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 maxi 
mises 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 work- 
peop 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