To
what extent these conditions are attainable, and how they are to be
sought, remains to be studied. The starting point of further study is a
knowledge of the forces which govern the distribution of the product of
industry at the present time in the United States--that is, a knowledge
of the principles of distribution. Our intention, however, is to
undertake that study only in so far as it is necessary to explain how
wage incomes are determined. Such a partial study of the principles of
distribution with the special purpose of making clear the factors that
govern wage incomes will occupy the next two chapters. They will
constitute a statement of wage principles.

2.--The distribution of the product of industry between the wage earners
and the other groups who share in it is a continuous process in which
each group asserts its own interests and purposes. Wages are settled
through a series of separate bargains between the wage earners and the
owners or directors of industrial enterprises. The outcome of these
bargains, as regards wages, is determined by the interaction of a great
number of circumstances or forces, some of which are relatively more
constant and more important than others. We will begin our study of wage
principles by considering those forces which are relatively the most
important and the most constant.

These have been cogently summarized as follows: "... the volume of the
flow of wealth in the country of the worker; the relative plenty or
scarcity of different agents of production; the relative plenty or
scarcity of different kinds of labor."[12] They may be taken up in the
order stated, at the same time noting the way their action is modified
and complicated by other factors.

One preliminary comment may be admissible. It is to the effect that
there has been in the past a tendency to view the problem of
distribution (and so, of wages) as if it consisted of making clear by
analysis the balance or equilibrium of a few given and unchanging
tendencies--which were deduced from human and physical nature. These
forces furthermore, were frequently held to be universal; the
conclusions based on them have often been likened to physical laws. Such
a view obscures the fact that any analysis of distribution is but a
description of the working of a particular industrial society at a
particular time. To mistake what is a description of a particular
society for a study of the action of physical laws has the effe