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.
Before the electric light was yet known as a feasible means of lighting (in 1878), the mere rumor of Edison's invention, before it was made public, and long before it became practicable, caused a serious fall in the price of gas stocks.
It is, therefore, strictly correct to say that the value of things which can be increased in quantity at pleasure does not depend (except accidentally, and during the time necessary for production to adjust itself) upon demand and supply; on the contrary, demand and supply depend upon it. There is a demand for a certain quantity of the commodity at its natural or cost value, and to that the supply in the long run endeavors to conform.
Mr. Cairnes[213] fitly says: “The supply of a commodity always tends to adapt itself to the demand at the normal price. I may here say briefly that by the normal price of a commodity I mean that price which suffices, and no more than suffices, to yield to the producers what is considered to be the average and usual remuneration on such sacrifices as they undergo.”
When at any time it fails of so conforming, it is either from miscalculation, or from a change in some of the elements of the problem; either in the natural value, that is, in the cost of production, or in the demand, from an alteration in public taste, or in the number or wealth of the consumers. If a value different from the natural value be necessary to make the demand equal to the supply, the market value will deviate from the natural value; but only for a time, for the permanent tendency of supply is to conform itself to the demand which is found by experience to exist for the commodity when selling at its natural value. If the supply is either more or less than this, it is so accidentally, and affords either more or less than the ordinary rate of profit, which, under free and active competition, can not long continue to be the case.
To recapitulate: demand and supply govern the value of all things which can not be indefinitely increased; except that even for them, when produced by industry, there is a minimum value, determined by the cost of production. But in all things which admit of indefinite multiplication, demand and supply only determine the perturbations of value during a period which can not exceed the length of time necessary for altering the supply. While thus ruling the oscillations of value, they themselves obey a superior force, which makes value gravitate toward Cost of Production, and which would settle it and keep it there, if fresh disturbing influences were not continually arising to make it again deviate.
Chapter II. Ultimate Analysis Of Cost Of Production.
§ 1. Of Labor, the principal Element in Cost of Production.
The component elements of Cost of Production have been set forth in the First Part of this inquiry.[214] The principal of them, and so much the principal as to be nearly the sole, was found to be Labor. What the production of a thing costs to its producer, or its series of producers, is the labor expended in producing it. If we consider as the producer the capitalist who makes the advances, the word Labor may be replaced by the word Wages: what the produce costs to him, is the wages which he has had to pay. At the first glance, indeed, this seems to be only a part of his outlay, since he has not only paid wages to laborers, but has likewise provided them with tools, materials, and perhaps buildings. These tools, materials, and buildings, however, were produced by labor and capital; and their value, like that of the article to the production of which they are subservient, depends on cost of production, which again is resolvable into labor. The cost of production of broadcloth does not wholly consist in the wages of weavers; which alone are directly paid by the cloth-manufacturer. It consists also of the wages of spinners and wool-combers, and, it may be added, of shepherds, all of which the clothier has paid for in the price of yarn. It consists, too, of the wages of builders and brick-makers, which he has reimbursed in the contract price of erecting his factory. It partly consists of the wages of machine-makers, iron-founders, and miners. And to these must be added the wages of the carriers who transported any of the means and appliances of the production to the place where they were to be used, and the product itself to the place where it is to be sold.
Confirmation is here given, in the above words, of the opinion that, in Mr. Mill's mind, Cost of Production was looked at wholly from the stand-point of the capitalist, and was identical with Cost of Labor to the capitalist.
The value of commodities, therefore, depends principally (we shall presently see whether it depends solely) on the quantity of labor required for their production, including in the idea of production that of conveyance to the market. But since the cost of production to the capitalist is not labor but wages, and since wages may be either greater or less, the quantity of labor being the same, it would seem that the value of the product can not be determined solely by the quantity of labor, but by the quantity together with the remuneration, and that values must partly depend on wages.
Now the relation of one thing to another can not be altered by any cause which affects them both alike. A rise or fall of general wages is a fact which affects all commodities in the same manner, and therefore affords no reason why they should exchange for each other in one rather than in another proportion. Though there is no such thing as a general rise of values, there is such a thing as a general rise of prices. As soon as we form distinctly the idea of values, we see that high or low wages can have nothing to do with them; but that high wages make high prices, is a popular and widely spread opinion. The whole amount of error involved in this proposition can only be seen thoroughly when we come to the theory of money; at present we need only say that if it be true, there can be no such thing as a real rise of wages; for if wages could not rise without a proportional rise of the price of everything, they could not, for any substantial purpose, rise at all. It must be remembered, too, that general high prices, even supposing them to exist, can be of no use to a producer or dealer, considered as such; for, if they increase his money returns, they increase in the same degree all his expenses. There is no mode in which capitalists can compensate themselves for a high cost of labor, through any action on values or prices. It can not be prevented from taking its effect in low profits. If the laborers really get more, that is, get the produce of more labor, a smaller percentage must remain for profit.
§ 2. Wages affect Values, only if different in different employments; “non-competing groups.”
Although, however, general wages, whether high or low, do not affect values, yet if wages are higher in one employment than another, or if they rise or fall permanently in one employment without doing so in others, these inequalities do really operate upon values. Things, for example, which are made by skilled labor, exchange for the produce of a much greater quantity of unskilled labor, for no reason but because the labor is more highly paid. We have before remarked that the difficulty of passing from one class of employments to a class greatly superior has hitherto caused the wages of all those classes of laborers who are separated from one another by any very marked barrier to depend more than might be supposed upon the increase of the population of each class considered separately, and that the inequalities in the remuneration of labor are much greater than could exist if the competition of the laboring people generally could be brought practically to bear on each particular employment. It follows from this that wages in different employments do not rise or fall simultaneously, but are, for short and sometimes even for long periods, nearly independent of one another. All such disparities evidently alter the relative cost of production of different commodities, and will therefore be completely represented in their natural or average value.
213
“Leading Principles,” p. 41.
214
Book I, Chap. I, § 2.