MONEY FALLACIES. 
381 
wars or other calamities sometimes shake and unsettle the 
economic foundations of the world, compelling communities 
to start anew with a higher rate of profit, yet the tendency 
immediately reappears. After a period of rest and stability 
or of equable unperturbed motion of the economic machine, 
profits are seen to have dwindled. But is not this a pes¬ 
simistic and gloomy view to take of the prospects of society ? 
Is this to be the outcome of our boasted improvement, and 
is there nothing before us but a diminution of profits until 
trade is simply a struggle to secure a bare margin against 
loss ? What becomes of those vanishing profits ? 
My good friend, if you would find the vanished profits, 
look about you. They have not left the earth nor lapsed 
into nothingness; they have gone to places where of all 
others and before all others it is well that they should go. 
Here they are all around you—better food and more of it, 
better clothing and more of it, better houses and more of 
them, better streets and roads and more of them, better fur¬ 
niture and fairer decoration in your houses and more of 
them, swifter trains and more of comfort in them, better 
music and paintings and more of them, better schools and 
colleges and more of them, better comfort, better thought, 
better art, better living, and, in Heaven’s name, let us hope, 
better men and better women. Your profit of 20 per cent, 
of 20 years ago, my friend, has dwindled now to 5 per cent., 
but the world has gotten the other fifteen, and that, too, on 
a vastly greater capital sum. You may long for the good 
old times, but the world will, if it is wise, give you little 
sympathy. It is best as it is. As profits diminish real 
wages rise. In the division of the produce of land, labor, and 
capital a decreasing share goes to capital and, for the present, 
to rent also, and labor has gained what the other two have 
lost. 
Still the world is not happy. Why ? Because it is blind 
to what it has gained and sees only what it has lost. It has 
gained a better living because it has sacrificed profits, and is 
moping because it cannot have its cake and eat it, too. Yet 
