102
POLITICAL ECONOMY
by entering the ranks of those who exercise
the employing function. Moreover, in con
sequence of the greater safety assured to
the capital of investors when a business
is clothed in the legal company forms,
it has drawn increasing proportions of
the savings of the community into the
industrial field, and induced a higher degree
of saving than would have taken place
otherwise.
To say that the earnings of employers are
settled by demand and supply is not to
demonstrate that it is open to everybody who
is prepared to undertake the burden, and is
capable of doing the work, to make the
employer’s income. It is still necessary in
almost all circumstances, that a person
should be possessed of some substantial
resources if he is to thrust himself into the
employing class. Moreover, it is generally
requisite that he should have received a
certain kind of training, and be in certain
relations with particular sections of the
business world, to enable him to make a start
with fair prospects of success. Consequently,
to all but the most exceptional of those who
are born in the lower economic ranks, the
scaling of the industrial ladder is hard in
the absence of unusually good fortune. It