relatively to the (physical) magnitude of the productive agents, but absolutely. This critical point, of maximum "total effective utility," is, if the practice of shrewd business men is at all significant, commonly somewhat short of the point of maximum physical productivity, at least in modern industry and in a modern community. The "total effective utility" may commonly be increased by decreasing the output of goods. The "total effective utility" of wages may often be increased by decreasing the amount (value) of the wages per man, particularly if such a decrease is accompanied by a rise in the price of articles to be bought with the wages. Hedonistically speaking, it is evident that the point of maximum net productivity is the point at which a perfectly shrewd business management of a perfect monopoly would limit the supply; and the point of maximum (hedonistic) remuneration (wages and interest) is the point which such a management would fix on in dealing with a wholly free, perfectly competitive supply of labor and capital. Such a monopolistic state of things, it is true, would not answer to Mr. Clark's ideal. Each man would not be "paid an amount that equals the amount of the total product that he personally creates," but he would commonly be paid an amount that (hedonistically, in point of "effective utility") exceeds what he personally creates, because of the high final utility of what he receives. This is easily proven. Under the monopolistic conditions supposed, the laborers would, it is safe to assume, not be fully employed all the time; that is to say, they would be willing to work some more in order to get some more articles of consumption; that is to say, the articles of consumption which their wages offer them have so high a utility as to afford them a consumer's surplus,--the articles are worth more than they cost:[30] Q. E. D.