AF measures time as before and AB the rate of pay at the beginning of the century. The dotted line BE represents the rise in wages due to the increase of capital, as it more than counteracts the growth of population. The rise of the line BD above BC represents the additional increase in wages which is brought about by improvements of method, and finally, the rise of BC above BD expresses the further addition to the pay of labor which comes by reason of improved organization. The uppermost line BC describes the resultant of all the dynamic changes on the supposition that they act in a natural way.
It will be seen that BC at first rises above BD rapidly and later runs nearly parallel with it. This expresses the fact that while gains insured by organization may continue for a long period, the amount of them does not greatly increase after a fairly efficient type of organization has been secured. On the other hand, the fact that BD rises above BE by a wider and wider interval expresses the fact that gains which come from technical improvements may increase for an indefinitely long time.
The Rate of Interest contrasted with the Absolute Amount of it; this Amount Increasing.—The changes which make wages rise cause interest to fall and there would seem to be a partial offset for the general gain; but the chief cause of a declining rate of interest is an increase of the total amount of capital. The size of the income which comes to the capitalists as a class from their entire invested wealth grows larger wherever the amount of the fund increases more rapidly than the rate of interest falls. A million dollars yielding four per cent gives a larger income than a half million yielding five or six. It is a condition such as this which we have described in outline, and it enables the holders of investments to receive a constantly increasing total return, although the percentage yielded by a given amount invested grows continually smaller.
The Conditions of Increasing Future Well-being.—The realization of this resultant of all dynamic forces requires that the rate of growth of population should be subject to a natural check, that the increase of capital should not be unduly retarded, that technical improvements should go on, and that the organization which is effected should be of the kind which makes for efficiency but not for monopoly. Competition must be kept alive. In altered ways, indeed, the essential power of it must forever dominate the industrial system, as it will do if the state shall do its duty and not otherwise. A dynamic society requires a dynamic government whose enlarging functions are shaped by economic conditions.
CHAPTER XIX
THE LAW OF POPULATION
Since the optimistic conclusion reached in the preceding chapter is contingent on an increase of wealth which is not neutralized by an increase of population, it remains to be seen whether the population tends to grow at a rate that gives reason to fear such a neutralizing. Does progress in method and in wealth tend to stimulate that enlarging of the number of working people which, in so far as they are concerned, would bring progress to an end? Is the dynamic movement self-retarding and will it necessarily halt? The answer to this question depends, in part, on the law of population.
The Malthusian Law.—We need first to know whether the growth of population is subject to a law, and if so, whether this law insures the maintenance of the present rate of increase or a retarding of it. The law of population formulated by Malthus at the beginning of the last century is the single extensive and important contribution to economic dynamics made by the early economists. It was based more upon statistics and less on a priori reasoning than were most of the classical doctrines. Even now the statement as made by Malthus requires in form no extensive supplementing, and yet the change which is required is sufficient to reverse completely the original conclusion of the teaching. Malthusianism constituted the especially "dismal" element in the early political economy, and yet, as stated by its author, it revealed the possibility of a comfortable future for the working class. One might look with cheerfulness on every threatening influence it described if he could be sure that the so-called "standard of living" on which everything depends would rise. The difficulty lay in the fact that the teaching afforded no evidence that it would thus rise. The common impression of readers was that it was destined to remain stationary and that too at a low level. The workmen of Malthus's time were not accustomed to getting much more than the barest subsistence, and not many economists expected that they would get much more, even though the world generally should make gains.