comes had not risen. That would mean that, for the average human being, economic effort was producing less and less. But the fact is that, in general, throughout the world—certainly before the war—goods had not been growing scarce. Incomes were rising all over the world and, in general, they were rising faster than the cost of living. Recurring to the figures of Professor W. I. King, we find that the estimated per capita income in the United States increased between 1900 and 1910 by 41%, whereas the price level rose only 25%.
This average improvement, however, does not settle the matter. The evil is not one of average well-being but one of its distribution, and the question remains: Who has got the benefit of this increased production? Some incomes change less than others and some do not change at all. It is in this inequality—an inequality in the change of individual incomes—that the chief evil of general price movements is to be found.
If, for each of us, the rise of income were to keep up with the rise in the cost of living, then the high cost of living would have no real meaning. The rise would be merely on paper.
2. Contracts Upset
But no such perfect adjustment between rise in income and rise in cost of living ever occurs or can occur. Agreements made at various times to pay specific sums of money at later times make this impossible.
Consider the debtor and creditor relationship. If Congress should suddenly decree that the present fifty-cent piece should henceforth be known as a "dollar," it is clear that, in practice, the change would not be
