nd so forth. These are
all misleading expressions. The intended meaning seems to be that some
people live upon what they get from land, or from intelligence, as other
people live upon what they get as interest upon capital. Nevertheless,
land is not capital, nor is intelligence capital. Production requires,
as we have seen, three distinct things, namely, land, labour, and
capital; and there is much harm in confusing things together by giving
them the same name when they are not the same thing.

CHAPTER VI.

DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH.

#38. How Wealth is Shared.# We have learned what wealth is, how it is to
be used, and how it may be produced in the greatest quantities, with the
least possible labour, but we have yet to enter on the more difficult
parts of our subject. We must now try to make out how wealth is shared
among those who have a hand in producing it. The requisites of
production, as we have seen, are land, labour, and capital; if these
were all supplied by the same person, no doubt the produce ought all to
belong to him, with the exception of what is taken by the government as
taxes. But, in a state of society such as exists at present, the
labourer seldom owns all the land and capital he uses; he goes to work
on another man's farm, or in another man's factory; he lives in another
man's house, and often eats another man's food; he derives benefits from
other men's inventions, and discoveries; and he uses roads, railways,
public buildings, &c., furnished at the cost of the community.

The production of wealth, therefore, depends not on the will and
exertions of a single man, but on the proper bringing together of land,
labour, and capital, by different persons and classes of persons. These
different persons must have their several shares of the wealth produced;
if they furnish something requisite for producing, they can make a
bargain and ask for more or less of the produce. But #it is not mere
chance or caprice which governs the sharing of wealth, and we have to
learn the natural laws according to which the distribution takes place#.
We must ascertain how it is that many of the population get so little,
and some so much. Men work very hard on a farm and raise crops; the
landlord comes and takes away a large part as rent, so that the
labourers have barely enough to live upon. When we are able to
understand why the labourer gets so little at present, we shall see,
perhaps, how he might manage to get mor