The basic facts of economics : $b A common-sense primer for advanced studentsPost, Louis F. (Louis Freeland)
General
The basic facts of economics : $b A common-sense primer for advanced students
Post, Louis F. (Louis Freeland)
Economics
The “enterpriser” is a worker whose compensation for service is not
fixed but depends upon the profitableness of the enterprise he pursues,
which may be any business venture from mining or manufacturing to
merchandizing, and in any capacity from employer seeking “profits”
to salesman on “commission.” To eliminate this type of Economic
service from the fundamental Labor category in Economic science
is not only useless and misleading but also absurd. The fact that
the “enterpreneur’s” service may or may not prove profitable to
himself--the fact, in other words, that when he enters upon an
enterprise he “takes chances” as to compensation--does not alter the
Economic character of his functioning. He is none the less nor any
the more in the Man category of Economics in contradistinction to the
Natural Resource category and the Artificial Objects category. The
only Economic difference, essentially, between him and the “common
laborer” or “wage-worker”--except that one may be more serviceable than
the other, individual for individual--is that the compensation of the
“common laborer” or “wage-worker” is nominally secured by contract,
whereas the “enterpriser’s” is contingent; and this difference is not
fundamental. To take the “enterpriser” out of the Labor category in
Economics by assigning him to a fourth fundamental category, is to
trifle with Economic classifications. Why extend the basic categories
of Economics from Natural Resources, Artificial Objects and Man, to
Natural Resources, Artificial Objects, Man and Enterprisers?
A similar classification of Business itself--which, by the way,
is usually managed by “enterprisers”--would likewise be absurd and
trifling as well as confusing. What is legitimate Business but human
service? And what else in Economic classification fundamentally can
human service be but Labor? Business is in the Man class of Economics
in contradistinction to the Natural Resource class and the Artificial
Objects class. No other fundamental classifications are possible.
Consequently, the activities of Business classify themselves naturally
in the domain of Economics as Labor.
And so of the professions.
So, too, of every other kind of human service in the Productive
Process, whether the service take on such direct forms of Production as
making Artificial Objects and such as delivering them from hand to hand
or place to place, or such indirect forms as promoting the comfort,
the enjoyment, the health, the education, the cleanliness or what not
(provided it be Economically legitimate), of such human workers as
literally do make or deliver Artificial Objects. All are in the Labor
category.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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