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.
The question is one as to the conditions essential to the existence of any value. Very justly Cairnes[199] adds also a third condition, “the possibility of transferring the possession of the articles which are the subject of the exchange.” For instance, a cargo of wheat at the bottom of the sea has value in use and difficulty of attainment, but it is not transferable. Jevons (following J. B. Say) maintains that “value depends entirely on utility.” If utility means the power to satisfy a desire, things which merely have utility and no difficulty of attainment could have no exchange value.[200] F. A. Walker[201] believes that “value depends wholly on the relation between demand and supply.” Carey[202] holds that value depends merely on the cost of reproduction of the given article. Roscher[203] finds that exchange value is “based on a combination of value in use with cost value.” Cherbuliez[204] calls the conditions of value two, “the ability to give satisfaction, and inability of attainment without effort. The first element is subjective; it is determined wholly by the needs or desires of the parties to the exchange. The second is objective; it depends upon material considerations, which are the conditions of the existence of the thing, and upon which the needs of the persons exchanging have no influence whatever.” It is, as usual, one of Cherbuliez's clear expositions. A. L. Perry[205] states that, “while value always takes its rise in the desires of men, it is never realized except through the efforts of men, and through these efforts as mutually exchanged.”
The difficulty of attainment which determines value is not always the same kind of difficulty: (1.) It sometimes consists in an absolute limitation of the supply. There are things of which it is physically impossible to increase the quantity beyond certain narrow limits. Such are those wines which can be grown only in peculiar circumstances of soil, climate, and exposure. Such also are ancient sculptures; pictures by the old masters; rare books or coins, or other articles of antiquarian curiosity. Among such may also be reckoned houses and building-ground, in a town of definite extent.
De Quincey[206] has presented some ingenious diagrams to represent the operations of the two constituents of value in each of the three following cases: U represents the power of the article to satisfy some desire, and D difficulty of attainment. In the first case, exchange value is not hindered by D from going up to any height, and so it rises and falls entirely according to the force of U. D being practically infinite, the horizontal line, exchange value, is not kept down by D, but it rises just as far as U, the desires of purchasers, may carry it.
(2.) But there is another category (embracing the majority of all things that are bought and sold), in which the obstacle to attainment consists only in the labor and expense requisite to produce the commodity. Without a certain labor and expense it can not be had; but, when any one is willing to incur these, there needs be no limit to the multiplication of the product. If there were laborers enough and machinery enough, cottons, woolens, or linens might be produced by thousands of yards for every single yard now manufactured.
In case (2) the horizontal line, representing exchange value, follows the force of D entirely. The utility of the article is very great, but the value is only limited by the difficulty of obtaining it. So far as U is concerned, exchange value can go up a great distance, but will go no higher than the point where the article can be obtained. The dotted lines underneath the horizontal line indicate that the exchange value of articles in this class tend to fall in value.
(3.) There is a third case, intermediate between the two preceding, and rather more complex, which I shall at present merely indicate, but the importance of which in political economy is extremely great. There are commodities which can be multiplied to an indefinite extent by labor and expenditure, but not by a fixed amount of labor and expenditure. Only a limited quantity can be produced at a given cost; if more is wanted, it must be produced at a greater cost. To this class, as has been often repeated, agricultural produce belongs, and generally all the rude produce of the earth; and this peculiarity is a source of very important consequences; one of which is the necessity of a limit to population; and another, the payment of rent.
In case (3) articles like agricultural produce have a very great power to satisfy desires, and if scarce would have a high value. So far as U is concerned, here also, as in case (2), exchange value might mount upward to almost any height, but it can go no higher than D permits. In commodities of this class, affected by the law of diminishing returns, the tendency is for D to increase, and so for exchange value to rise, as indicated by the dotted lines above that of the exchange value.
§ 3. Commodities limited in Quantity by the law of Demand and Supply: General working of this Law.
These being the three classes, in one or other of which all things that are bought and sold must take their place, we shall consider them in their order. And first, of things absolutely limited in quantity, such as ancient sculptures or pictures.
Of such things it is commonly said that their value depends on their scarcity; others say that the value depends on the demand and supply. But this statement requires much explanation. The supply of a commodity is an intelligible expression: it means the quantity offered for sale; the quantity that is to be had, at a given time and place, by those who wish to purchase it. But what is meant by the demand? Not the mere desire for the commodity. A beggar may desire a diamond; but his desire, however great, will have no influence on the price. Writers have therefore given a more limited sense to demand, and have defined it, the wish to possess, combined with the power of purchasing.[207] To distinguish demand in this technical sense from the demand which is synonymous with desire, they call the former effectual demand.
General supply consists in the commodities offered in exchange for other commodities; general demand likewise, if no money exists, consists in the commodities offered as purchasing power in exchange for other commodities. That is, one can not increase the demand for certain things without increasing the supply of some articles which will be received in exchange for the desired commodities. Demand is based upon the production of articles having exchange value, in its economic sense; and the measure of this demand is necessarily the quantity of commodities offered in exchange for the desired goods. General demand and supply are thus reciprocal to each other. But as soon as money, or general purchasing power, is introduced, Mr. Cairnes[208] defines “demand as the desire for commodities or services, seeking its end by an offer of general purchasing power; and supply, as the desire for general purchasing power, seeking its end by an offer of specific commodities or services.” But many persons find a difficulty because they insist upon separating the idea of supply from that of demand, owing to the fact that producers seem to be a distinct class in the community, different from consumers. That they are in reality the same persons can be easily explained by the following statement: “A certain number of people, A, B, C, D, E, F, etc., are engaged in industrial occupations—A produces for B, C, D, E, F; B for A, C, D, E, F; C for A, B, D, E, F, and so on. In each case the producer and the consumers are distinct, and hence, by a very natural fallacy, it is concluded that the whole body of consumers is distinct from the whole body of producers, whereas they consist of precisely the same persons.”
199
“Leading Principles,” p. 15.
200
“Theory of Political Economy,” pp. 82-91. See Cairnes, ibid., pp. 17-19.
201
“Political Economy,” p. 92.
202
“Social Science,” vol. ii, p. 335.
203
“Political Economy,” Introduction, Chap. I, § 5.
204
“Précis,” p. 206.
205
“Political Economy,” p. 165.
206
“Logic of Political Economy.”
207
Although here using demand in its proper sense, a little later Mr. Mill defines it as the “quantity demanded.” As he again uses it in the proper sense in discussing excess of money (Book III, Chap. V), supply (Book III, Chap. XI), and foreign trade (Book III, Chap. XIV), I have omitted from his present exposition his evidently inconsistent use of the word.
208
“Leading Principles,” p. 25.