Principles of Political EconomyPerry, Arthur Latham
General
Principles of Political Economy
Perry, Arthur Latham
Economics
Third, so many nations at different times in all ages have lowered the
standard of their Money under a misapprehension of its nature and in a
vain hope of profit, and a general scale of rising prices following
each attempt of this kind having been several times observed and no
instance to the contrary, Economists came by Induction to assert the
proposition, that falling Moneys cause rising Prices; the proposition
stood secure on inductive grounds alone; but so soon as a perfect
definition of Money, namely, a Measure of Services, had at last been
reached both inductively and deductively, it became at once a safe
Deduction from the definition, that rising Prices must succeed a
falling Measure. Thus assurance became doubly sure.
Fourth, Introspection gives each buyer and seller such firm possession
of _his own motive_ in buying and selling, that he naturally and
inductively concludes on the ground that men are substantially alike,
that the _motive is similar_ in the party of the other part; each
further step of experience in traffic assures him of this beyond a
doubt,--each wants to get and does get something from the other of
more consequence to him than what he gives; every attempted deviation
from rectitude in trade so far forth throws the trader out from
opportunity to trade; opportunity to trade is nothing in the world but
_a market_; a market is nothing in the world but men with products in
their hands, desiring to buy other products with these; the more men
anywhere with the more products in their hands of all sorts to buy
with, the better market everywhere for other men (the more the better)
with other products of all kinds to buy with; all the appropriate
logical processes in action and reaction, all the commercial
experience of all men everywhere, and all the true statistics of
traffic ever gathered, do but assure the inductive assent to one of
the best and broadest of all the Generalizations in Economics, namely
this: _A market for products is products in market._
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