PROFITS IN AGRICULTURE 869 



tend to get the bare cost of producing their wheat, and the dealers 

 who finance the marketing of the crop all the profits ? 



While control of capital clearly does give a tremendous advantage 

 to its possessor in the distributive struggle, we must not admit too 

 easily that it is the whole story. I have suggested in the Introduction 

 (p. 4) that the pioneer was a true entrepreneur, deriving profits both 

 from farm operation and from land speculation, by virtue of his 

 ability to control a supply of labor rather than capital. The same 

 holds true today. In some sections of the West owners of land have 

 had to give up active utilization of their ranches (to the end of securing 

 profits in addition to wages, interest, and rent) and accept the modest 

 returns which belong with passive uses of capital. They have been 

 forced to lease to the aggressive Japanese, who took advantage of 

 their ability to control an adequate labor force of their countrymen, 

 to secure for themselves the cream of profits which would otherwise 

 be skimmed by those who held the position of entrepreneurship by 

 virtue of their ownership of the land. We need to scrutinize further 

 the circumstances which put one or another member of the rural 

 group in the position of residual claimant for such surplus as agri- 

 culture produces over and above its contractual costs. 



Finally, there is a problem of the utmost social import which we 

 should discern underlying the facts of profits in agriculture. This 

 concerns the relation of profits to progress. ' ' In ordinary enterprises, ' ' 

 says Professor Seligman, "profit is the great lure of energy, and com- 

 petition the great destroyer of profit. Competitive profits, the union 



of both, are hence the symptom of progress In the long run 



the ability to take advantage of chance fluctuations plays into the 

 hands of society at large." To accept this view is to destroy the 

 grounds of our complacency over the absence of great profits in 

 agriculture, since it is the sign also of an absence of that advancing 

 efficiency out of which individual fortunes are created. It suggests 

 that the passing of the remarkable democracy of our agricultural 

 class may be the passing of a democracy of inefficiency, and the 

 emergence of some large incomes for those who do farming in a large 

 way (see section C) may be a sign that new leaders are beginning 

 to set new standards of attainment in this ancient calling. 







