The analogy, however, is misleading. The "marginal" one thousand wage earners refuse to work for four dollars a day because they can get better compensation in some other occupation. This phenomenon has been proved over and over again by observation and experience. On the other hand, there is no experience, no positive evidence, which shows or tends to show that any _necessary_ group of present savers would discontinue or materially reduce their accumulations if they were no longer able to secure the present rate of interest. If the rate were lowered simultaneously in all civilised countries the dissatisfied savers, unlike the dissatisfied labourers, would not be able to get a better price for their capital elsewhere. Their only alternative would be to spend their actual or potential savings for present enjoyment. Now we have no empirical data to justify the assumption that any considerable number of savers would choose this alternative in preference to, say, three or two per cent. interest. The fact that any group of savers at present gets and insists on getting a higher rate, merely proves that they can get it, and that they are selfish enough to take advantage of the possibility. We know that some men who now obtain six per cent. interest would accept two rather than cease to save; yet they do not hesitate to demand six per cent. So far as we know, all present savers might take the same attitude. At any rate, we can not conclude that they would not take less from the fact that they now get more. Why then does not the rate of interest fall? If all present savers are getting a higher rate than is necessary to induce them to save, why do they not increase their savings to such an extent that the supply of capital will exceed the present volume of demand, and thus lead to a decline in the rate of interest? This is what happens when the price of consumption-goods rises appreciably above the minimum level that satisfies the most high-priced or "marginal" producers. There is, however, an important difference between the two cases. The capacity to produce more goods is practically unlimited, and the corresponding desire is also unlimited, so long as the price of the product exceeds the cost of production. The capacity to save is not unlimited, and the desire to save is neutralised and sharply restricted by other and more powerful desires. Hence it is quite possible that the price of capital, i.e., interest, is determined to only a slight degree by the "cost" of saving, being mainly dominated and regulated from the side of demand.