Page:Progress and poverty - an inquiry into the cause of industrial depressions, and of increase of want with increase of wealth - the remedy (IA progresspovertyi00georiala).pdf/206

180 implies that the portion of Harry is less or greater as Dick's is greater or less; but where, as in this case, each gets only what he adds to the common fund, the increase of the portion of the one does not decrease what the other receives.

And this relation fixed, it is evident that interest and wages must rise and fall together, and that interest cannot be increased without increasing wages; nor wages lowered without depressing interest. For if wages fall, interest must also fall in proportion, else it becomes more profitable to turn labor into capital than to apply it directly; while, if interest falls, wages must likewise proportionately fall, or else the increment of capital would be checked.

We are, of course, not speaking of particular wages and particular interest, but of the general rate of wages and the general rate of interest (meaning always by interest the return which capital can secure, less insurance and wages of superintendence). In a particular case, or a particular employment, the tendency of wages and interest to an equilibrium may be impeded; but between the general rate of wages and the general rate of interest, this tendency must be prompt to act. For though in a particular branch of production the line may be clearly drawn between those who furnish labor and those who furnish capital, yet even in communities where there is the sharpest distinction between the general class laborers and the general class capitalists, these two classes shade off into each other by imperceptible gradations, and on the extremes where the two classes meet in the same persons, the interaction which restores equilibrium, or rather prevents its disturbance, can go on without obstruction, whatever obstacles may exist where the separation is complete. And, furthermore, it must be remembered, as has before been stated, that capital is but a portion of wealth, distinguished from wealth generally only by the purpose to which it is applied, and, hence, the whole body of wealth has upon the relations of capital and labor the same equalizing effect that a fly-wheel has upon the motion of machinery, taking up