that of employers and employed; and the first condition of successful
study of the question, or of successful investigation to see if there
is any question, is to throw aside the technical economic terms, and to
look at the subject in its true meaning, expressed in untechnical
language. We will use the terms "capital" and "labor" only in their
strict economic significance, viz., the first definition given above
under each term, and we will use the terms "laborers" and "capitalists"
when we mean the persons described in the second definition under each
term.

It is a common assertion that the interests of employers and employed
are identical, that they are partners in an enterprise, etc. These
sayings spring from a disposition, which may often be noticed, to find
consoling and encouraging observations in the facts of sociology, and
to refute, if possible, any unpleasant observations. If we try to learn
what is true, we shall both do what is alone right, and we shall do the
best for ourselves in the end. The interests of employers and employed
as parties to a contract are antagonistic in certain respects and
united in others, as in the case wherever supply and demand operate. If
John gives cloth to James in exchange for wheat, John's interest is
that cloth be good and attractive but not plentiful, but that wheat be
good and plentiful; James' interest is that wheat be good and
attractive but not plentiful, but that cloth be good and plentiful. All
men have a common interest that all things be good, and that all
things but the one which each produces be plentiful. The employer is
interested that capital be good but rare, and productive energy good
and plentiful; the employé is interested that capital be good and
plentiful, but that productive energy be good and rare. When one man
alone can do a service, and he can do it very well, he represents the
laborer's ideal. To say that employers and employed are partners in an