340 THEORETICAL BIOLOGY 



can satisfy, and so they are referred to those of other workers, 

 likewise distributed in space. Accordingly there must be an 

 exchange of products or goods. For this exchange roads and 

 railways serve, which, on the one hand, accumulate the goods 

 and, on the other, distribute them again. A centralisation 

 of the products becomes necessary, as soon as separation in 

 space makes direct exchange impossible. We see how, in this 

 way, the goods come into the hands of the few, although they 

 are made by the many and used by the many. 



Moreover, very few products are capable of being used in 

 the form in which they leave the hands of the workers on the 

 soil. (Corn, for instance, must first be ground and then 

 baked, before it can be used as food.) The consequence of 

 this is that there is a further assembling of goods in the hands 

 of the few who are interposed between the many workers 

 and the many consumers. 



To demonstrate these relations, let us make a simple 

 diagram (Fig. 6) ; then we see how the goods first flow from 

 the producers P' to the centre C, before they reach the con- 

 sumers P*. But these, in their turn, are producers of other 

 goods, which must be conveyed to C before they reach the 

 producers P'. We get from this the impression of a circulating 

 stream, which rhythmically broadens out and then narrows 

 again. But we must not forget that each stream of products 

 dries up as soon as it gets to the consumer ; and so the stream 

 can circulate only if the consumer is also a producer. 



Now there is one product that cannot be consumed, but is 

 in continual circulation, because it serves as the means of 

 exchange — gold. Gold circulates in the opposite direction to 

 the stream of products, but follows that faithfully in all its 

 ramifications, flowing, like it, in great abundance towards 

 the centre, and so passing from the hands of the many into 

 those of the few. The centralising of gold, however, goes 

 further than that of goods, because it QdXi circulate inde- 



