Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1891 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XII COST OF PRODUCTION We have now to compare the law of Value at which we have arrived with that generally adopted by English economists, (it is a matter of common experience thatJ in the case of articles manufactured on a large scale--" freely produced," or "reproducible at will"-- DEGREESthe price always tends towards equality with I the costs of their production; On this experience ij DEGREES the familiar law that the value of a good is ((founded determined by its cost. Speaking generally, Costs of /Production are all the productive goods consumed in the making of a product, --raw and auxiliary materials, machinery, power, and labour. To speak more accurately we should substitute the term Expenses of Production, thus indicating that the naturally incommensurable I "efforts and abstinences" are measured by the money paid for them. DEGREESOn this theory the value of a good cornes from its past, j DEGREES Now, on the theory above explained, we have to show that the causal connection runs the other way, from Product to Cost. Human want_it-wa&-said, is theJirst factor in Value. The relation of each man's resources I to his varied wants determines what is the last want: satisfied in each class of want, and so the Marginal Utility !and subjective value of goods. The figures which buyers iand sellers respectively put on their goods determine the competitors, determine the marginal pair or the last buyer, and so determine price. Through price the subjective valuations are carried back to means of production. As the typical labourer, the peasant, I measures the value of his labour by the produce he ] raises, or the value of his implements by the additional crop they procure, so is all value reflected back from goods to that which makes them., y Thus...