What portion of the total national income, after deduction is made of rent, shall go to the capitalists and what portion to the working class, will depend mainly on whether the capitalists compete more greedily for labor or the laboring classes for capital.[183-3] If, for instance, capital should increase more rapidly than population, there must be a relative increase in wages, and _vice versa_.[183-4] This is true especially of that peculiar kind of higher wages which we shall (§ 145, ff.) designate as the "undertaker's profit." The smaller the number of persons engaged in enterprises is, in comparison with the number of retired persons who live on their rents, incomes, etc., the smaller is the portion of the so-called net profit of enterprise the latter must be satisfied with in the shape of interest.[183-5] [Footnote 183-1: It is one of _Ricardo's_ (Principles, ch. 21) chief merits, that he demonstrated the groundlessness of the opinion that the mere increase of capital must, on account of the competition of capitalists, lower the rate of interest, as is assumed by _Adam Smith_, I, ch. 9, _J. B. Say_, Traité, II, 8, and others. Compare also, _John Stuart Mill_, Principles, IV, ch. IV, 1.] [Footnote 183-2: _Storch_, Handbuch, II, 20.] [Footnote 183-3: Frequent withdrawals of capital must, other circumstances being the same, temporarily raise the rate of interest. In the long run, however, the question is decided by this: whether public opinion considers labor a greater sacrifice than the saving of capital. Compare _Roesler_, loc. cit., 8.] [Footnote 183-4: Compare _Hermann_, Staatsw. Unters., 240 ff. Very much depends on whether the new increased consumption (of workmen when wages are rising, of capitalists when wages are declining) is of goods which are mainly the product of large capital, large factories, etc., or chiefly of common labor, (_von Mangoldt_, Grundriss, 155 seq.) When _Adam Smith_ suggests that the relation between wages and the profit of capital is determined by this: whether there is a market demand for more work or more commodities, for more "work to be done" or "work done" (I, ch. 7), he is, spite of appearances, very unsatisfactory. _Malthus_ distinguishes a restrictive principle of the rate of interest, viz.: the return made to the least productive agricultural capital, and a regulative one, viz.: the reciprocal relation between demand and supply of capital and labor. (Principles, ch. 5, sec. 4.) _Ricardo_, ch. 6, makes the profit of capital at all times and in every country depend on the quantity of labor which it is necessary to expend on the land which pays no rent, in order to satisfy the wants of workmen--a very correct theory.