under which, any machinery of anization has to work. A sharp and clear conception of these fundamentals is viewed as a necessary foundation for answering the question as to what is reasonably to be expected of a method of anization, and hence of whether the system as such is to be blamed for the failure to achieve ideal results, of where if at all it is at fault, and the sort of change or substitution which offers sufficient chance for improvement to justify experimentation. The result of the inquiry is by no means a defense of the existing order. On the contrary, it is probably to emphasize the inherent defects of free enterprise. But it must be admitted that careful analysis also emphasizes the fundamental difficulties of the problem and the fatuousness of oversanguine expectations from mere changes in social machinery. Only this foundationlaying is within the scope of this study, or included within the province of economic theory. The final verdict on questions of social policy depends upon a similar study of other possible systems of anization and a parison of these with