8.--The foregoing exposition of the forces determining the share of the product of industry that goes to the wage earners can be briefly summarized. The process of distribution is carried out mainly by the action of competition; it is marked by active and stubborn self-assertion on the part of all groups which share in the product. One of the most important and constant factors in the determination of the outcome as regards wages is the relative plenty or scarcity of the various groups or agents of production. For the contribution made by the ordinary worker, _as a part of a productive organization_, to the total of market values produced, is largely settled thereby. However, other human qualities besides those which are ordinarily considered as to be active in the competitive process figure in the distributive outcome. Furthermore, changes in distribution, brought about by any other cause may in turn modify the relative plenty or scarcity of the various groups or agents of production, and thus result in further changes. And lastly, since the distributive situation at any given time, is dependent upon human arrangements, the idea that underlying all distributive action, there is a tendency to approach a point of "normal equilibrium" must be rejected. For human behavior is frequently directed to produce change, not repetition. The better informed that human beings and communities are of the consequences of their actions, the stronger the tendency mutually to control and adjust them for defined purposes. Therefore, the idea that the distributive situation at any given time is directed to a point of rest or equilibrium is incorrect. Many diverse tendencies, some of long standing, some of newer birth, act to produce future results different from those of the present or past. The concept of normal equilibrium is inadequate to account for the distributive situation at any given time; it is misleading with regard to prospective policy. 9.--The preceding sections were devoted to an explanation of the manner in which the relative plenty or scarcity of the various groups or agents of production influenced the sharing out of the product of industry, and of the interactions to which this factor was subject. It may now be asked what governs the actual state of relative plenty or scarcity of the various groups or agents of production. No answer could be returned to that question, however, without undertaking a far-reaching investigation of a great number of separate conditions and tendencies. The task is far beyond our present opportunity. It is worth while, however, for present purposes, to delimit the task sharply, and to attempt a brief enumeration of the most important of the conditions which determine, on the one hand, the need of the productive system for labor, and, on the other hand, the supply of labor--that is, of the relative plenty or scarcity of labor.