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.
This may be easily shown by a diagram in which the capital in one employment is represented by A B, and which exceeds C D, that in another employment, by the amount of A F. It is not necessary that the whole of the excess, A F should be transferred to C D to make the two capitals equal, but only A E, which, added to C D, brings C D to an equality with E B.
This equalizing process, commonly described as the transfer of capital from one employment to another, is not necessarily the onerous, slow, and almost impracticable operation which it is very often represented to be. In the first place, it does not always imply the actual removal of capital already embarked in an employment. In a rapidly progressive state of capital, the adjustment often takes place by means of the new accumulations of each year, which direct themselves in preference toward the more thriving trades. Even when a real transfer of capital is necessary, it is by no means implied that any of those who are engaged in the unprofitable employment relinquish business and break up their establishments. The numerous and multifarious channels of credit through which, in commercial nations, unemployed capital diffuses itself over the field of employment, flowing over in greater abundance to the lower levels, are the means by which the equalization is accomplished. The process consists in a limitation by one class of dealers or producers and an extension by the other of that portion of their business which is carried on with borrowed capital.
“Political economists say that capital sets toward the most profitable trades, and that it rapidly leaves the less profitable and non-paying trades. But in ordinary countries this is a slow process, and some persons, who want to have ocular demonstrations of abstract truths, have been inclined to doubt it because they could not see it. The process would be visible enough if you could only see the books of the bill-brokers and the bankers. If the iron-trade ceases to be as profitable as usual, less iron is sold; the fewer the sales the fewer the bills; and in consequence the number of iron bills (at the banks) is diminished. On the other hand, if, in consequence of a bad harvest, the corn trade becomes on a sudden profitable, immediately ‘corn bills’ are created in large numbers, and, if good, are discounted (at the banks). Thus capital runs as surely and instantly where it is most wanted, and where there is most to be made of it, as water runs to find its level.”[177]
In the case of an altogether declining trade, in which it is necessary that the production should be, not occasionally varied, but greatly and permanently diminished, or perhaps stopped altogether, the process of extricating the capital is, no doubt, tardy and difficult, and almost always attended with considerable loss; much of the capital fixed in machinery, buildings, permanent works, etc., being either not applicable to any other purpose, or only applicable after expensive alterations; and time being seldom given for effecting the change in the mode in which it would be effected with least loss, namely, by not replacing the fixed capital as it wears out. There is besides, in totally changing the destination of a capital, so great a sacrifice of established connection, and of acquired skill and experience, that people are always very slow in resolving upon it, and hardly ever do so until long after a change of fortune has become hopeless.
In general, then, although profits are very different to different individuals, and to the same individual in different years, there can not be much diversity at the same time and place in the average profits of different employments (other than the standing differences necessary to compensate for difference of attractiveness), except for short periods, or when some great permanent revulsion has overtaken a particular trade. It is true that, to persons with the same amount of original means, there is more chance of making a large fortune in some employments than in others. But it would be found that in those same employments bankruptcies also are more frequent, and that the chance of greater success is balanced by a greater probability of complete failure.
§ 4. The Cause of the Existence of any Profit; the Advances of Capitalists consist of Wages of Labor.
The preceding remarks have, I hope, sufficiently elucidated what is meant by the common phrase, “the ordinary rate of profit,” and the sense in which, and the limitations under which, this ordinary rate has a real existence. It now remains to consider what causes determine its amount.
The cause of profit is, that labor produces more than is required for its support; the reason why capital yields a profit is, because food, clothing, materials, and tools last longer than the time which is required to produce them; so that if a capitalist supplies a party of laborers with these things, on condition of receiving all they produce, they will, in addition to reproducing their own necessaries and instruments, have a portion of their time remaining, to work for the capitalist. We thus see that profit arises, not from the incident of exchange, but from the productive power of labor; and the general profit of the country is always what the productive power of labor makes it, whether any exchange takes place or not. I proceed, in expansion of the considerations thus briefly indicated, to exhibit more minutely the mode in which the rate of profit is determined.
I assume, throughout, the state of things which, where the laborers and capitalists are separate classes, prevails, with few exceptions, universally; namely, that the capitalist advances the whole expenses, including the entire remuneration of the laborer. That he should do so is not a matter of inherent necessity; the laborer might wait until the production is complete for all that part of his wages which exceeds mere necessaries, and even for the whole, if he has funds in hand sufficient for his temporary support. But in the latter case the laborer is to that extent really a capitalist, investing capital in the concern, by supplying a portion of the funds necessary for carrying it on; and even in the former case he may be looked upon in the same light, since, contributing his labor at less than the market price, he may be regarded as lending the difference to his employer, and receiving it back with interest (on whatever principle computed) from the proceeds of the enterprise.
The capitalist, then, may be assumed to make all the advances and receive all the produce. His profit consists of the excess of the produce above the advances; his rate of profit is the ratio which that excess bears to the amount advanced.
For example, if A advances 8,000 bushels of corn to laborers in return for 10,000 yards of cloth (and if one bushel of corn sells for the same sum as one yard of cloth), his profit consists of 2,000 yards of cloth. The ratio of the excess, 2,000, to 8,000, the outlay, or 25 per cent, is the rate of profit. It is not the ratio of 2,000 to 10,000.
177
Walter Bagehot, “Lombard Street,” p. 13.