MODERN MEDIEVALISM 59 



monopoly. A theory of price is needed which preserves the economic 

 value of combination; and, at the same time, removes the evil features 

 of special privileges and of monopoly. 



A fair wage is as yet a very elusive and indefinite concept. A fair 

 wage for an unskilled worker would not be a fair wage for the skilled 

 man. The needs of the man are, in the last analysis, the chief factors 

 in determining fair wages. Subjective, rather than objective, consid- 

 erations have the greatest weight in the eye of modern man. Here is 

 a point of contrast between the modern and the medieval view point. 

 Again, social considerations enter into the problem. How will the man 

 make use of his income ? Society desires that a large income go to the 

 man who will make the best use of it — the use which will tend to 

 advance the progress of humanity. A multitude of different opinions 

 will be expressed as to the best uses of income; but certain fundamental 

 conditions are almost universally accepted. Excessive luxury and 

 wasteful consumption in living, in eating, in drinking and the like, are 

 condemned at the bar of society. In general, it is for the good of 

 society that expenditures for luxuries be sent for durable goods rather 

 than upon highly perishable commodities. A fair price for all articles 

 and services would tend to place wealth and income in the hands of 

 those best fitted to handle it ; those who would make the best use of it 

 judged from the somewhat theoretical view-point of society as a whole, 

 but not from the standpoint of any special class in the community. 

 A fair wage in an ideal industrial organism would give to each accord- 

 ing to his needs; and needs would be proportional to efficiency. 



Distribution must now be considered from a non-competitive point 

 of view; and the storm center of discussion will be found in the treat- 

 ment of rents or monopoly gains. Wages are individual products ; but 

 interest and rents must be held to be social, or at least semi-social, 

 products. Social evolution has, it is true, made possible the existing 

 rates of wages ; but a sharp line of demarkation may be drawn between 

 wages on the one side, and rent and interest on the other. Individual 

 traits and characteristics play an important part in fixing wages. On 

 the contrary, rents accrue because of social progress, not because of 

 individual efficiency. The man who invests capital is frequently able 

 to gain a personally unearned income, to draw dividends, for example, 

 upon watered stocks. But the man who furnishes his labor receives no 

 extra or special gain. He runs no risk; but in a multitude of cases, 

 the returns accruing to the caj)italist or the promoter bear no discern- 

 ible relation to the risk involved. Individuals are able magically to 

 make capital — paper capital, but of a kind that bears interest. Labor 

 is unable by any sleight-of-hand performance to double or treble "its 

 equipment. A dollar may through stock watering, aided by gifts of 

 franchises and rights of way or by special privileges, be apparently 

 changed into two dollars and draw the income of two; but the laborer 

 in the same business can not make it appear that he has four hands or 



