The real struggle lies between capitalist and worker. Once the value of corn has been determined by the cost of producing it on the least favoured land, the proprietor seizes whatever is over and above this, saying to both worker and capitalist, “You can divide the rest between you.” This clearly is Ricardo’s view.[350] “Whatever raises the wages of labour lowers the profits of stock.” Wages can only rise at the expense of profits, and _vice versa_—a terrible prophecy that has been abundantly illustrated by the fortunes of the labour movement, but never more clearly than at the present moment. But the mere statement of the fatal antagonism between capitalist and workman must have caused both grief and surprise to those economists who had endeavoured to demonstrate the solidarity of interests between them as between brothers. Bastiat was one of these, and he tried to show that in the course of economic evolution the share of each factor tends to grow, but that labour’s shows the greatest increase. There can be no objection to Ricardo’s method of stating the law. The whole thing is so evident that it is almost a truism. A cake is being shared between two persons. If one gets more than his due share is it not evident that the other must get less? It may be pointed out, on the other hand, that the amount available for distribution is continually on the increase, so that the share which each participant gets may really be growing bigger. But that is hardly the problem to be solved.[351] Increase the cake tenfold, even a hundredfold, but if one person gets more than half of it the other must have less. Ricardo’s implication is just that. His law deals with proportions and not with quantities. Admitting that the proportion which one of the two factors receives can be increased only if the other is lessened, the problem is to discover which of the two, capital or labour, has the bigger portion. It really seems as if it were labour, for Ricardo speaks of another law of profits, namely, “the tendency of profits to a minimum.” Here is another thesis which has had a long career in the history of economics, but what are the reasons that can be adduced in support of it? The natural tendency of profits, then, is to fall; “for in the progress of society and wealth the additional quantity of food required is obtained by the sacrifice of more labour.” It is determined by the same cause as determined rent—the system is a solid piece of work at any rate.