Lastly, there may be the "sub-contractor" proper, who
undertakes to do a portion of a work already contracted for, and either
finds materials and tools, and pays workers to work for him, or sublets
parts of his contract to workers who provide their own materials and
tools. The mining and building trades contain various examples of such
sub-contracts. Now in none of these cases is the middleman a mere
parasite. In every case he does work, which, though as a rule it does
not alter the material form of the goods with which it deals, adds
distinct value to them, and is under present industrial conditions
equally necessary, and equally entitled to fair remuneration with the
work of the other producers. The old maxim "nihil ex nihilo fit" is as
true in commerce as in chemistry. In a competitive society a man can get
nothing for nothing. If the middleman is a capitalist he may get
something for use of his capital; but that too implies that his capital
is put to some useful work.
Sec. 7. Work and Pay of the Middleman.--The complaint that the middleman
confers no service, and deserves no pay, is the result of two fallacies.
The first, to which allusion has been made already, consists in the
failure to recognize the work of distribution done by the middleman. The
second and more important is the confusion of mind which leads people to
conclude that because under different circumstances a particular class
of work might be dispensed with, therefore that work is under present
circumstances useless and undeserving of reward.
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