Growing extent and complexity plus the
need for finding safe places for those who are useful to the rich and
powerful, widens and deepens the public crib. In large enterprises,
private as well as public, paper work employs a small army, which must
be fed and housed at a level worthy of "a great nation." Business
machines reduce the personnel necessary for a given social enterprise,
but their high capital and operational costs increase overhead.
Another aspect of overhead costs is the multiplication of parasitic
professions. In simple villages, there are few body servants, no
able-bodied individuals who fetch and carry at the word of command, or
who only stand and wait for the moment when some whim, fancy or real
need may call for their services.
Village life, with its limited area and still more limited resources,
has little economic surplus upon which parasitism can feed. There is
landlordism, of course, but the margin of surplus is small. The city,
the province, the nation, the empire present a different picture.
Parasitic professions abound and proliferate: money changers, money
lenders, realtors, confidence men, gamblers, fortune tellers, priests,
entertainers, artists, thieves, robbers, and prostitutes abound, consume
more than their share of the community income, without making an
equivalent return in production or service. Their support adds to the
social overhead.
Another source of social overhead are the numerous followers of the
"something for nothing" cult who receive unearned income--an income
derived from civilization in its mature and its final stages.
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