through the forests or roamed the plains there was no
overhead. Each provided his own means of locomotion. With roads came
bridges. With roads and bridges came capital costs. As dirt roads gave
way to macadam and macadam to asphalt and concrete, as country roads,
winding over hill and through dale were replaced by graded superhighways
cut straight through or built over all obstacles, the cost per mile rose
fantastically. All of these added costs appeared somewhere in the tax
bills which citizens were required to pay.

In any enterprise overhead costs rise in direct proportion to the extent
and complexity of the social order. As they rise, they increase the
prices of the goods and services which citizens (or consumers) must pay
for their livelihood. A good illustration of this principle is the price
of an identical acre of land: in the remote countryside; on an improved
highway; in the suburbs of a growing city and at the city center.

Increasing wealth brings greater risks. Wealthy cities like wealthy
individuals and families must pay for their protection against robbery
and piracy; against extortion and expropriation. Among important
business enterprises insurance ranks high. The costs and profits of
insurance are suggested by elaborate insurance company buildings and the
high salaries paid to their officials.

Insurance, usually a private overhead, comes high. Public insurance:
maintenance of law and order, crime and punishment, the secret and open
police, the armed forces, (land and sea and air) are vastly more
expensive. If, to these limited costs of overhead are added the costs of
militarism as a public enterprise and the ruinous costs of military
adventurism and its inevitable wars, the mounting costs lead to
insolvency and eventual economic and social ruin.

Another overhead cost which plays havoc with civilized nations and
peoples is the support of a bureaucracy. Increased extent and complexity
exhaust the community capacity for voluntary service and lead into an
era where the volunteers who carried on the limited public activities of
a village are supplemented and eventually replaced by a constantly
growing body of public servants. Growing extent and complexity plus the
need for finding safe places for those who are useful to the rich and
powerful, widens and deepens the public crib. In large enterprises,
private as well as public, paper work employs a small army, which must
be fed and housed at a level wor