Читать книгу Essentials of Economic Theory - John Bates Clark - Страница 8

[1] Past usage renders the somewhat misleading term Political Economy more available than the more accurately descriptive term Social Economics, as the title of the science which treats of the creation and use of wealth by an organized society. Either title implies the existence of such an organization, but the word political calls attention to the fact that it is under a government. The fact that, in a study of wealth, is most important is that the exchanges of products which spontaneously take place create an industrial society whose activities, going on as they do under a government, constitute the subject of the studies which are properly indicated by the traditional term, Political Economy. Government as such is not the subject of those studies.

[2] The term final utility is used with much the same significance as specific importance. It is the utility of the last and least important part of the supply, and the use of the term requires us to think of the supply as offered to users unit by unit till the whole amount is in their hands. The first unit, when it stands alone, is more important than any later one will be. The second is of less consequence, and the last is the least important of all. When, however, all have been supplied and are together available for use, one is as important as another. Each one has an effective utility which is measured by the service rendered by the last one. The term specific indicates that we measure the importance of the supply of an article not in its entirety, but bit by bit, while the term effective is the antithesis of absolute and means that each bit of the supply not only renders an absolute service, but renders one which would not be gratuitously rendered by some other part of the supply in case this portion were removed or destroyed. We do not here think of the supply as built up from nothing to its present size bit by bit, but look at it as it stands and measure the importance of any particular quantity. When we speak of final utility, we think of a series of "increments" supplied one after another, and in this case the successive increments become less and less important, since, after some have been supplied, the want of the kind of good that they represent is less keenly felt. The conception of the series of units is merely a means of isolating one unit from a total number and obtaining a mental measurement of its importance which corresponds with the effective importance of any unit in the entire quantity.

[3] The term create is here used in a somewhat loose sense and does not imply that the man originates matter or even that he always transforms it without calling in, as an aid, the forces of nature. The farmer must depend on vital forces in soil and air in order to raise a crop. What he and other laborers do is to cause the product in some way to come into existence, and he and they may in this sense be said to create the products which would not appear without them.

[4] The distinction between elementary utility and others does not need to be applied with the utmost strictness, for mining creates form utility by breaking up masses of ore, and place utility by making them accessible. Agriculture shapes its products and moves them to places of storage. It is convenient in practice to adhere to the more general classification suggested in the text.

[5] In a way all kinds of production may be analyzed into the moving of matter. In cutting up raw materials a manufacturer moves waste portions away from those that are to be utilized, while combining materials, of course, moves them toward each other. Neither of these operations creates place utility. This quality consists in a relation, not between some materials and others, but between goods and the persons who are to use them. Bringing things to us from a distance changes their local relation to us, and in this is the essence of place utility, and every article that we use must have acquired this quality. The service-rendering power which it possesses is only potential until it reaches a place where the power can be exercised.

[6] On the ground of convenience, we may classify labor as physical or mental, according as the work of muscle or of brain is especially prominent. Digging a ditch requires more than an average amount of strength and not even an average amount of intelligence, and it is, therefore, physical labor rather than mental; while writing a brief or arguing a case in court requires much power of thought and only a small amount of muscular strength, and is typically mental labor. Managing an estate for an absent owner is more largely a moral function, since the value of the service depends chiefly on the fidelity of the man who renders it; but physical and intellectual labor are also involved. These three types of personal effort are exerted wherever wealth is created.

[7] For an elaboration of the conception of mediate goods the reader is referred to Von Böhm-Bawerk's work on "Positive Theory of Capital" and to John Rae's work on "The Sociological Theory of Capital."

[8] One man might be employed in guarding canoes and fish against theft, which is doing protective rather than industrial labor; and economic forces would tend to give him a share as large as each of the others receives, provided, of course, that the men are of equal capacity as workers.

[9] The conception of capital goods as always putting enjoyments into the future has crept into economic science because in certain illustrations taken from primitive life they seem to have that effect. We shall see that they do not have it at all in static social industry, and that they have it only in a limited way in dynamic social industry, or that which is carried on by a society undergoing organic change.