DISTRIBUTION OF AGRICULTURAL INCOME 291 



that one will be less wanted than it would be if eggs were 

 scarce. The same proposition might be repeated with respect 

 to the loaf of bread, the horse, or any other article of exchange 

 which one might have in mind. This is the simple mental fact 

 which lies back of the great and well-known law of demand 

 and supply. 



In order to understand fully the reason for this fact we must 

 recall the distinction made in a previous chapter between con- 

 sumers' and producers' goods. Consumers' goods, it will be re- 

 membered, are goods which are wanted for their own sake and 

 not for the sake of some other goods which they help us to get. 

 They include such things as food, wearing apparel, household 

 furniture, etc. Producers' goods, on the other hand, are not 

 wanced for their own sake, but for the sake of other things 

 which they help us to get. They include such things as plows, 

 harrows, reapers, fertilizers, etc. 



With respect to consumers' goods, the reason why each unit 

 of a large supply of a given commodity is, other things equal, 

 less wanted than each unit of a small supply is found in a rather 

 simple physiological fact known as the satiability of wants ; that 

 is to say, every want is satiable, and the more nearly it reaches 

 the point of satiety the less intense it becomes. Stated in lan- 

 guage so simple and obvious as to appear almost ridiculous, this 

 simply means that if you give a man all he wants of a certain 

 thing, he will not want any more ; and the more nearly he comes 

 to having all he wants, the less intense will be his desire for 

 more. This applies to every person in the community. When 

 there is a large supply of a given article of consumption, the 

 desires of its consumers in general are more nearly satisfied 

 than when there is a small supply. Consequently the desire for 

 each unit becomes less intense, that is, the average consumer 

 does not want more than he has with quite the same intensity 

 that he would if he didn't have so much already. Simple as 



