interferences with the competition which is the result of freedom.

_Influences which retard Static Adjustments._--Throughout the study we
have paid due attention to those ordinary elements of "economic
friction" which all theoretical writers have recognized and which
practical writers have put quite in the foreground; and we have
discovered that, while they are influences to be taken account of in
any statement of principles, they in no wise invalidate principles
themselves. For the most part they are influences which retard those
movements which bring about static adjustments. An invention cheapens
the production of some article and at once the natural or static
standard of its price falls; but the actual price goes down more
slowly, and in the interim the producer who has the efficient method
gathers in the fruit of it as a profit. The retarding influence is a
fact that should be as fully recognized in a statement of the law of
profit as any other. The existence of it is an element in the theory
of _entrepreneur's_ profit. Improvements which reduce the cost of
goods enhance the product of labor, and this sets a higher standard
for wages than the one that has thus far ruled; but a delay occurs
before the pay of workmen rises to the new standard. Adjustments have
to be made which require time, and these are as obviously elements
that must be incorporated into an economic theory as any with which it
has to deal.

_Influences which resist Dynamic Movements._--If there is anything
which, without impairing the motive powers of economic progress, puts
an obstacle in the way of the movement, it has to be treated like one
of these elements of friction to which we have just referred. In our
discussion of the growth of population, the increase of wealth, the
improvement of method, etc., we have paid attention to resisting
forces as well as others, and have tried to determine what is the
resultant of all of them. The forces of resistance have their place in
a statement of dynamic laws.

_An Influence that perverts the Forces of Progress._--We have to deal,
not only with such retarding influences, but with a positive
perversion of the force that makes for progress. Everywhere we have
perceived that competition--the healthful rivalry in serving the
public--is essential in order that the best methods and the most
effective organization should be selected for survival, and that
industry should show a perpetual increase in produc