EARNED, so far as wages or profits were concerned. But this is one
of the particulars in which our community life is still imperfect.
Where so many different kinds of workers are engaged in producing
shoes, for example, it is extremely difficult to determine how
much each should be paid for his share of the work. What WAGES
should be given to the different classes of workers who care for
cattle, make the leather, manufacture the machines with which the
shoes are made, operate the machines, mine the coal and iron for
the production of the machines, and so on? What PROFITS shall be
allowed to the men who raise the cattle, to the merchants who sell
the shoes and the machines, and to the transportation companies
that carry them from the factories to the dealers? What INTEREST
shall be received by the men who furnish the CAPITAL necessary to
run the factories and the farms? These questions relating to the
DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH that men produce have proved very difficult
to answer satisfactorily.

A very useful and interesting, but rather difficult, science has
grown up to explain the PRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION, AND USE OF
WEALTH. It is called the SCIENCE OF ECONOMICS. Of all the
divisions of this science, that relating to the distribution of
wealth is the most perplexing. It is the inequalities in the
distribution of wealth, the sense of injustice produced by these
inequalities, and sometimes a failure to understand what a fair
distribution is, that have caused all the labor disputes referred
to in Chapter VII (p. 71), and the discontent sometimes felt by
farmers and other producers in regard to the prices of their
products.

Have you ever heard any one say, "The world owes me a living"? Is