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.
Fisheries are another example. Fisheries in the open sea are not appropriated, but fisheries in lakes or rivers almost always are so, and likewise oyster-beds or other particular fishing-grounds on coasts. We may take salmon-fisheries as an example of the whole class. Some rivers are far more productive in salmon than others. None, however, without being exhausted, can supply more than a very limited demand. All others, therefore, will, if appropriated, afford a rent equal to the value of their superiority.
Both in the case of mines and of fisheries, the natural order of events is liable to be interrupted by the opening of a new mine, or a new fishery, of superior quality to some of those already in use. In this case, when things have permanently adjusted themselves, the result will be that the scale of qualities which supply the market will have been cut short at the lower end, while a new insertion will have been made in the scale at some point higher up; and the worst mine or fishery in use—the one which regulates the rents of the superior qualities and the value of the commodity—will be a mine or fishery of better quality than that by which they were previously regulated.
The ground-rent of a building, and the rent of a garden or park attached to it, will not be less than the rent which the same land would afford in agriculture, but may be greater than this to an indefinite amount; the surplus being either in consideration of beauty or of convenience, the convenience often consisting in superior facilities for pecuniary gain. Sites of remarkable beauty are generally limited in supply, and therefore, if in great demand, are at a scarcity value. Sites superior only in convenience are governed as to their value by the ordinary principles of rent. The ground-rent of a house in a small village is but little higher than the rent of a similar patch of ground in the open fields.
Suppose the various kinds of land to be represented by the alphabet; that those below O pay no agricultural rent, and that all lands increase in fertility and situation as we approach the beginning of the alphabet, but which, as far up as K, are used in agriculture; that higher than K all are more profitably used for building purposes, viz.:
A, B, C, ... | K, L, M, N, O, | ... X, Y, Z.
Now it will happen that land is chosen for building purposes irrespective of its fertility for agricultural purposes. It will not be true, as some may think, that no land will be used for building until it will pay a ground-rent greater than the greatest agricultural rent paid by any piece of land. It is not true, for example, if N be selected for a building-lot, that it must pay a ground-rent as high as the agricultural rent of K, the most fertile land cultivated in agriculture. It must pay a ground-rent higher only than it itself would pay, if cultivated. It is only necessary that it pay more than the same (not better) land would pay as rent if used only in agriculture.
The rents of wharfage, dock, and harbor room, water-power, and many other privileges, may be analyzed on similar principles. Take the case, for example, of a patent or exclusive privilege for the use of a process by which the cost of production is lessened. If the value of the product continues to be regulated by what it costs to those who are obliged to persist in the old process, the patentee will make an extra profit equal to the advantage which his process possesses over theirs. This extra profit is essentially similar to rent, and sometimes even assumes the form of it, the patentee allowing to other producers the use of his privilege in consideration of an annual payment.
The extra gains which any producer or dealer obtains through superior talents for business, or superior business arrangements, are very much of a similar kind. If all his competitors had the same advantages, and used them, the benefit would be transferred to their customers through the diminished value of the article; he only retains it for himself because he is able to bring his commodity to market at a lower cost, while its value is determined by a higher.[219]
§ 4. Résumé of the laws of value of each of the three classes of commodities.
A general résumé of the laws of value, where a free movement of labor and capital exists, may now be briefly made in the following form:
Exchange value has three conditions, viz.:
1. Utility, or ability to satisfy a desire (U).
2. Difficulty of attainment (D), according to which there are three classes of commodities.
3. Transferableness.
Of the second condition, there are three classes:
1. Those limited in supply—e.g., ancient pictures or monopolized articles.
2. Those whose supply is capable of indefinite increase by the use of labor and capital.
3. Those whose supply is gained at a gradually increasing cost, under the law of diminishing returns.
Of those limited in supply, their value is regulated by Demand and Supply. The only limit is U.
Of those whose supply is capable of indefinite increase, their normal and permanent value is regulated by Cost of Production, and their temporary or market value is regulated by Demand and Supply, oscillating around Cost of Production (which consists of the amount of labor and abstinence required).
Of those whose supply is gained at a gradually increasing cost, their normal value is regulated by the Cost of Production of that portion of the whole amount of the whole amount needed, which is brought to market at the greatest expense, and their market value is regulated by Demand and Supply (as in class 2).
If there be no free competition between industries, then the value of those commodities which has been said, in the above classification, to depend on cost of production, will be governed by the law of Reciprocal Demand.
Chapter IV. Of Money.
§ 1. The three functions of Money—a Common Denominator of Value, a Medium of Exchange, a “Standard of Value”.
Having proceeded thus far in ascertaining the general laws of Value, without introducing the idea of Money (except occasionally for illustration), it is time that we should now superadd that idea, and consider in what manner the principles of the mutual interchange of commodities are affected by the use of what is termed a Medium of Exchange.
As Professor Jevons[220] has pointed out, money performs three distinct services, capable of being separated by the mind, and worthy of separate definition and explanation:
1. A Common Measure, or Common Denominator, of Value.
2. A Medium of Exchange.
3. A Standard of Value.
F. A. Walker,[221] however, says: “Money is the medium of exchange. Whatever performs this function, does this work, is money, no matter what it is made of.... That which does the money-work is the money-thing.”
219
F. A. Walker (“Political Economy,” pp. 248-259) expands this idea, and makes it the pivotal part of his whole theory of distribution among laborers, capitalists, and landlords.
220
“Money and the Mechanism of Exchange,” chap. iii.
221
“Political Economy,” p. 127.