come
when we must recognize this by making it a legal responsibility as well.

We are now ready to consider in detail this inter-relationship of
society, and to examine the natural laws which govern it. We have
already stated the fact that, broadly speaking, each man is engaged in
supplying the wants of his fellow men, because in that way better than
in any other he can supply his own wants. We shall find this an easy
matter to understand if we conceive that every man puts the products of
his labor, of whatever sort it be, into a common public stock (offers it
for sale), and takes out of this common stock (buys) the various
articles which he wants. He does the first simply that he may do the
second, not because he desires to benefit his fellow-men. The money
which he receives (as we do not propose to consider here any questions
regarding the currency) we may regard as simply a certificate that he
has done a certain amount of work for the world, the measure of which is
the number of dollars he receives; and on presentation of that
certificate, he can obtain other articles which he desires.

We have next to consider the fact that there is a great variation in the
amount which a man can take out from this common stock. One man is able
to provide himself from the common stock with a host of luxuries, while
another may only take out a scant supply of the barest necessaries of
life. If this distribution operated with perfect equity, a man would be
permitted to take out of this common stock exactly in proportion to the
benefit which the world at large received from that which he put in. No
human judgment, however, is competent to fix, with even an approach to
precision, the relative actual benefit which each member of society
renders to his fellow-men as a whole. But our social system effects that
for us better than it could be fixed by any arbitrary human judgment.
This it does by a law known as the law of supply and demand. Instead of
the actual benefit, this law takes what people choose to consider as
benefit, which is the granting of their desires, whether they desire
things hurtful or beneficial. It is these desires for things which
others can produce which constitute demand. It is to be borne in mind
that this is a broad term, and includes not only desires for food,
clothing, and actual things, but for service of every sort, in short,
demand is the desire for any thing whatever for which people are willing
to pay money.