ECONOMIC ORTHODOXY 249 



spread to utilize them. This natural spread is limited by the cost of 

 transportation. On the other hand, the economy of effort demands the 

 concentration of population. Inventions and large-scale production 

 give advantages to centralized industry. When population does not 

 spread, we may be sure that centralized production is overcoming the 

 disadvantage of transporting goods. If X represents the cost of moving 

 goods and Y the advantage of centralized production, the equation that 

 results is X < Y , that is, the effort of moving goods from place to place 

 is less than the advantages in production and consumption that such 

 a movement brings. Greater returns, greater population and its wider 

 distribution go together. The one society into which we are blending 

 will utilize the world more fully than the many local societies of the 

 past have done, and at the same time its members will be a multitude so 

 vast that the underpopulation of the present can be readily seen. 



