184 
POLITICAL ECONOMY 
it would be as well not to apply the term 
“ profit ” to the payment of the employer 
for his positive activities in undertaking 
and organising production, apart from his 
gains as a capitalist ; but unfortunately 
there is no suitable short term to indicate 
what we have in mind. 
The appearance of a theory of payment 
for employing was comparatively late in the 
history of political economy ; the reason being, 
no doubt, that early employers were largely 
working with their own capital, and that their 
earnings were commonly reckoned as a per 
centage on their capital. In the economic 
writings of past generations we invariably find 
more or less confusion between payment for 
capital and payment for employing. 
In order to make sure of avoiding the 
pitfalls into which some economists have 
fallen, we shall take the seemingly eccentric 
course of arguing on the false assumption 
that every employer is working entirely with 
borrowed means ; in which case all that he 
received would be on account of the work 
that he did, including his enterprise. We 
shall also continue provisionally to make the 
assumption that all employers are equal in 
capacity, application and character generally. 
Now imagine, to begin with, that in a