290 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



true, then we can make any regulations we like about the distribu- 

 tion of -wealth, without fear lest the measures which we adopt may 

 prevent any wealth from being produced. 



In Rome, under the empire, wealth at one pole was a symptom of 

 misery at the other, because Rome was not an industrial state. Its 

 income came from plunder. The wealth had a source independent of 

 the production of the society of Rome. That part of the booty which 

 some got, others could not have. No such thing is true of an indus- 

 trial society. The wealth of the commercial cities of Italy and South- 

 ern Germany, in the middle ages, was largely in the hands of merchant- 

 princes. If one were told that some of these merchants were very 

 rich, he would have no ground of inference that others in those cities 

 must have been poor. The rich were those who developed the oppor- 

 tunities of commerce which were, in the first instance, open to all. 

 What they gained came out of nothing which anybody else ever had 

 or would have had. The fact that there are wealthy men in England, 

 France, and the United States to-day, is no evidence that there must 

 be poor men here. The riches of the rich are perfectly consistent 

 with a high condition of wealth of all, down to the last. In fact, the 

 aggregations of wealth, both while being made and after realization, 

 develop and sustain the prosperity of all. The forward movement of 

 a strong population, with abundance of land and highly developed 

 command by machinery over the forces of Nature, must produce a 

 state of society in which average and minimum comfort are high, 

 Avhile special aggregations may be enormous, misfortune and vice 

 being left out of account. 



"Whatever nexus there is between wealth at one pole and poverty 

 at the other can be found only by turning the proposition into its con- 

 verse — misery at one pole makes wealth at the other. If the mass at 

 one pole should, through any form of industrial vice, fall into misery, 

 they would offer to the few wise an opportunity to become rich by 

 taking advantage of them. They would offer a large supply of labor 

 at low wages, a high demand for capital at high rates of interest, and 

 a fierce demand for land at high rent. 



It is often affirmed, and it is true, that competition tends to dis- 

 perse society over a wide range of unequal conditions. Competition 

 develops all powers that exist according to their measure and degree. 

 The more intense competition is, the more thoroughly are all the 

 forces developed. If, then, there is liberty, the results can not be 

 equal ; they must correspond to the forces. Liberty of development 

 and equality of result are therefore diametrically opposed to each 

 other. If a group of men start on equal conditions, and compete in a 

 common enterprise, the results which they attain must differ accord- 

 ing to inherited powers, early advantages of training, personal cour- 

 age, energy, enterprise, perseverance, good sense, etc., etc. Since 

 these tilings differ through a wide range, and since their combinations 



