DISCUSSION OF SECOND APPROXIMATION

man constantly aims to prevent such changes. Man is notthe slave of Nature; to some extent he is her master. Hehas many ways to turn. He possesses, within limits, thepower to flex his income stream to suit himself. For so-ciety as a whole, the flexibility is due to the adaptabilityand versatility of capital—especially human capital com-monly called labor; for the individual, the flexibility isgreater still, since he possesses a two-fold freedom. He isnot only free to choose from among innumerable differentemployments of capital, but he is free to choose fromamong different ways of exchanging with other individ-uals. This power to exchange is the power to trade in-comes ; for under whatever form an exchange takes place,at bottom what is exchanged is income and income only.

[ 205 ]