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.
Chapter II. Influence Of The Progress Of Industry And Population On Rents, Profits, And Wages.
§ 1. Characteristic features of industrial Progress.
Continuing the inquiry into the nature of the economical changes taking place in a society which is in a state of industrial progress, we shall next consider what is the effect of that progress on the distribution of the produce among the various classes who share in it. We may confine our attention to the system of distribution which is the most complex, and which virtually includes all others—that in which the produce of manufactures is shared between two classes, laborers and capitalists, and the produce of agriculture among three, laborers, capitalists, and landlords.
The characteristic features of what is commonly meant by industrial progress resolve themselves mainly into three, increase of capital, increase of population, and improvements in production; understanding the last expression, in its widest sense, to include the process of procuring commodities from a distance, as well as that of producing them. It will be convenient to set out by considering each of the three causes, as operating separately; after which we can suppose them combined in any manner we think fit.[298]
§ 2. First two cases, Population and Capital increasing, the arts of production stationary.
For the sake of clearness we will form two general groups of these causes:
A. The Influence of Population and Capital (Improvements remaining stationary).
B. The Influence of Improvements (Population and Capital remaining stationary).
We will first take up A, and under this division make for convenience two separate suppositions:
I. The first is that, while Population is advancing, Capital is stationary. By this means we can study separately the operation of one of the factors of societary progress, Population, and see its influence on rents, profits, and wages. There being only the same given quantity of wealth in the form of capital to be now distributed among more laborers (1), real wages must fall; whereupon, if the same capital purchases more labor, and obtains more produce (2), profits rise. Now, if the laborers were so well off before as to suffer the reduction of wages to take place not in their food, but in their other comforts, then, if each laborer uses as much food as before, and if, as by the supposition, there are more laborers, an increased quantity of food will be required from the soil. This supply can be produced only at a greater cost, and, as inferior soils are called into cultivation (3), rents will rise. This last action (3), however, will have an influence on the rise of profits (2). For it was only by a reduction of real wages that profits rose; but if the cost of food, that is, the real wages, have since risen, then one of the elements entering into cost of labor has risen, and in so far will offset the fall of real wages; so that profits will not gain so much as if rents had not risen. The result of this first supposition, then, is, that the landlord is the chief gainer:
I. (1.) Wages fall.
(2.) Profits rise (less if rents rise).
(3.) Rents rise.
II. We will now take up the second supposition under A, that while Capital is advancing Population remains stationary. Then, of course (1), wages will rise; and, as there is no improvement to cheapen the cost of their real wages, there will be an increase in cost of labor to the capitalist, and (2) profits will fall. If, now, the laborers, being better off, demand more food, the new food would cost more, as the margin of cultivation was pushed down, and (3) rents would inevitably rise. But not only have the laborers received more real wages, but since that change the cost, as just described, of these real wages has increased. Therefore (2), profits would fall still more than by the rise of real wages. In this supposition, consequently, while the laborer gains, so does the landlord:
II. (1.) Wages rise.
(2.) Profits fall (more if rents rise).
(3.) Rents rise.
A. It is easy for us now to take into our view the total effects under A, and see what the combined action of I and II would be. That is, if both Capital and Population (improvements remaining stationary) increase, what will be the effect on Wages, Profits, and Rent? Of course, we must suppose that Capital and Population just keep pace with each other; and in that case (1) real wages remain the same, each laborer receiving the same quantity and same quality of commodities as before. Hence, if each laborer receives the same quantity as before, and there are many more laborers, there will be an increased demand put upon the soil for food, poorer soils will be cultivated, and the cost of the products will rise. So (3) rents rise. But if each laborer receives the same quantity of real wages as before, and the cost of them has risen, as just explained, an increased cost of labor will result which must come out of profits. (2) Profits will fall. So that the results of A upon distribution, taken separately from B, are that the owner of capital loses; but the owner of land again gains.
A. (1.) Wages the same.
(2.) Profits fall.
(3.) Rents rise.
§ 3. The arts of production advancing, capital and population stationary.
Now, let us go back to our first general group of causes, B—an advance in the arts of production (while capital and population remain stationary). We can now study by themselves the effect of improvements on wages, profits, and rent. The general effects arising from the extended introduction of machinery into agriculture and manufactures, the lowered cost of transportation by steam, have been to lessen the value of articles consumed chiefly by the laboring-classes. For the sake of clearness, imagine that the improvement comes suddenly. The first effect will be to lower the value and price of articles entering into the real wages of the laborers; and, if those consist mostly of food, there will be a rise in the margin of cultivation and a fall in rents (3). It has been previously shown[299] that improvements retard, or put back, the law of diminishing returns from land (or in manufactures compensate for it), and so lower rents. The poorest soil cultivated is now of a better grade than before, and the produce is yielded at a less cost and value; so that the land with which the best grades are compared, to determine the rent, is not separated from the best grades by so wide a gap. It would at first blush seem, then, that the interests of the landlord were antagonistic to improvements, since they lower rents; but, in practice, it is not so, as we shall soon see.
298
Before beginning this discussion the reader is advised to review the relation of profits to cost of labor, and the dependence of the latter on its three factors, Book II, Chap. V, § 5.
299
Book I, Chap. IX