POLITICAL ECONOMY 
172 
It must be firmly grasped that any class 
of employed agents in production has a 
marginal worth which varies, other things 
being equal, with its supply: the larger the 
supply, in relation to given supplies of 
other factors, the lower the marginal worth. 
It is these marginal worths, or their equiva 
lents, which tend to accrue to the agents 
in production as their earnings ; and it is 
vital to an understanding of the economic 
functioning of a community to recognise that 
in these payments the value of the things 
produced is expressed. Workpeople have a 
value to the employer because, in conjunc 
tion with other agents, they create what has 
a direct or indirect value to consumers. 
Their value to the employer is in effect the 
value of what is made transmitted through 
the demand of the employer; and the value 
of what is made may actually originate in 
themselves, because it may be settled on the 
one side by their own demand for goods. 
Similarly the value of every other agent in 
production is the transmitted value of what 
it adds to production at the margin. 
So we may lay it down in the rough that, 
subject to reservations arising out of social 
friction, the sum which each agent in pro 
duction (apart from the employer, whose case