restrictions or force with force.
Such conditions must be but temporary.

_Actual and nominal compensation._--In considering compensation for any
services, it is necessary to distinguish carefully between the actual
compensation in welfare and the nominal compensation in money. A farmer in
Nebraska may get a larger return for his labor with corn at 15 cents a
bushel than he could in Massachusetts with corn at 40 cents a bushel. Just
so a wage-earner, receiving $1.50 a day in Ohio, might lose in welfare by
exchanging work with his neighbor in New Mexico, who gets $2.50 a day.
This means that $1.50 in Ohio may buy more comfort than $2.50 can buy in
New Mexico. This is very important in comparing the wages of different
classes of workmen in the same country, as well as the wages of similar
workmen in different countries. It has an important bearing, too, upon
relative profits and interest. The actual compensation in welfare is the
natural basis for adjustment in all distribution, and the law of supply
and demand rests directly upon this.

_Wages, profits, interest and rent take the product._--It is common to
consider distribution as made in the forms of wages for labor given
without risk as to the product, profits to the one whose labor is
associated with risk of loss as well as gain, interest to the one who
furnishes capital in any form and waits for his compensation, and rent to
the landlord, or owner of estate, whose property is used for a definite
time and returned. It is evident that any advantage received in any of
these ways, at any time, must come from the actual available goods in
store suitable for division and consumption. The farmer cannot pay his
hired hand with his farm, though he may be able to do so with his
products. The farmer himself cannot realize his profits until he has the
proceeds of his work in the shape of consumable goods. So, at any
particular time, the total of products fit for consumption makes the
source from which all distribution must come. Debts and credits can have
no consideration in the total, for the reason that they exactly offset
each other. A general conflict of interested persons as to wages, profits,
interest or rent comes from the difficulty of sharing in the actual goods
at hand. The relation of each to the whole depends upon circumstances to
be discussed in future chapters. It is certain that the larger proportion
of daily production goes to the mass of the people who consume t