It is incorrect to reason that all participants in distribution must come off equally well in this succession of changes. A continuous testing out of the distributive effectiveness of the various agents of production, and of any divisions which may exist within each agent, occurs. The various groups of wage earners may be better or worse off than before. When the price level has shown a prior tendency to rise, there is good reason to believe that the wage earners stand to gain by a vigorous policy of assertion. For then in particular, unless the general rise in prices is to be accounted for by a reduction in the general productivity of industry (a possibility always to be considered), wage increases can come out of the extra income which the other agents are in receipt of because of the price movement. Secondly, in normal times the process visualized could not go on indefinitely. Sound banking practice imposes a limit upon credit expansion. In an abnormal time such as Europe is now passing through credit expansion may, indeed, continue beyond the point dictated by banking reserves. Thus depreciation ensues. This, in turn, is ordinarily limited by the desire to return to a gold basis; otherwise it results in financial chaos. Barring out this last eventuality, the process of price change has a final limit, which must set a limit upon wage increases. What these general theoretical propositions regarding the idea of the vicious circle do show, is that this idea is in itself an attempt at a complete theory of distribution. That theory, if consistently formulated, would be that the product of industry is already being shared out among the various agents of production in such a way that an attempt on the part of any agent to get more than what it is receiving at any particular time can result only in a price increase. For each agent, it is presumed, is getting its "normal" share as settled by the general economic position and certain unchangeable economic laws. The idea is but the shadow of the theories of normal distribution mentioned in preceding chapters. It does, in common with these theories indeed draw attention to certain fundamental economic relationships. These Judge Brown has expressed well in one of his decisions which reads, "The element of truth in the 'Theory of the Pernicious Circle' is that, at a given stage in the history of a particular society, there is a limit to the amount which should properly be awarded for wages,--both wages and profits have to be paid out of the price paid by the consumer. If, whether by collective bargaining or by strikes, or by judicial regulation on the part of the public authorities, an attempt is made to narrow unduly the margin of profit on capital, then there is likely to be a period of industrial dislocation, and every class in the community is likely to suffer."[57] But the idea has all the misleading effects which have been attributed to that general theory of distribution of