DISCUSSION OF SECOND APPROXIMATION

It is almost exclusively through varying the employ-ment of labor that the income stream of society, as awhole, is capable of changing its time shape. The individ-ual may modify the time shape of his particular incomestream through exchange, but in this case some otherperson must modify his income stream in the oppositemanner, and the two sorts of modifications, some plusand others minus, offset each other in the total of theworld’s income. On the other hand, if an income is modi-fied in time shape merely through a change in the exer-tions of laborers, there is no such offset, and the totalsocial income is actually modified thereby.

The labor of a community is exerted in numerous ways,some of which bring about ejnjoyable income quickly,others slowly. The labor of domestic servants is of theformer variety. The cook’s and waitress’ efforts result inthe enjoyment of food within a day. Within almost asshort a time, the chambermaid and the laundress pro-mote the enjoyment of house, furniture, and clothing.The baker, the grocer, the tailor are but one step behindthe cook and laundress; their efforts mature in enjoy-ments within a few days or weeks. And so we may passback to labor increasingly more remote from enjoyableincome, until we reach the miner whose work comes tofruition years later, or the laborer on the Panama Canal or the vehicular tunnels, whose work was in the serviceof coming generations.

The proportions in which these various kinds of labormay be assorted vary greatly, and it is largely throughvarying this assortment that the income stream of thecommunity changes its time shape. If there are at anytime relatively few persons employed as cooks, bakers,and tailors, and relatively many employed as builders,

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