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182 Economics in One Lessontemporarily, hurt some of the people who have made investments orpainfully acquired skill to meet that precise need. If progress werecompletely even all around the circle, this antagonism between theinterests of the whole community and of the specialized group wouldnot, if it were noticed at all, present any serious problem. If in thesame year as the world wheat crop increased, my own crop increasedin the same proportion; if the crop of oranges and all other agriculturalproducts increased correspondingly, and if the output of allindustrial goods also rose and their unit cost of production fell to correspond,then I as a wheat grower would not suffer because the outputof wheat had increased. The price that I got for a bushel of wheatmight decline. The total sum that I realized from my larger outputmight decline. But if I could also because of increased supplies buythe output of everyone else cheaper, then I should have no real causeto complain. If the price of everything else dropped in exactly thesame ratio as the decline in the price of my wheat, I should be betteroff, in fact, exactly in proportion to my increased total crop; andeveryone else, likewise, would benefit proportionately from theincreased supplies of all goods and services.But economic progress never has taken place and probably neverwill take place in this completely uniform way. Advance occurs now inthis branch of production and now in that. And if there is a suddenincrease in the supply of the thing I help to produce, or if a newinvention or discovery makes what I produce no longer necessary,then the gain to the world is a tragedy to me and to the productivegroup to which I belong.Now it is often not the diffused gain of the increased supply or newdiscovery that most forcibly strikes even the disinterested observer, butthe concentrated loss. The fact that there is more and cheaper coffeefor everyone is lost sight of; what is seen is merely that some coffeegrowers cannot make a living at the lower price. The increased outputof shoes at lower cost by the new machine is forgotten; what is seenis a group of men and women thrown out of work. It is altogetherproper—it is, in fact, essential to a full understanding of the problem—thatthe plight of these groups be recognized, that they be dealt