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.
In the case of these domestic manufactures, the comparative cost of production, on which the interchange between countries depends, is much lower than in proportion to the quantity of labor employed. The work-people, looking to the earnings of their loom for a part only, if for any part, of their actual maintenance, can afford to work for a less remuneration than the lowest rate of wages which can permanently exist in the employments by which the laborer has to support the whole expense of a family. Working, as they do, not for an employer but for themselves, they may be said to carry on the manufacture at no cost at all, except the small expense of a loom and of the material; and the limit of possible cheapness is not the necessity of living by their trade, but that of earning enough by the work to make that social employment of their leisure hours not disagreeable.
§ 4. —But not when common to All.
These two cases, of slave-labor and of domestic manufactures, exemplify the conditions under which low wages enable a country to sell its commodities cheaper in foreign markets, and consequently to undersell its rivals, or to avoid being undersold by them. But no such advantage is conferred by low wages when common to all branches of industry. General low wages never caused any country to undersell its rivals, nor did general high wages ever hinder it from doing so.
To demonstrate this, we must turn to an elementary principle which was discussed in a former chapter.[290] General low wages do not cause low prices, nor high wages high prices, within the country itself. General prices are not raised by a rise of wages, any more than they would be raised by an increase of the quantity of labor required in all production. Expenses which affect all commodities equally have no influence on prices. If the maker of broadcloth or cutlery, and nobody else, had to pay higher wages, the price of his commodity would rise, just as it would if he had to employ more labor; because otherwise he would gain less profit than other producers, and nobody would engage in the employment. But if everybody has to pay higher wages, or everybody to employ more labor, the loss must be submitted to; as it affects everybody alike, no one can hope to get rid of it by a change of employment; each, therefore, resigns himself to a diminution of profits, and prices remain as they were. In like manner, general low wages, or a general increase in the productiveness of labor, does not make prices low, but profits high. If wages fall (meaning here by wages the cost of labor), why, on that account, should the producer lower his price? He will be forced, it may be said, by the competition of other capitalists who will crowd into his employment. But other capitalists are also paying lower wages, and by entering into competition with him they would gain nothing but what they are gaining already. The rate, then, at which labor is paid, as well as the quantity of it which is employed, affects neither the value nor the price of the commodity produced, except in so far as it is peculiar to that commodity, and not common to commodities generally.
However, without there being any change in the productiveness of any industry, if the price of the article should rise, for instance, from an increased demand, that would make the total value arising from the products of the industry larger in its purchasing power, and so there would be a larger sum to be divided among labor and capital. If there be free competition, more capital would move into this one industry under the hope of larger profits, and so wages would rise. Therefore, it is possible that high wages and high prices may go together, but not as cause and effect. In fact, the change in price generally precedes the change in wages. On the other hand, while low wages are not the cause of low prices nor high wages of high prices, yet the two may be found together, as both due to a common cause, viz., the small or great value of the total product.[291]
Since low wages are not a cause of low prices in the country itself, so neither do they cause it to offer its commodities in foreign markets at a lower price. It is quite true that, if the cost of labor is lower in America than in England, America could sell her cottons to Cuba at a lower price than England, and still gain as high a profit as the English manufacturer. But it is not with the profit of the English manufacturer that the American cotton-spinner will make his comparison; it is with the profits of other American capitalists. These enjoy, in common with himself, the benefit of a low cost of labor, and have accordingly a high rate of profit. This high profit the cotton-spinner must also have: he will not content himself with the English profit. It is true he may go on for a time at that lower rate, rather than change his employment; and a trade may be carried on, sometimes for a long period, at a much lower profit than that for which it would have been originally engaged in. Countries which have a low cost of labor and high profits do not for that reason undersell others, but they do oppose a more obstinate resistance to being undersold, because the producers can often submit to a diminution of profit without being unable to live, and even to thrive, by their business. But this is all which their advantage does for them; and in this resistance they will not long persevere when a change of times which may give them equal profits with the rest of their countrymen has become manifestly hopeless.
§ 5. Low profits as affecting the carrying Trade.
It is worth while also to notice a third class of small, but in this case mostly independent communities, which have supported and enriched themselves almost without any productions of their own (except ships and marine equipments), by a mere carrying-trade, and commerce of entrepot; by buying the produce of one country, to sell it at a profit in another. Such were Venice and the Hanse Towns.
When the Venetians became the agents of the general commerce of Southern Europe, they had scarcely any competitors: the thing would not have been done at all without them, and there was really no limit to their profits except the limit to what the ignorant feudal nobility could and would give for the unknown luxuries then first presented to their sight. At a later period competition arose, and the profit of this operation, like that of others, became amenable to natural laws. The carrying-trade was taken up by Holland, a country with productions of its own and a large accumulated capital. The other nations of Europe also had now capital to spare, and were capable of conducting their foreign trade for themselves: but Holland, having, from the variety of circumstances, a lower rate of profit at home, could afford to carry for other countries at a smaller advance on the original cost of the goods than would have been required by their own capitalists; and Holland, therefore, engrossed the greatest part of the carrying-trade of all those countries which did not keep it to themselves by navigation laws,[292] constructed, like those of England, for the express purpose.
In the United States, early in the century, a retaliatory policy against England gave us a body of navigation laws copied after the mediæval statutes of England and the Continent, which still remain on the statute-book. They do not permit an American to buy a vessel abroad and sail it under our flag without paying enormous duties; a provision which is intended to foster ship-building in the United States. Even with this legislation, ships, as a fact, are not built here for the foreign trade; and our ship-builders practically supply the coasting-trade only (which is not open to foreigners). The ability to buy ships anywhere, and enter them to registry under our flag free of duty, is what is meant by the demand for “free ships.” This, however, has to do with ship-building. But ship-owning or ship-sailing, is quite distinct from it. The ability to get as great a return from capital and labor invested in a ship as from other occupations open to Americans is another thing. Even if we had “free ships,” the higher returns in other industries in our country, particularly as regards profits, might cause capitalists naturally to neglect a less for a more productive business. In 1884 Congress has very properly taken away many vexatious restrictions upon ships, which diminished the returns from ship-sailing, and it remains to be seen whether we can thereby regain any of our foreign carrying-trade. At present we have a very small tonnage even in that part of the shipping engaged in carrying our own goods.
290
Book II, Chap. II, § 3.
291
Cf. Cairnes, “Leading Principles,” p. 209.
292
For a brief bibliography on our own Navigation Laws and the Shipping Question, see Appendix I.