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SUMMARY The author wishes to discuss the affirmation of 18th century French economist Grasiin for Iwhom the total amount of wealth is constant value It is not question of an objective monetary or technical evaluation of wealth which has very little significance but of subjective evaluation alluding to the idea of total sum of needs Iwhich is nothing but the love of well-being Consequently the absolute sum of the riches is com posed of the sum of loves of well-being and does not vary To understand this paradox it is necessary to set forth some postulates not explicit theory which form the basis of this reasoning But these postulates are very debatable and they come up against decisive objections Nevertheless the author recognizes an underlying element of truth in reasoning The love of well-being has its limits Consequently if we want to measure iwealth according to the amount of satisfaction pro cured from it the total sum of wealth evaluated is necessarily limited In his conclusion the author takes theory up again but under different form the total satisfaction that humanity draws from its riches undoubtedly varies very little and it is very indépendant of its total amount

SUMMARY The enquiries watch are periodically lead by the Swedish government allow us on one hand to appreciate the standard of living of different social groups on the other hand to follow the growth of welfare of the Swedish people since before the last war The différence between social classes based on professionnal groups is rapidly diminishing The country is developping into acquisitive society hut the national income has strong tendancy to be equally divided among the income earners The difference between rural and urban areas is disappearing with regard to the -way of life and the contort There has been remarkable acceleration of these tendancies since 1945 Geographically there seems to be no backward or sacrificed areas

SUMMARY The writer tries to study the evolution of the rural purchasing power since 1949-1950 and 1938 First he considers the farmers as producers and figures out their pur chasing power in relation with the evolution of agricnirnrni prices and production and on the other mci of the expenses farming expenses wages rents and farmers own private expenses He out the trend to stagnation of this purchasing power in relation with 1949 as well as iwith 1938 sli li.t trend to rise is to notice since 1951-1952 This stagnation is the consequence of the gap between expense of farmers and agricultural prices the latter tending to go down as production rises despite recent efforts to organise the marketing Purchasing pdwer of rents showed tendency to rise slowly until 1951- 1952 then to fall down with agricultural prices and has been continually below file 1938 level Wages purchasing power has been increasing but did not reach its pre-lwar level until 1953-1954 if familial grants re taken into account it exceeds this level since 1949 Finally the purchasing power of farmers taken as consumers is cak ulaied through slightly di erent method The trend is about the same stagnation or slight increase whilst the purchasing power of other groups is Increasing more rapidly