er, helping each other to
make a joint product. In our table A''', B''', and C''' are the goods
of which the social income is composed. Subgroups, such as A, A',
etc., help to make this grand total of finished goods; but in A, A',
and all the other subdivisions there are laborers and capitalists
working together. Farming, mining, cotton spinning, shoemaking,
building, and a myriad of other occupations all work together to
create an aggregate of goods which constitute the social income. In
each of these branches of business there are men and working
appliances contributing each a part to the quota that this branch
furnishes.

_Distribution as an Analysis._--The essential fact about distribution
is that it is an analysis. It reverses the synthetic operation step by
step, resolving the grand total produced by society into shares
corresponding with the amounts contributed by the specific industries,
such as mining, cotton spinning, shoemaking, etc. The men who own and
work the mines do not keep the ore they secure, nor do they wish to
keep it. The ore goes into a stock of goods for the general use of
society, and it constitutes a definite addition to the value of that
stock. As ore it is transmuted into a myriad of forms, merged with
other materials and lost; but the amount that it adds to the total
product of society is definite. It is a certain definable quantity of
wealth, and that quantity of wealth the producers of the ore should
get for themselves. Distribution further resolves the share of each
particular industry into final portions for the use of the laborers
and capitalists in that industry; and these correspond with the
amounts which these laborers and capitalists contribute. The result of
distribution is to fix the rate of wages, the rate of interest, and
the amount of the profits of employers, if such profits exist; and the
general thesis which is here advanced and remains to be proved is
that, if society were without changes and disturbances, if competition
were absolutely free, and if labor and capital were so mobile that the
slightest inducement would cause them to pass from one branch of
business to another,[1] there would be no true profits[2] in any
business, and labor and capital would create and get the whole social
income. Moreover, each laborer and each capitalist would get the
amount of his personal contribution to this sum total. Amid all the
complications of society the modern worker would be in a