154 - ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES

what degree of incompetence can avoid being driven out of
those ranks? On this question not a little depends. The
most expensive entrepreneurs, whether regarded from the
workman’s point of view as a wage-seeker, or from the point
of view of the community, interested in the most effective
possible organisation of its resources, are those who just hold
their own as employers, who just avoid being compelled to
give over the control of industry to others. Now the need
of the community for organising ability, considered in
relation to the supply of such ability, will determine to how
poor a grade resort must be had in order to get the work
done which is required to be done. Just as, in agriculture,
the need of the community for produce, in relation to the
supply of fertile land, determines what degree of infertility
of soil must be resorted to, to secure the necessary food
supply, so also in the corresponding case of managing ability
as just stated. Whether the earnings of the employers who
just maintain themselves as employers be regarded as made
up wholly of wages, such as they might get if employed by
others in a subordinate capacity, controlled instead of controlling,
 and in no degree of profits; or whether we call the
whole of the earnings, even of these entrepreneurs, profits,
the important implication of this view of the case will be
substantially the same. It is that the community stands to
gain, and that wage-earners stand to gain, by every elevation
of the grade of the lowest rank of entrepreneurs. If the
managing work can be done entirely by a high grade of
managing ability, it will be done more efficiently. Further,
the implication of this is that men who possess managing
power are relatively plentiful, and this is the essential
condition for their being obliged to be content with a
relatively small share in the product. Thus the organising
work would be better done, causing the product to be greater
with the same resources for producing it, while the share of
the produce which is needed to remunerate the organisers is
reduced, thus leaving more for distribution among the rest of
the community. Labour stands to get some share in this
increase, and thus has an interest in having as high a grade
of ability among entrepreneurs as possible.