fS ONE MAN'S GAIN ANOTHER AfAWS LOSS? 147 



one class of competitors in the food market. This is the same 

 case as that of the strong and weak individual competing in the 

 same class. If the improvement in production had occurred in 

 a class which could not compete with any other, say the weavers, 

 the improvement would have been pure gain. All the com- 

 munity would have become sensibly richer. But if the rest of 

 the community had been stationary the weavers would not have 

 become relatively richer than before or if they did must have 

 done so at the expense of others, giving the fishermen for instance 

 better clothes, but depriving them of some corn or carpentry. 

 Remark, moreover, that the fishermen might not prefer the better 

 clothes to the corn and meat which they might lose. They 

 might be out-bid by the prosperous weavers. 



How is it then that in one community, one class may be rich 

 and benefit all the others, and yet can not get rich otherwise 

 than at the expense of others ? The explanation is that the gain 

 in wealth of certain classes can take place without injuring the 

 others during any period of general advance. Some may advance 

 farther than others and so come to be relatively rich, but when 

 all are becoming richer, it would be an abuse of terms to say 

 that those who are advancing fastest are gaining wealth at the 

 expense of their neighbours. The general advance was shown 

 in its simplest form when, simultaneously with the improvement 

 of agricultural methods, we had a new general want discovered 

 and supplied by those who were thrown out of work in conse- 

 quence of the diminution in the number of hands required to 

 supply food. Under these circumstances every one might have 

 as much cloth, carpentry or fish as before, but the farmers might 

 have more of their corn and of the new produce than any one 

 else. The hunters and all the others might have food which 

 they preferred to the old food and also handsome clothes. So 

 every one was richer and no one poorer ; but remark that the 

 two improving classes, farmers and hunters, got no more from 

 the other classes than before. Yet they benefited those other 

 classes. 



The extension is quite easy. In a rapidly advancing com- 

 munity those who make improvements may become rapidly rich 

 relatively to those who make none, but they nevertheless benefit 

 the stationary classes. Their own benefit is wholly derived 



