Lesson 3 — Wealth Distribution: There is Such a Thing as Natural Law!

Please read chapters 11 - 18 and the Supplements "Law of Rent" and "Wages, Interest and Profits".

1. What is the margin of production? (chapter 11) 



2. Does the rent of land depend on its own productive potential, or on the productive potential of land that can be had for nothing? (chapter 11; Law of Rent)


 
3. If labor must resort to land of inferior quality to get it free, what happens to the rents on better lands? (Law of Rent)


 
4. What is the law of rent? (chapter 11)



5. a) What is economic interest? (chapter 12)



b) What are some returns that are commonly confused with interest? (chapter 13)



6. How can we tell that interest is not a payment for the increased productive power that capital gives to labor? (chapter 12; Wages...)



7. What are two ways in which the value of capital can increase independently of the labor applied to it?  (chapter 12; Wages...)



8. Why do all types of capital receive the same general rate of interest? (chapter 12; Wages...)  


  
9. What keeps capital owners from making people pay more than the general rate of interest? (chapter 12)



10. In what two ways are the quantity of capital increased or decreased? (chapter 13) 
 


11. What does Henry George mean by the "general level of wages"? Why is that a focal point in our study? (chapter 15) 
 
  

12. Are wages determined by labor's productivity, or on its alternative? Is this true at all wage levels? (chapter 15)
 


13. What is the common point at which the general rates of wages, interest and rent are determined? (chapter 16)