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.
252. Trace the connection between Ricardo's theory of rent and the decline in the general rate of profits as a country increases in population. Explain clearly the connection which exists between wages and profits.
253. What effect is produced upon rents, profits, and wages, respectively, in a country like France, where population is stationary and capital advancing?
254. If capital continued to increase and population did not, explain the proposition that “the whole savings of each year would be exactly so much subtracted from the profits of the next and of every following year,” if improvements were stationary.
255. How does social and industrial progress tend to affect the prices of land, raw produce, and manufactures, respectively, and why?
256. The capitalized value of land rises, in the progress of society, from two causes—from one which affects land in common with all investments; from another which is peculiar to land.
257. “The tendency of improved communications is to lower existing rents.” How far is this true, and in what directions is it true?
258. What would be the effect on profits, wages, and rents of an improvement in a manufactured article consumed by the laboring-class?
259. Explain the doctrine of the tendency of profits to a minimum, the cause of that tendency, and the circumstances which counteract it.
260. What was Adam Smith's doctrine as to the decline of profit in progressive communities? Criticise his argument.
261. Mention some of the principal causes which, in the ordinary progress of society, respectively tend to increase or to reduce the current rate of profits.
262. Why do profits tend to fall as population increases, and how may this result be retarded or prevented?
263. What is the effect of a general rise of money wages, apart from the consideration of a greater efficiency of labor, in prices, profits, and rent? Give reasons for your answer.
264. How does the general progress of society in wealth and industrial efficiency tend to affect the rate of wages, the rate of profit, and the rate of rent, respectively?
265. What is the general effect of the progress of society on the land-owner, the capitalist, and the laborer?
Future of Laboring-Classes.
266. Examine the influences of machinery on the economic condition of the working-classes.
267. Mention and discuss some of the popular remedies for low wages, and especially the effect of the subdivision of landed property among peasant proprietors.
268. Explain briefly what is meant by co-operation, and indicate the more prominent forms assumed by the co-operative movement.
269. What is meant by the co-operative system of industry? Show ways in which this system may affect, for good or for evil, the productiveness of labor; and mention any moral benefits, or the opposite, in which it may be expected to issue.
270. What are the difficulties in the way of co-operation for the production of salable objects?
271. Explain the advantages of industrial partnership, in which the employés share, in proportion to the wages received, half the profits of the business beyond a certain fixed minimum which is assigned to the employers.
Taxation.
272. How is the state justified in undertaking any manufacture or service which might be performed by private enterprise?
273. Enumerate Adam Smith's canons of taxation.
274. Examine the argument in favor of the resumption by the state of what is called the unearned increment in the value of land arising from the development of society.
275. A picture by Gainsborough and a house in Broadway are sold in the same year at the same price; at the end of fifty years each sells for five times its first cost. Is there any, and, if so, what, reason why the increase should be sequestrated for the public benefit in the one case and not in the other?
276. Explain the incidence of taxes laid on wages.
277. Why should a tax on profits, if no improvements follow, fall on the laborer and capitalist?
278. Explain what effect, if any, will be produced on the price of corn by—
(1) a tax upon rent; (2) a tithe; (3) a tax of so much per acre, irrespective of value; (4) a tax of so much per bushel.279. On whom does a tax of a fixed proportion of agricultural produce fall?
280. Discuss the question whether the income-tax ought to be a tax upon income and property, or upon expenditure.
281. Discuss the expediency of a graduated income-tax.
282. State the arguments which you think strongest both for and against exempting savings from the income-tax.
283. Explain the conditions which should be observed in imposing taxes on commodities.
284. What taxes does a tradesman get back in the price of the articles he sells, and what does he not?
285. Test by Adam Smith's four maxims of taxation the policy of indirect taxes on the necessaries of life.
286. All indirect taxation violates Adam Smith's fourth canon.
287. Discuss the following:
“A man with $100,000 in United States bonds comes to Boston, hires a house...; thus he lives in luxury.... I am in favor of taxing idle investments such as this, and allowing manufacturing investments to go untaxed.”
288. Compare the advantages and disadvantages of direct and indirect taxation.
289. On what principles is this country now taxed?
290. Explain the arguments for and against the policy of maintaining a surplus for the purpose of redeeming a national debt.
291. In estimating the ability of the United States to pay its public debts, it is usual to include among the data of the question the increased productiveness of industry in that country. How far is this a pertinent consideration?
Protection.
292. Mention some of the principal arguments brought forward in favor of protective tariffs.
293. Connect the principle of the division of employments (or labor) with the policy of free trade and the functions of government.
294. Sketch the effects of discriminating duties, including the operation of the corn laws.
295. Examine the following argument, emending, if you think it necessary, the free-trader's doctrine on the point raised: The free-trader's belief is that a customs duty is added to the price of the article upon which it is imposed. If the article is imported, according to his theory, the increase of the price goes into the public treasury; if the article is made in the country, the increase of the price goes into the pocket of the producer. But in the former case there is no protection; and competition will prevent the latter. Therefore protection does not increase the price of the protected article. If a customs duty is imposed upon a commodity, and its price is not raised in consequence, what inference can you draw?
296. Under what circumstances did Mr. Mill think nascent states might be justified in adopting a policy of protection? Criticise his opinion, and, if you agree with it, give some examples of its application.
297. American protectionists allege that the high rate of wages prevailing in the United States disables them from competing with “the pauper labor” of Europe. Examine the grounds of this statement, and consider how far it forms a justification for protection to American industry.
298. A high rate of wages indicates, not a high, but a low cost of production for all commodities measured in which the rate of wages is high.