Page:The fallacy of danger from great wealth.djvu/39

 Until money spent by government will produce as much wealth as the same amount of money spent by individuals or corporations, the expenditures of government and the taxes levied on the people (rich or poor) should, in the interest of workmen and society, be kept as low as the necessary and really useful functions of government will permit.

Natural law in the economic world is a theme upon which a volume might well be written. When in the natural evolution of civilization new economic facts or conditions come into prominence, some anxious persons become alarmed, and cry out "danger," and advocate legislation to avert or remove the danger. If such alarm and proposed legislation are in accord with economic law, well and good, as for example in the case of efforts to have sanitary conditions of life and work. They are bound to succeed. But, if they are contrary to economic law, as in the case of attempts to fix by law the rate of wages or the price of food or the rate of income on capital, they are bound in the long run to fail. If they succeed for a time, the apparent success is obtained at the expense of loss in