thy of "a great nation." Business
machines reduce the personnel necessary for a given social enterprise,
but their high capital and operational costs increase overhead.

Another aspect of overhead costs is the multiplication of parasitic
professions. In simple villages, there are few body servants, no
able-bodied individuals who fetch and carry at the word of command, or
who only stand and wait for the moment when some whim, fancy or real
need may call for their services.

Village life, with its limited area and still more limited resources,
has little economic surplus upon which parasitism can feed. There is
landlordism, of course, but the margin of surplus is small. The city,
the province, the nation, the empire present a different picture.
Parasitic professions abound and proliferate: money changers, money
lenders, realtors, confidence men, gamblers, fortune tellers, priests,
entertainers, artists, thieves, robbers, and prostitutes abound, consume
more than their share of the community income, without making an
equivalent return in production or service. Their support adds to the
social overhead.

Another source of social overhead are the numerous followers of the
"something for nothing" cult who receive unearned income--an income
derived from civilization in its mature and its final stages.

Broadly there are two types of income--earned income and unearned
income. Earned income is something for something--or return for goods
provided or service rendered. Unearned income is something for
nothing--an income derived from some monopoly, privilege, sinecure or
form of property ownership.

Property in persons or things has been a characteristic feature of all
civilizations. Property owners, receiving rents, interest, dividends, in
proportion to the amount of property which they own are not called upon
to make equivalent return in exchange for their property--based income.
This personal parasitism of property owners is aggravated by provisions
of property law under which the owners of property can give, sell or
bequeath these sources of unearned income to family members, friends,
associates.

Eventually, unearned income, handed on through generations, creates a
class or even a caste of citizens who live without rendering an
equivalent of services, on the labor of their fellows, adding a
significant amount to the total of overhead costs.

Wealth ownership, the exercise of power, living in luxury on unearned
income,