ires of men are always
in excess of their abilities to supply them; it follows, therefore, that
the condition known as over-production consists in a lack of _ability_
to purchase goods rather than in a lack of _desire_ to purchase them.
This lack of ability has evidently to do with the distribution of wealth
rather than its production.

While it is easy to formulate laws to govern the theoretically perfect
production of wealth, to whose justice all men will consent, we cannot
go far in the details of the ideal distribution of wealth without
reaching points upon which the views of different parties are
diametrically opposed. Some foundation principles, however, let us
state, believing that in their truth the great majority of men will
concur.

In the chapter on the theory of competition we saw that, if we conceived
the results of the labor of the whole community to be placed in a common
storehouse and gave to each man the right to draw from it an amount just
equal to the benefit derived from the goods which he had placed within
it, the ideal of a perfect system of distribution of wealth would be
realized. No human judgment, however, is, or ever can be, competent to
measure the exact industrial benefits which each person confers upon the
community at large. We must inevitably permit men to measure the result
of their own work by securing for it such an amount of the results of
others' work as they can induce them to give in exchange. But while we
cannot measure exactly the benefit which each person confers, we can see
cases in which the reward received is manifestly out of all proportion
to the benefit conferred. Consider the fortunes which have been
accumulated by some of our Midases of the present decade. It is quite
certain that the benefits which Cornelius Vanderbilt, for instance,
conferred on the community by his enterprise and business sagacity, by
his work in opening new fields of industry, forming new channels for
commerce, etc., were so valuable that he honestly earned the right to
enjoy a large fortune. It is equally certain that a great part of his
gains had nothing whatever to do with any benefit conferred upon the
community, and that the fortune of $100,000,000 or so which he
accumulated was an example of inequitable distribution of the products
of the world's industry. Stating this in the form of a general
principle, we should say: _The amount of wealth which any man receives
should bear some approximate