and in the second class all who live upon others. Immense consequences flow from this distinc tion. It has been recognized tacitly by many of the writers on economic subjects. Careless crit ics, failing to discover that the economists were thinking only of the real members of economic society and not of the social debtors, have de clared that their principles were false, because they did not apply to this or that special class, when in all probability the principles should have been applied only to the free and effective workers, the intelligent users of wealth, to the economic man whose desires and capacities are normal.
We may find a useful comparison in civic re lations. The citizen is one who is a member in full standing of the political community, who may claim the usual rights, and expects to per form the ordinary duties of citizenship. Nearly all nations have tolerated the presence of other persons who share in the protection of the government, who are required to obey its laws, and who may have certain civil rights which may be taken away, however, or modified with out their consent.
The distinction between the economic man and the social debtor is somewhat similar. The great body of the active workers throughout the world, whether day-laborers, skilled mechanics, merchants, or brain-workers, constitute a solid industrial community, each part connected by numerous bonds with every other part, each member contributing something that will satisfy the wants of himself or of others, and each aid ing to some extent to determine what kind of goods he himself and others who are at work shall produce. Excluded from this body by their failure to make any such contribution are the social debtors — the idlers, the inefficient, the industrial failures. Their failure may be due to natural weakness, or to misfortune, or to a criminal unwillingness to take part in honest toil. There is no law or constitutional provision excluding them as a class from the industrial world, and nearly all who are able to work at all are at times persuaded or compelled to do so. But their work is irregular and of little value, and in large part they rely upon the bounty of others who are united to them by social or reli gious ties, or upon the care given by the state.
When they are employed, they are apt to receive from motives of pity or for other reasons more than they really earn, thus concealing the ex tent to which they are supported by the active workers.
It must not be thought that all social debtors are blameworthy. Those who are at one time dependent may have done useful work at some previous time. Many who appear to be com pletely disabled are nevertheless producers be cause they influence and stimulate the efforts of others. Young children might be thought equally useless with those whom we have called social debtors, but excepting those who are to remain useless all their lives it is better to regard them as workers in preparation. Our
attention is directed toward their development into healthy, well-balanced, useful members of the community, and it is expected that they will gradually fit into their natural places of economic activity, first in their own homes, and then in some chosen occupation for which they will have been prepared.
Perhaps at some time in the future we shall come to think of all social debtors, except those who are disabled, in much the same way as un developed, untrained members of society, who can be transformed into active members by some suitable course of instruction and discipline. Farm colonies for tramps, indeterminate sen tence in prisons, military and naval service, maintained in some countries on a large scale partly for its educational value, and the many attempts to restore individual families to self support by means of the personal influence of friendly visitors, all rest upon this idea. Such agencies as these counteract to some extent the downward tendencies caused by " hard times," overwork, unhealthful sanitary conditions, in temperance and immorality, which every year in every country leave by the wayside thou sands who have had the capacity for work.
Without attempting, therefore, to fix the moral responsibility for the difference between those whom we call economic men and the so cial debtors, or to find out at present why there are so many in the latter class, it is sufficient to point out the distinction and to warn the student that nearly all economic discussion refers to the first class, which is fortunately, also, by far the most numerous.
The laws of value, of wages, of profits, of in terest, of rent, of money, of credit, of consump tion, of social progress, are laws operating in a society of equals.' The unit of all calculations is the economic man with clearly defined wants, with personal capacity for some kind of useful work, with the power of choosing between higher and lower pleasures, between the satisfaction enjoyed to-day and that insured for a future pe riod, and with a social nature enabling him to work in some degree of harmony with other men. It must be admitted that every true eco nomic principle would remain true when applied ti to a single man in the midst of a desert, or to a society of dependents all living, without any effort or responsibility of their own, on the direct bounty of some outside power. But the principles would then be applied very differ ently. Their relative importance would be al tered; and the practical conclusions to be drawn from them might be completely reversed. Thus in a society composed entirely of dependents the desire for food and for shelter might remain 1 This word is of course used in a relative sense. Economic men are equals in that all earn their living.