ntact between job owners
and job takers.

2. The distribution of wealth and income.

Another old issue has returned to plague a society that makes it
possible for some to enjoy "progress" while others must suffer from
"poverty." Labor saving machinery has increased the quantity of the
industrial product, but as yet there has been no general effort to see
that the advantages of this wealth production go to those who are in
need of food, clothing and shelter. Indeed, under the present order,
millions of those who work are called upon to accept a standard of
living which represents less than physical health and social decency,
while those who own the land and the machinery with which the wealth is
produced are able to exact a rent or unearned income that keeps them
permanently on easy street. This embittering contrast between the house
of have and the house of want is leading to-day, as it has in any
historical society, to division and conflict, for, as Madison wisely
observed in the Federalist, "The most common and durable source of
factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property."

3. The interrelation of industries.

So long as there was a direct connection between a worker and the
product which he turned out, economic life was simple. When, however,
the coal dug in eastern Pennsylvania was used to heat houses in
Minneapolis, while wheat grown in Dakota was milled in Duluth, made into
crackers in Boston and sold all over New England, there arose the
problem of the relation between mining, wheat raising, transport,
manufacturing, and merchandising. Thus far the banker has acted as the
go-between in holding this machinery together, but he labors under two
important disqualifications: first, he does not represent anyone except
himself and his fellow owners and is therefore not socially responsible
for what he does; in the second place, like every other business man, he
is out to make a profit rather than to render the community a service.
Hence the structure of industrial society rests in chaotic dependence
upon the ambitions and foibles of self-selected financiers.

4. Attempts at government control of industry.

The irritated people, incensed by repeated acts of economic tyranny,
have turned to the political state, which has been thought of as the
guardian of popular rights in a democracy, and through regulatory
legislation the appointment of commissions, and even through state
competition they