DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH 



tural products will greatly influence the share 

 which will be accounted to land. When, as a 

 result of increased demand for food and clothing, 

 the prices of agricultural products rise, the share 

 of the returns of a given farm which may be 

 credited to land, increases. When, for any reason, 

 such as the opening up of vast areas of very pro- 

 ductive land, the prices of agricultural products 

 fall, the share of the gross returns which can be 

 paid for the use of land will, other things remain- 

 ing the same, necessarily fall. 



The laws of value and price hold true with 

 respect to the price which is paid for the use of 

 land and capital-goods ; but as we have seen, the 

 conditions as to supply and demand are very com- 

 plex, and the difficult problems in distribution 

 arise out of the fact that costs and prices do not 

 correspond except on the margin where the least 

 productive of all of the factors are brought to- 

 gether, and that there are large surpluses over 

 costs, to be divided. It was one time thought that 

 all of this surplus should be attributed to land; 

 but in recent years economists have come to see 

 that each of the factors is in a position to com- 

 mand a share of the surplus, that the share se- 

 cured by each is worked out through supply and 

 demand, and that the most slowly increasing 

 factor tends to receive a larger and larger pro- 

 portion of the surplus. 



183 



