6 W. G. LangiDor^thy Taylor 



sistence of nature to encroaching population. If population 

 continued to increase, profits would fall, the surplus would de- 

 cline, and finally wages (identified with cost) would swallow 

 all production. 



John Stuart Mill presents to us a rounded picture of 

 economic society, stencilled upon Smith and Eicardo. He in- 

 forms us that it makes little difference in the theory, whether, 

 in practice, it be hard to distinguish between instances of pri- 

 vate action that make for or against social prosperity.' With 

 analysis of the practiced logician, he concludes that only 

 that labor can be called truly productive and only that wealth 

 can be called true capital, which are devoted to the ultimate, 

 or at least, the immediate, increase of social possessions. Be- 

 tween the ultimate and the immediate even Mill's logic seems 

 to falter. He seems to be uncertain whether to include in cap- 

 ital durable luxuries which add to wealth by the negative 

 quality of durability alone, or to draw the line strictly at pro- 

 ductive instruments. He then proceeds to show how this end 

 is accomplished by capitalization through the practical division 

 between fixed and circulating capital. The social limits of the 

 process of wealth-making are next described; the relation of 

 social cost to social surplus; while the structure is capped by 

 value stated as a relation of the component parts of social 

 product due to the portion of social cost pertaining to each 

 one of them. Distribution is regarded as a separate and prior 

 process to that of value. It depends indirectly upon the pro- 

 portion between cost and surplus, while value depends upon 

 cost alone. 



This conception of society is one in the highest degree mon- 

 adical ; the whole industrial world is seen to act and move as if 

 one typical man acted and moved according to his normal 

 powers and motives, and with their normal effect. 



'Easaya on Some Unsettled Qaeations of Political Kconomy. Essay III. On the 

 Words l-'roductive and Uuproductive. 



168 



