96 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK 
It is in other words to the advantage of a factor that it should 
not expand but rather contract under prosperity and that its 
rival should increase in quantity as much as possible. 
3. Although the compass of this article is altogether too short 
to develop this point, it can be said that such mathematical 
computations as have been made seem to indicate that these 
two conclusions apply also as regards the relative shares 
of the total product as well as the return per unit. This is 
true for certain plausible assumed productivity surfaces but not 
for others. 
There is indeed grim irony in the fact that the principles of 
distribution run so counter to the heart of the Christian ethic 
with its faith that “whoever shall lose his life shall find it,” 
and with its injunction to go the second mile. Within the world 
of purely economic values and motives however, that factor which 
gives of itself most sparingly reaps the greatest reward, and 
reaps the more, the more the other factors expand and give of 
themselves. 
4. Where one factor has a negative elasticity of supply which 
is greater than the positive elasticity of the other, there is 
a cumulative process tending to enhance the return to the 
negatively elastic factor. The same may also be true when both 
factors have negative supply curves but of differing magnitudes. 
6. Elasticity of Supply in Relation to Decreases in the Net 
Effectiveness of Industry 
Precisely the reverse set of results would occur were the 
efficiency or exchange powers of a society to decrease without any 
prior change in the quantities of the factors themselves. 
If the supplies of both were completely inelastic, then for a 
symmetrical productivity surface each would suffer an equal 
proportionate loss without, of course, causing any diminution in 
the quantity of either. Were they both of infinite elasticity, 
then there would be a great contraction in the supply which 
would only be checked by (1) the lessened strain put upon some 
third factor such as land, and hence the higher joint product 
credited to the two factors in question, (2) the probability that 
some of the supply of the factors would be offered for a somewhat 
lower price rather than not be offered at all. If both of the 
elasticities were positive but equal, then the initial decrease in