Principles Of Political Economy
- Автор: Mill John Stuart
- Год: 2022
- Язык: английский
- Год: Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing
- Жанр: Политика
Электронная книга - «Principles Of Political Economy». Краткое содержание книги:
Beside discussing descriptive issues such as which nations tended to benefit more in a system of trade based on comparative advantage (Mill's answer: those with more elastic demands for other countries' goods), the work also discussed normative issues such as ideal systems of political economy, critiquing proposed systems such as communism and socialism.
Along with A System of Logic, Principles of Political Economy established Mill's reputation as a leading public intellectual. Mill's sympathetic attitude in this work and in other essays toward contemporary socialism, particularly Fourierism, earned him esteem from the working class as one of their intellectual champions.
Now, this is the very process which took place on our original supposition of barter. Not only, therefore, does the trade between nations tend to the same equilibrium between exports and imports, whether money is employed or not, but the means by which this equilibrium is established are essentially the same. The country whose exports are not sufficient to pay for her imports offers them on cheaper terms, until she succeeds in forcing the necessary demand: in other words, the equation of international demand, under a money system as well as under a barter system, is the law of international trade. Every country exports and imports the very same things, and in the very same quantity, under the one system as under the other. In a barter system, the trade gravitates to the point at which the sum of the imports exactly exchanges for the sum of the exports: in a money system, it gravitates to the point at which the sum of the imports and the sum of the exports exchange for the same quantity of money. And, since things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another, the exports and imports which are equal in money price would, if money were not used, precisely exchange for one another.[277]
§ 2. The preceding Theorem further illustrated.
Let us proceed to (examine) to what extent the benefit of an improvement in the production of an exportable article is participated in by the countries importing it.
The improvement may either consist in the cheapening of some article which was already a staple production of the country, or in the establishment of some new branch of industry, or of some process rendering an article exportable which had not till then been exported at all. It will be convenient to begin with the case of a new export, as being somewhat the simpler of the two.
The first effect is that the article falls in price, and a demand arises for it abroad. This new exportation disturbs the balance, turns the exchanges, money flows into the country (which we shall suppose to be the United States), and continues to flow until prices rise. This higher range of prices will somewhat check the demand in foreign countries for the new article of export; and will diminish the demand which existed abroad for the other things which the United States was in the habit of exporting. The exports will thus be diminished; while at the same time the American public, having more money, will have a greater power of purchasing foreign commodities. If they make use of this increased power of purchase, there will be an increase of imports; and by this, and the check to exportation, the equilibrium of imports and exports will be restored. The result to foreign countries will be, that they have to pay dearer than before for their other imports, and obtain the new commodity cheaper than before, but not so much cheaper as the United States herself does. I say this, being well aware that the article would be actually at the very same price (cost of carriage excepted) in the United States and in other countries. The cheapness, however, of the article is not measured solely by the money-price, but by that price compared with the money-incomes of the consumers. The price is the same to the American and to the foreign consumers; but the former pay that price from money-incomes which have been increased by the new distribution of the precious metals; while the latter have had their money-incomes probably diminished by the same cause. The trade, therefore, has not imparted to the foreign consumer the whole, but only a portion, of the benefit which the American consumer has derived from the improvement; while the United States has also benefited in the prices of foreign commodities. Thus, then, any industrial improvement which leads to the opening of a new branch of export trade benefits a country not only by the cheapness of the article in which the improvement has taken place, but by a general cheapening of all imported products.
Let us now change the hypothesis, and suppose that the improvement, instead of creating a new export from the United States, cheapens an existing one. Let the commodity in which there is an improvement be (cotton) cloth. The first effect of the improvement is that its price falls, and there is an increased demand for it in the foreign market. But this demand is of uncertain amount. Suppose the foreign consumers to increase their purchases in the exact ratio of the cheapness, or, in other words, to lay out in cloth the same sum of money as before; the same aggregate payment as before will be due from foreign countries to the United States; the equilibrium of exports and imports will remain undisturbed, and foreigners will obtain the full advantage of the increased cheapness of cloth. But if the foreign demand for cloth is of such a character as to increase in a greater ratio than the cheapness, a larger sum than formerly will be due to the United States for cloth, and when paid will raise American prices, the price of cloth included; this rise, however, will affect only the foreign purchaser, American incomes being raised in a corresponding proportion; and the foreign consumer will thus derive a less advantage than the United States from the improvement. If, on the contrary, the cheapening of cloth does not extend the foreign demand for it in a proportional degree, a less sum of debts than before will be due to the United States for cloth, while there will be the usual sum of debts due from the United States to foreign countries; the balance of trade will turn against the United States, money will be exported, prices (that of cloth included) will fall, and cloth will eventually be cheapened to the foreign purchaser in a still greater ratio than the improvement has cheapened it to the United States. These are the very conclusions which (would be) deduced on the hypothesis of barter.[278]
The result of the preceding discussion can not be better summed up than in the words of Ricardo.[279] “Gold and silver having been chosen for the general medium of circulation, they are, by the competition of commerce, distributed in such proportions among the different countries of the world as to accommodate themselves to the natural traffic which would take place if no such metals existed, and the trade between countries were purely a trade of barter.” Of this principle, so fertile in consequences, previous to which the theory of foreign trade was an unintelligible chaos, Mr. Ricardo, though he did not pursue it into its ramifications, was the real originator.
