3. _Economic production (in contrast with technical or merely formal production) is such a change in goods as is attended by an increase in value._ It is often well to contrast form, appearance, imitation, with the thing itself, the reality. Men sometimes go through the forms of study when their eyes and thoughts are wandering; through the form of getting a college education when they are simply having a good time. Likewise in production there is the form and the reality. The young lady just out of boarding-school rarely produces a masterpiece with the tubes and brushes that Raphael might have used. The justification for amateur work is to be found in the doing and not in the market value of the result. Blue rosebuds, painted with loving if unskilled touch on red velvet slippers, may bloom into a romance and happiness; but to the economist this appears to be a consumption of good pigment for amusement, not a creation of value. The difference between the form and value of productive effort becomes, in the study of business organization, a most essential question. The significance of leadership and control of industry is found in this fact that economic goods may be united to produce results having either a less or a greater value than the materials that are used. [Sidenote: Acquisition vs. social production] 4. _Individual acquisition may be contrasted with social production in cases where the individual increases his wealth at the expense of others, without adding to value._ Most economic efforts increase the income of the individual and the income of society at the same time. The fruits of the field and the uses of machines are net additions to current income; they are not merely subtracted from the income of one and added to that of another. The increase of products by labor may depress somewhat the exchange value of competing labor, but the general welfare is furthered by the greater abundance. With very slight qualification it is true that in these cases the good of each is the good of all. But in some forms of human effort, social and individual interests clash. When two men bet, one gains and the other loses. The gambler's gain is a loss not only directly to his beaten opponent but indirectly to society. Certain forms of speculation approach dangerously near to the appropriation of the goods of others, and others become outright stealing, or cheating so nearly like stealing that it would be treated as a crime if discovered. But many a man prowls along the border-line of crime all his life and succeeds in making large gains without falling into the clutches of the law. Cheating that can be detected, and outright stealing, are prohibited by the law not because the burglar is an idler; he loses sleep; he has his trials too. The pursuit of burglary requires courage, effort, and ingenuity, but society does not reward these as virtues nor recognize as production the transfer of wealth from the bank-vault to the pocket of the burglar. It