Chapter 39. Income and Social Service

1. What is it to earn a living? How many people do it?

2. When is a man poor?

3. Would it be a good thing if the boot-black got a dollar a shine?

4. Does luck have greater influence on business success in an old country or a new one?

5. Ditto in agriculture, mining, commerce, or manufactures?

6. A rare coin and a piece of land sold for the same price one year, and the next year both sold for double the amount. Was there an unearned increment in both cases, and of the same kind?

7. If rewards were equal, what would determine the choice of work?

Note.—The most important contributions to the theory of consumption have been made by S. N. Patten in his numerous writings, among them: The Consumption of Wealth (1889); Theory of Dynamic Economics (1892); The Theory of Prosperity (1902). A number of the ideas are well restated in more simple terms by E. T. Devine in Economics, especially pp. 375-396, and 73-111 (applies to chapter 41).