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Principles of Political Economy

<h1>Book I. Production.</h1> <h2>Chapter I. Of The Requisites Of Production.</h2> <h3>§ 1. The Requisites of Production are Two: Labor, and Appropriate Natural Objects.</h3> There is a third requisite of production, capital (see page 58). Since the limitation to only two requisites applies solely to a primitive condition of existence, so soon as the element of time enters into production, then a store of capital becomes necessary; that is, so soon as production requires such a term that during the operation the laborer can not at the same time provide himself with subsistence, then capital is a requisite of production. This takes place also under any general division of labor in a community. When one man is making a pin-head, he must be supplied with food by some person until the pins are finished and exchanged. Labor is either bodily or mental; or, to express the distinction more comprehensively, either muscular or nervous; and it is necessary to include in the idea, not solely the exertion itself, but all feelings of a disagreeable kind, all bodily inconvenience or mental annoyance, connected with the employment of one's thoughts, or muscles, or both, in a particular occupation. The word “sacrifice” conveys a just idea of what the laborer undergoes, and it corresponds to the abstinence of the capitalist. Of the other requisite—appropriate natural objects—it is to be remarked that some objects exist or grow up spontaneously, of a kind suited to the supply of human wants. There are caves and hollow trees capable of affording shelter; fruits, roots, wild honey, and other natural products, on which human life can be supported; but even here a considerable quantity of labor is generally required, not for the purpose of creating, but of finding and appropriating them. Of natural powers, some are unlimited, others limited in quantity. By an unlimited quantity is of course not meant literally, but practically unlimited: a quantity beyond the use which can in any, or at least in present circumstances, be made of it. Land is, in some newly settled countries, practically unlimited in quantity: there is more than can be used by the existing population of the country, or by any accession likely to be made to it for generations to come. But, even there, land favorably situated with regard to markets, or means of carriage, is generally limited in quantity: there is not so much of it as persons would gladly occupy and cultivate, or otherwise turn to use. In all old countries, land capable of cultivation, land at least of any tolerable fertility, must be ranked among agents limited in quantity. Coal, metallic ores, and other useful substances found in the earth, are still more limited than land. For the present I shall only remark that, so long as the quantity of a natural agent is practically unlimited, it can not, unless susceptible of artificial monopoly, bear any value in the market, since no one will give anything for what can be obtained gratis. But as soon as a limitation becomes practically operative—as soon as there is not so much of the thing to be had as would be appropriated and used if it could be obtained for asking—the ownership or use of the natural agent acquires an exchangeable value. Rich lands in our Western Territories a few years ago could be had practically for the asking; but now, since railways and an increase of population have brought them nearer to the markets, they have acquired a distinct exchange value. The value of a commodity (it may be anticipated) is the quantity of other things for which it can be exchanged. When more water-power is wanted in a particular district than there are falls of water to supply it, persons will give an equivalent for the use of a fall of water. When there is more land wanted for cultivation than a place possesses, or than it possesses of a certain quality and certain advantages of situation, land of that quality and situation may be sold for a price, or let for an annual rent. <h3>§ 2. The Second Requisite of Production, Labor.</h3> It is now our purpose to describe the second requisite of production, labor, and point out that it can be either direct or indirect. This division and subdivision can be seen from the classification given below. Under the head of indirect labor are to be arranged all the many employments subsidiary to the production of any one article, and which, as they furnish but a small part of labor for the one article (e.g., bread), are subsidiary to the production of a vast number of other articles; and hence we see the interdependence of one employment on another, which comes out so conspicuously at the time of a commercial depression. “We think it little to sit down to a table covered with articles from all quarters of the globe and from the remotest isles of the sea—with tea from China, coffee from Brazil, spices from the East, and sugar from the West Indies; knives from Sheffield, made with iron from Sweden and ivory from Africa; with silver from Mexico and cotton from South Carolina; all being lighted with oil brought from New Zealand or the Arctic Circle. Still less do we think of the great number of persons whose united agency is required to bring any one of these finished products to our homes—of the merchants, insurers, sailors, ship-builders, cordage and sail makers, astronomical-instrument makers, men of science, and others, before a pound of tea can appear in our market.”101 The labor102 which terminates in the production of an article fitted for some human use is either employed directly about the thing, or in previous operations destined to facilitate, perhaps essential to the possibility of, the subsequent ones. In making bread, for example, the labor employed about the thing itself is that of the baker; but the labor of the miller, though employed directly in the production not of bread but of flour, is equally part of the aggregate sum of labor by which the bread is produced; as is also the labor of the sower, and of the reaper. Some may think that all these persons ought to be considered as employing their labor directly about the thing; the corn, the flour, and the bread being one substance in three different states. Without disputing about this question of mere language, there is still the plowman, who prepared the ground for the seed, and whose labor never came in contact with the substance in any of its states; and the plow-maker, whose share in the result