WAGES,  PROFITS  AND  INTEREST  169

equally  willing  and  manageable  ;  and  likewise
between  the  inanimate  agents  we  imagine  there
is  nothing  to  choose.  This  broad  assumption,
which  for  the  purposes  of  argument  removes
the  private  properties  of  things  of  the  same
order  does  violence  to  the  facts,  but  later
we  shall  dispense  with  it  and  introduce  into
our  doctrine  the  alterations  which  will  then  be
requisite.
We  shall  suppose  provisionally  that  in  a
given  community  there  are  a  fixed  number  of
employers  and  a  fixed  number  of  labourers.
Each  employer,  producing  under  the  guidance
of  demand,  will  aim  at  working  with  so  much
capital  and  so  much  labour  that  he  maximises ­
  his  profit.  Now  the  first  point  to
settle  is  this  :  How  will  the  employer  who  is
trying  to  maximise  his  profit  be  governed
in  regulating  the  relative  supplies  of  workpeop
  e,  material  and  plant  in  his  business  ?
The  answer  is  not  far  to  seek.  Brief  reflection
should  render  it  broadly  evident  that  the
employer  will  engage  so  much  of  each  class  of
producing  power  that  no  increase  of  it,  in  view
of  the  price  which  he  has  to  pay  for  it,  will
mean  a  greater  loss  than  gain,  other  things
being  equal.  Thus  let  us  write  L.  for  labour,
C.  for  capital  and  M.  for  the  remainder  of
the  agents  in  production,  namely  the  site  of