On the principles of trade which we have before explained, the same rule will apply to the distribution of money in different parts of the same country, especially of a large country with various kinds of production, like the United States. The medium of exchange will, by the competition of commerce, be distributed in such proportions among the different parts of the United States, by natural laws, as to accommodate itself to the number of transactions which would take place if no such medium existed. For this reason, we find more money in the so-called great financial centers, because there are more exchanges of goods there. In sparsely settled parts of the West there will be less money precisely because there are fewer transactions than in the older and more settled districts. So that there could be no worse folly than the following legislation of Congress to distribute the national-bank circulation: “That $150,000,000 of the entire amount of circulating notes authorized to be issued shall be apportioned to associations in the States, in the District of Columbia, and in the Territories, according to representative population” (act of March 3, 1865).
277
The subjoined extract from the separate essay [“Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy”] previously referred to will give some assistance in following the course of the phenomena. It is adapted to the imaginary case used for illustration throughout that essay, the case of a trade between England and Germany in cloth and linen.
“We may, at first, make whatever supposition we will with respect to the value of money. Let us suppose, therefore, that, before the opening of the trade, the price of cloth is the same in both countries, namely, six shillings per yard. As ten yards of cloth were supposed to exchange in England for fifteen yards of linen, in Germany for twenty, we must suppose that linen is sold in England at four shillings per yard, in Germany at three. Cost of carriage and importer's profit are left, as before, out of consideration.
“In this state of prices, cloth, it is evident, can not yet be exported from England into Germany; but linen can be imported from Germany into England. It will be so; and, in the first instance, the linen will be paid for in money.
“The efflux of money from England and its influx into Germany will raise money prices in the latter country, and lower them in the former. Linen will rise in Germany above three shillings per yard, and cloth above six shillings. Linen in England, being imported from Germany, will (since cost of carriage is not reckoned) sink to the same price as in that country, while cloth will fall below six shillings. As soon as the price of cloth is lower in England than in Germany, it will begin to be exported, and the price of cloth in Germany will fall to what it is in England. As long as the cloth exported does not suffice to pay for the linen imported, money will continue to flow from England into Germany, and prices generally will continue to fall in England and rise in Germany.
“By the fall, however, of cloth in England, cloth will fall in Germany also, and the demand for it will increase. By the rise of linen in Germany, linen must rise in England also, and the demand for it will diminish. As cloth fell in price and linen rose, there would be some particular price of both articles at which the cloth exported and the linen imported would exactly pay for each other. At this point prices would remain, because money would then cease to move out of England into Germany. What this point might be would entirely depend upon the circumstances and inclinations of the purchasers on both sides. If the fall of cloth did not much increase the demand for it in Germany, and the rise of linen did not diminish very rapidly the demand for it in England, much money must pass before the equilibrium is restored; cloth would fall very much, and linen would rise, until England, perhaps, had to pay nearly as much for it as when she produced it for herself. But, if, on the contrary, the fall of cloth caused a very rapid increase of the demand for it in Germany, and the rise of linen in Germany reduced very rapidly the demand in England from what it was under the influence of the first cheapness produced by the opening of the trade, the cloth would very soon suffice to pay for the linen, little money would pass between the two countries, and England would derive a large portion of the benefit of the trade. We have thus arrived at precisely the same conclusion, in supposing the employment of money, which we found to hold under the supposition of barter.
“In what shape the benefit accrues to the two nations from the trade is clear enough. Germany, before the commencement of the trade, paid six shillings per yard for broadcloth; she now obtains it at a lower price. This, however, is not the whole of her advantage. As the money-prices of all her other commodities have risen, the money-incomes of all her producers have increased. This is no advantage to them in buying from each other, because the price of what they buy has risen in the same ratio with their means of paying for it: but it is an advantage to them in buying anything which has not risen, and, still more, anything which has fallen. They, therefore, benefit as consumers of cloth, not merely to the extent to which cloth has fallen, but also to the extent to which other prices have risen. Suppose that this is one tenth. The same proportion of their money-incomes as before will suffice to supply their other wants; and the remainder, being increased one tenth in amount, will enable them to purchase one tenth more cloth than before, even though cloth had not fallen: but it has fallen; so that they are doubly gainers. They purchase the same quantity with less money, and have more to expend upon their other wants.
“In England, on the contrary, general money-prices have fallen. Linen, however, has fallen more than the rest, having been lowered in price by importation from a country where it was cheaper; whereas the others have fallen only from the consequent efflux of money. Notwithstanding, therefore, the general fall of money-prices, the English producers will be exactly as they were in all other respects, while they will gain as purchasers of linen.
“The greater the efflux of money required to restore the equilibrium, the greater will be the gain of Germany, both by the fall of cloth and by the rise of her general prices. The less the efflux of money requisite, the greater will be the gain of England; because the price of linen will continue lower, and her general prices will not be reduced so much. It must not, however, be imagined that high money-prices are a good, and low money-prices an evil, in themselves. But, the higher the general money-prices in any country, the greater will be that country's means of purchasing those commodities, which, being imported from abroad, are independent of the causes which keep prices high at home.”
“In practice, the cloth and the linen would not, as here supposed, be at the same price in England and in Germany: each would be dearer in money-price in the country which imported than in that which produced it, by the amount of the cost of carriage, together with the ordinary profit on the importer's capital for the average length of time which elapsed before the commodity could be disposed of. But it does not follow that each country pays the cost of carriage of the commodity it imports; for the addition of this item to the price may operate as a greater check to demand on one side than on the other; and the equation of international demand, and consequent equilibrium of payments, may not be maintained. Money would then flow out of one country into the other, until, in the manner already illustrated, the equilibrium was restored: and, when this was effected, one country would be paying more than its own cost of carriage, and the other less.”—Mill.
278
See Book III, Chap. XVIII, § 5, of Mill's original work.
279
“Principles of Political Economy and Taxation,” third edition, p. 143.