Essentials of Economic Theory: As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public PolicyClark, John Bates
General
Essentials of Economic Theory: As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy
Clark, John Bates
Economics
of vision, and this requires that they should save more when interest
is low than they do when interest is high.
_Marginal Capitalists._--In this connection, however, it is to be
noted that economic myopia may go to the extreme length of making men
nearly indifferent to all future standards. In this case they
constitute an exception to the general rule, since whatever they save,
if they save at all, is likely to be more when interest is high than
when it is low. They are marginal capitalists, who are not influenced
by any benefits except immediate ones and only inquire how much an
investment will, from the day when it is made, add to their own
incomes. The higher rate is then the greater lure. Moreover, other
capitalists, who are influenced mainly by regard for future standards
of living, are somewhat affected by the immediate benefit which
marginal savers have exclusively in view. To the extent that they are
so, the higher the rate of their immediate returns, the more strongly
are they impelled to "abstain" and accumulate. The essential fact is
that marginal capitalists are few numerically, and their savings count
for little as they enter into the general fund, and that most
capitalists, including nearly all who save great amounts, do it
chiefly from a desire to maintain themselves and their descendants on
an established level of living. In the main the social motives for
saving are those we have described.
_Enjoyment largely Teleological._--There is a special reason why a
rational man, if offered an enjoyment now or later, at his option, is
quite likely to take it later. Enjoyment is mainly teleological. It
consists in a conscious approach to a desirable end. The knowledge
that one's efforts to attain a desired goal are successful and that
the good thing is really coming, sheds a light on the present. Indeed,
it is anticipation and memory which prolong any enjoyment, and of
these anticipation is the more effective. The knowledge that one is at
a certain time to sail for a foreign tour confers before the sailing
an enjoyment which is often more than a foretaste. It often rivals the
pleasure that is consciously taken in the trip itself. A man may be
happy for years in the prospect of a business success or a prospect of
election to a public office, and many years of hard labor in
scientific investigation may be illuminated by the expectation of the
ultimate discovery and its consequences. There is a good reason why
even an average man, as well as a wise one, will wish to distribute
his expenditures over the different periods of his life, and to give a
preference to the future whenever that is necessary in order to enable
him to hold through his earlier years the comfortable assurance that
his later ones are well provided for.
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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