Distribution, Law Of

Abstract

The most important share of the income of society is the one falling to labour. The so-called ‘wage fund’ theory accounted for the rate at which labourers are paid on the ground that wages come from a fund of capital devoted to the fund and that the rate per man depends on the size of the fund and the number of the claimants. The discovery of the fact that wages come from the product of industry, and not from capital, has made a new theory necessary, and has opened the way to the discovery of a general law of distribution.