When invited to deliver this year's Caradog Jones Lecture, I was familiar with neither the lecture as an institution nor the work of the man in whose honour it is held. However, in view of the interest of Caradog Jones in the quality of British society it became clear that the subject of the lecture should be related, amongst other things, to the improvement of social conditions in general and to the improvement of the quality of the population of Great Britain in particular.

It is hardly necessary to say that the present state of British society leaves room for improvement, beset as it is with severe social and economic problems. Now the key to the solution of these problems must be a sound understanding of the way social and economic systems work. What is apparent from the briefest scrutiny of the economic and social reforms attempted in the recent past is that they have not succeeded and this, I strongly suggest, is because the theoretical premises on which they were founded are unsound.