The distribution of wealth, then, depends on social psychic forces. And among these are the social, ethical and legal values of men and of social classes. Economists of an earlier school took these factors for granted, when they thought of them at all, and assumed that they are constant, relatively unchangeable things, a sort of fixed framework within which the forces of a Malthusian biology, or the forces of "self-interest" might work. Commonly, indeed, they thought of them not at all, and wrote as if the factors which they allowed to vary told the whole story. Such is, indeed, still the procedure, in our present day "pure economic" theories of distribution, which either exclude the non-economic factors,[171] or else relegate them to the "pound of '_caeteris paribus_.'"[172] If ours were a stagnant civilization, this procedure might be safe, but in a highly "dynamic" society, where laws, morals, class relations, the very fundamentals of organization, are being made the subjects of scrutiny, agitation, class struggle, etc., are being subjected to "transvaluations," and are continually changing them with the principles, machinery and results of distribution, and so one of the biggest factors lying back of economic values, no study of value can afford to ignore them. It is of course recognized that a purely ethical and legal theory of distribution would be as much an abstraction as the "_reinwirtschaftlich_" theory of distribution--and probably a much less useful abstraction. Either abstraction is legitimate, if it do not seek to abolish the other factors. We may safely enough define a set of legal and moral values, concerned with the organization of society and industry, and, assuming them constant, a sort of frozen framework, let man's values with reference to the immediate consumption and production of economic goods ("utilities and costs" in current phrase) vary, and see what the consequences, both on the ranking of men, and the ranking of goods, will be. Or, assuming "utilities and costs" constant, we may let the legal and moral values vary, and see what consequences would follow. Or, assuming all other factors constant, we may vary the size of the population, or vary the proportions between labor and productive instruments, or between land and population, or pick out any other factor of the concrete situation we happen to be interested in, as the "standard of living," and let it change, and see what consequences flow therefrom. But, in doing this, we must not forget that the other factors remain essential, equally potent in the general situation with the one on which we have centred our attention. And we must not forget that changes in one factor, while we may in thought allow it to occur alone, cannot occur without bringing in changes in the others as well. An increase in the number of laborers, e.g., may also mean an increase of _voters_ of a given political tendency, and may mean a change in the political power of