it is a life not
of harmony, but of discord.

But we can go further. We said at the outset that the function of
society was to secure to all normal adult members the means of earning
by useful work the material necessaries of a healthy and efficient life.
We can see now that this is one case and, properly understood, the
largest and most far reaching case falling under the general principle
of economic justice. This principle lays down that every social function
must receive the reward that is sufficient to stimulate and maintain it
through the life of the individual. Now, how much this reward may be in
any case it is probably impossible to determine otherwise than by
specific experiment. But if we grant, in accordance with the idea with
which we have been working all along, that it is demanded of all sane
adult men and women that they should live as civilized beings, as
industrious workers, as good parents, as orderly and efficient citizens,
it is, on the other side, the function of the economic organization of
society to secure them the material means of living such a life, and
the immediate duty of society is to mark the points at which such means
fail and to make good the deficiency. Thus the conditions of social
efficiency mark the minimum of industrial remuneration, and if they are
not secured without the deliberate action of the State they must be
secured by means of the deliberate action of the State. If it is the
business of good economic organization to secure the equation between
function and maintenance, the first and greatest application of this
principle is to the primary needs. These fix the minimum standard of
remuneration beyond which we require detailed experiment to tell us at
what rate increased value of service rendered necessitates corresponding
increase of reward.

It may be objected that such a standard is unattainable. There are
those, it may be contended, who are not, and never will be, worth a full
efficiency wage. Whatever is done to secure them such a remuneration
will only involve net loss. Hence it violates our standard of economic
justice. It involves payment for a function of more than it is actually
worth, and the discrepancy might be so great as to cripple society. It
must, of course, be admitted that the population contains a certain
percentage of the physically incapable, the mentally defective, and the
morally uncontrolled. The treatment of these classes, all must agree, is
and m