ISO 



wheat really needed by a community, and twenty are employed 

 to do it, they will be poor. They could afford to be idle no 

 doubt, but you can have too much even of idleness, especially 

 when you are poor. And what was the remedy against these 

 two modes of poverty ? Not an improvement in agriculture ; 

 that would make the twenty poorer than ever, five men then 

 could grow wheat enough for all, and putting twenty men to do 

 it would be worse than before. The one conceivable remedy is 

 to put the surplus hands not really required for the food pro- 

 duction to produce a new right thing. That is to say, to produce 

 something satisfying a new want felt by those who can give 

 back that which the producers need ; or that which will get 

 them what they need by exchange. When this new want was 

 found and the equilibrium between production and consumption 

 re-established, then indeed the improvement in agriculture was 

 found to be a real gain. The community had more wants 

 satisfied than before. 



Direct barter was not in the least necessary, provided the 

 barter circuit was closed in the way described. The easiest way 



of representing this condition to the mind is by a diagram. LI -I 

 the reader sketch five little rudimentary people standing upright : 

 let lines going out of the strokes to the right indicate pro- 



