Page:The economics of distribution (IA economicsofdistr01hobs).pdf/9



work endeavours to construct an intelligible, self-consistent theory of Distribution by means of an analysis of those processes of bargaining through which economic distribution is actually conducted, the results of industrial coöperation being apportioned to the owners of the factors of production in the several stages of production.

The chief difficulty les in coördinating the different factors of production, so as to bring the payments made respectively for the use of land, labour, and capital under a common law of price, and in showing that the same economic forces which determine the market and normal prices of commodities are applicable to the sale of all these uses of the factors of production.

The extension to all these cases of the terminology and modes of measurement hitherto confined to land, or extended tentatively and by analogy to certain other factors, involves a complete restatement of some of the problems of wages and interest. But this unification of the different processes of economic payment has long