earners are no indication of the share of the product received by all
wage earners. That depends not only on the return to each wage earner,
but also on the total number of wage earners, and upon the number and
return to each of the other agents of production. In China, for example,
where most work is done by simple hand labor, wage incomes are low. But
because the number of wage earners is great, and the amount of capital
used is very small, the total share of the product that takes the form
of wages is high. The opposite is true in the United States and England.
There individual wage incomes are relatively high. But because of the
great amount of capital employed, and the great call for business
direction, it is doubtful whether much more than half the total product
is received by wage earners.[23]

7.--Moreover, any statement as to the influence of the relative scarcity
or plenty of the various groups or agents of production, as unqualified
as that just made must be incorrect. It gives no clew to the importance
of interacting factors. Here, as elsewhere in economics, many separate
causes meet to produce a result. The disentanglement of their effects is
frequently so difficult as to make more than an approach to the truth
possible. The part each cause plays often remains somewhat obscure. Yet
without reckoning with these interactions not even an approach to the
truth is possible. So it is necessary to proceed now to a brief study of
the other influences which play a part in distribution; and which lead
to results somewhat different from those just described.

First, account must be taken of the fact that the various groups or
agents of production are not entirely complementary, as has been assumed
up to this point. Their outstanding relation--that of cooperation in the
production of a joint product--has already been studied. But there is
also a measure of genuine competition between them for the field of
employment. An unusually clear and detailed example of the nature of
this competition is to be found in the report of the commission on "The
Decline of the Agricultural Population in Great Britain." To quote "Many
expedients, other than actually stopping the plow, were adopted to
reduce the labor bill. But while manual labor has no doubt been
economized to some extent by curtailing some of the operations which
require it, the main cause of reduction is undoubtedly the extended use
of labor saving machinery. This i