was still more remote. We must add yet another kind of labor; that of transporting the produce from the place of its production to the place of its destined use: the labor of carrying the corn to market, and from market to the miller's, the flour from the miller's to the baker's, and the bread from the baker's to the place of its final consumption. Besides the two classes of indirect laborers here mentioned, those engaged in producing materials and those in transportation, there are several others who are paid fractions out of the bread. Subsidiary to the direct labor of the bread-maker is the labor of all those who make the instruments employed in the process (as, e.g., the oven). Materials are completely changed in character by one use, as when the coal is burned, or the flour baked into bread; while an instrument, like an oven, is capable of remaining intact throughout many operations. The producer of materials and the transporter are paid by the bread-maker in the price of his coal and flour when left at his door, so that the price of the loaf is influenced by these payments. Those persons, moreover, who, like the police and officers of our government, act to protect property and life, are also to be classed as laborers indirectly aiding in the production of the given article, bread (and by his taxes the bread-maker helps pay the wages of these officials). Shading off into a more distant, although essential, connection is another class—that of those laborers who train human beings in the branches of knowledge necessary to the attainment of proper skill in managing the processes and instruments of an industry. The acquisition of the rudiments of education, and, in many cases, the most profound knowledge of chemistry, physics and recondite studies, are essential to production; and teachers are indirect laborers in producing almost every article in the market. In this country, especially, are inventors a class of indirect laborers essential to all ultimate production as it now goes on. The improvements in the instruments of production are the results of an inventive ability which has made American machinery known all over the world. They, too, as well as the teacher, are paid (a small fraction, of course) out of the ultimate result, by an indirect path, and materially change the ease or difficulty, cheapness or dearness, of production in nearly every branch of industry. In the particular illustration given they have improved the ovens, ranges, and stoves, so that the same or better articles are produced at a less cost than formerly. All these indirect laborers receive, in the way of remuneration, a fraction, some more, some less (the farther they are removed from the direct process), of the value of the final result. <h3>§ 3. Of Capital as a Requisite of Production.</h3> But another set of laborers are to be placed in distinct contrast with these, so far as the grounds on which they receive their remuneration is concerned. These are the men engaged previously in providing the subsistence, and articles by which the former classes of labor can carry on their operations. The previous employment of labor is an indispensable condition to every productive operation, on any other than the very smallest scale. Except the labor of the hunter and fisher, there is scarcely any kind of labor to which the returns are immediate. Productive operations require to be continued a certain time before their fruits are obtained. Unless the laborer, before commencing his work, possesses a store of food, or can obtain access to the stores of some one else, in sufficient quantity to maintain him until the production is completed, he can undertake no labor but such as can be carried on at odd intervals, concurrently with the pursuit of his subsistence. The possession of capital is thus a third requisite of production, together with land and labor, as noted above. Henry George (“Progress and Poverty,” chap. iv) holds an opposite opinion: “The subsistence of the laborers who built the Pyramids was drawn, not from a previously hoarded stock” (does he not forget the story of Joseph's store of corn?), “but from the constantly recurring crops of the Nile Valley.” He can not obtain food itself in any abundance; for every mode of so obtaining it requires that there be already food in store. Agriculture only brings forth food after the lapse of months; and, though the labors of the agriculturist are not necessarily continuous during the whole period, they must occupy a considerable part of it. Not only is agriculture impossible without food produced in advance, but there must be a very great quantity in advance to enable any considerable community to support itself wholly by agriculture. A country like England or the United States is only able to carry on the agriculture of the present year because that of past years has provided, in those countries or somewhere else, sufficient food to support their agricultural population until the next harvest. They are only enabled to produce so many other things besides food, because the food which was in store at the close of the last harvest suffices to maintain not only the agricultural laborers, but a large industrious population besides. The claim to remuneration founded on the possession of food, available for the maintenance of laborers, is of another kind; remuneration for abstinence, not for labor. If a person has a store of food, he has it in his power to consume it himself in idleness, or in feeding others to attend on him, or to fight for him, or to sing or dance for him. If, instead of these things, he gives it to productive laborers to support them during their work, he can, and naturally will, claim a remuneration from the produce. He will not be content with simple repayment; if he receives merely that, he is only in the same situation as at first, and has derived no advantage from delaying to apply his savings to his own benefit or pleasure. He will look for some equivalent for this forbearance:103 he will expect his advance of food to come back to him with an increase, called, in the language of business, a profit; and the hope of this profit will generally have been a part of the inducement which made him accumulate a stock, by economizing in his own consumption; or, at any rate, which made him forego the application of it, when accumulated, to his personal ease or satisfaction. <hr class="page" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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