174 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
or the division of the revenues of society among all its members. The laborer thinks he receives too little, which is doubtless often true ; but the losses and risks of capital are not light or imaginary. The employing manufacturer, farmer, or great merchant is only the distributor of the final product among the various producing factors labor, raw material, interest, taxes for various public purposes, and a score of other objects, he receiving the remain- der for his services and profit. Instead of a surplus, he may be confronted with a deficit. The payments he makes and the prices he may obtain are regulated by a force greater than his own. More than 40 per cent, of all enterprises fail, but the laborer gets his pay. More than two hundred million dollars were sunk in the Panama Canal.
Our present economic system may, briefly, be said to be dis- tribution according to contribution, or services rendered, sub- stantial equality of opportunity, free competition, and value fixed by the law of supply and demand. Among other systems, some have proposed an equal distribution of products ; these would pay every man the same, without regard to the value of the services rendered. The woman who could knit one pair of stockings should receive the same as the one who could knit four pairs. This might be a simple plan, but it would be unjust.
Men differ greatly in their abilities, and their products differ greatly in quality and value. Within the knowledge of the writer, a man doing piece work, in a shoe factory in Chicago, earns from $ 1 2 to $15 per week ; another, working under precisely the same conditions and at the same prices, earns from $25 to $30 per week ; while a third, because of irregular habits, earns but $8 or $10 per week. To limit the production of the best man, or to compel him to share equally with the unskilful, incom- petent, or lazy, would be grossly unjust and uneconomical. To make no distinction between thoughtful care and industry, and inaptitude and sloth, would be to remove that incentive to honest endeavor that has ever been the greatest factor in human progress.
Some have proposed a distribution according to needs or wants. They do not say what is meant by wants. Men's wants or
