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
other persons, such as manufacturers, carriers, merchants, etc., and
he could never carry away the concrete thing that he himself produced
without carrying with it other men's property.
_The Surrendering of Goods and the Retention of Values Features of
Social Industry._--Socialization of industry means, then, that
individuals forego all effort to retain their own concrete products,
but that they retain certain parts of the value of the products to
which they have made contributions. The value of A''' when it is sold
is claimed by men at A''', A'', A', and A according to some principle.
The values of B''' and C''' can be followed until they reach the
pockets of the men who have contributed their several shares to the
making of these things. All this requires a government and a
well-developed system of laws and courts for the protection of
property, including the protection of it in the form of a claim to a
value that is embodied in things which have gone beyond the maker's
reach. Property here takes a refined form which requires that the man
should forego all desire to keep the literal thing he has made and
should make it his aim to retain the value of it in some other form.
It is a comparatively simple matter to guard a concrete article which
a man has in his possession, though even that requires some energy on
the part of the police force and is never quite perfectly
accomplished; but it is a far more difficult matter to enforce a claim
that a man has against other men, in consequence of some utility that
has been created by him but has gone away from him and mingled with
utilities created by many other persons in a product that the man will
never see. It is the problem of guaranteeing to the shoemaker the due
return for the stitches he has put into shoes when the shoes
themselves have gone to buyers and wearers in every quarter of the
land and many quarters of the globe.
_Groups under a Socialistic State._--In _political_ economy as
distinct from _general_ economy we take one premise from sociology and
another from politics. We assume that society exists and that it has
taken on a political character, by establishing laws with courts to
interpret them and officials to enforce them. We do not, however,
assume that the direction of industrial affairs is in the hands of
such officials. In the main industry is organized in a spontaneous
way. Men choose such occupations as they like, and when there are too
many of them in one group and too few in another, the rewards
naturally increase in the group where a larger force is needed, and
this lures men in that direction.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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