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.
67. In what way does dearness or cheapness of food affect money wages?
68. What determines—
(1.) The general rate of wages in a country? (2.) The relative rates of wages in different employments?69. What causes different rates of wages in different employments, and by what methods might wages be raised?
70. How do you explain the fact that some of the most disagreeable kinds of labor are the most badly paid?
71. What, according to Mr. Mill, are the most promising means for the improvement of the laboring-classes?
72. In the Island of Laputa a law was passed compelling each workman to work with his left hand tied behind his back, and the law was justified on the ground that the demand for labor was more than doubled by it. Examine this argument.
73. Some coal-workers are calling for a diminution of the output of coal, so as to keep up their wages. Examine how far, if at all, this result would follow from their proposed action.
74. Discuss any remedies for low wages that have been or might be suggested.
75. Why are the wages of women habitually lower than those of men?
Profits.
76. What is the cause of the existence of profits? And what, according to Mr. Mill, are the circumstances which determine the respective shares of the laborer and the capitalist?
77. (1.) What is the lowest rate of profit which can permanently exist? (2.) Why is this minimum variable?
78. Analyze the remuneration received by any of the following: (1) the proprietor of a cotton-mill managing his own mill; (2) a merchant conducting his own business; (3) a railway shareholder; (4) a holder of government funds.
79. Into what portions may we divide the return which is usually called profit? Which of these portions would be received by a merchant carrying on business with borrowed capital?
80. Analyze the payment called profits into its various elements. Point out in what respects the earnings of the employer differ from or resemble the wages paid to other classes of laborers.
81. It is asserted that “profits tend to an equality.” What conditions must be satisfied before this position can be maintained?
82. How is the alleged tendency of profits to equivalence in different employments to be reconciled with the notorious difference in the profit of different individuals?
83. Which one of the elements in profit has the greatest effect on its amount? Explain by comparing the causes which regulate each element.
84. How does Mill reconcile the high wages in America with Ricardo's law of profits?
85. Explain the proposition that the rate of profits depends on the cost of labor, stating carefully what elements are included in cost of labor.
86. Explain what connection there may be between an increase of population and any of the elements entering into cost of labor.
87. What effect would an increase or diminution of population have upon cost of labor?
88. Explain Mill's view as to the cost of labor being a function of three variables, considering the passages in which he says, 1. “If without labor becoming less efficient its remuneration fell, no increase taking place in the cost of the articles composing that remuneration;” 2. “If the laborer obtained a higher remuneration, without any increased cheapness in the things composing it; or if, without his obtaining more, that which he did obtain would become more costly”: profits in the last two cases would suffer a diminution; and discussing—Firstly, if the remuneration of labor falls, what can the cost of the articles composing that remuneration signify to the capitalist? Secondly, if the laborer gets a higher remuneration, what can the increased cheapness of the things composing it signify to the capitalist?
89. Is the contest between capital and labor permanent and fundamental? If not, give your reasons for your answer.
90. What is the effect on wages and profits of the introduction of machinery?
Rent.
91. What connection exists between the law of Malthus and Ricardo's doctrine of rent?
92. What is the reason why land-owners can demand rent?
93. Explain and illustrate the distinction between rent and profits. In what cases are they nearly indistinguishable?
94. It has often been observed that in America land is much less highly cultivated than in England. Explain the economic reasons for this.
95. How does the theory of rent apply in a country like the United States, where the farmer owns his land instead of hiring it?
96. How is it that some agricultural capital pays rent, even if resort is not had to different grades of land?
97. Give a brief description of the theory of rent, and point out to what payments not usually called rent the theory may be applied.
98. State briefly Ricardo's theory of rent, and show that, if it be true, the following statements of Adam Smith must be false:
“The most fertile coal-mine regulates the price of coals at all the other mines in the neighborhood.”
“In the price of corn one part pays the rent of the landlord, another pays the wages, and another the profit of the farmer.”
99. Why does the farming business pay rent, and the cotton business (ground-rent excluded) pay none? Define rent.
100. “As population increases, rents estimated in corn increase, and the price of corn rises; rents, therefore, doubly tend to increase.” Prove this.
101. Professor Rogers adduces, in refutation of the common theory of rent, the fact that land near New York pays a high rent, while land of the same natural fertility in the Western States pays no rent. How far do you admit the force of this objection?
102. Examine the following doctrine:
“If invention and improvement still go on, the efficiency of labor will be further increased, and the amount of labor and capital necessary to produce a given result further diminished. The same causes will lead to the utilization of this new gain in productive power for the production of more wealth; the margin of cultivation will be again extended, and rent will increase, both in proportion and amount, without any increase in wages and interest. And so, ... will ... rent constantly increase, though population should remain stationary.”—Henry George, “Progress and Poverty” (p. 226).
103. What answer is made to Mr. Carey's objection to Ricardo's theory of rent, that in point of fact the poorer, not the richer, lands are first brought under cultivation?
104. Explain how land, “even apart from differences of situation,... would all of it, on a certain supposition, pay rent.”
105. Explain clearly how it is possible for the land of a country which is all of uniform fertility to pay rent.
106. “If the earth had a perfectly smooth surface the same everywhere, and if it were all tilled and cultivated in exactly the same way, there would be no such thing as rent.” Examine this proposition.
107. Show that rent does not increase the price of bread.
108. How is it shown that “rent does not really form any part of the expenses of production or of the advances of the capitalist?”
109. (1.) What connection exists between the price of agricultural products and the amount of rent paid? (2.) Can rent affect the price?
110. “Rent is the effect and not the cause of price.” Prove this.
111. Does rent enter into the cost of production of the following commodities or not, and why: Corn, cloth, the wine of the best vineyards?
112. “Rent arises from the difference between the least fertile and the most fertile soils, and from the fact that the former have been taken into cultivation.... Rent is the difference between the market price of produce and the cost of production.” Harmonize these statements.