The Principles of Economics, with Applications to Practical ProblemsFetter, Frank A. (Frank Albert)
General
The Principles of Economics, with Applications to Practical Problems
Fetter, Frank A. (Frank Albert)
Economics
[Sidenote: Wants grow refined as wealth advances]
It is a suggestive fact that civilized man, equipped with all of the
inventions and the advantages of science, spends more hours of effort in
gaining a livelihood than does the savage with his almost unaided hands.
Activity is dependent not on bare physical necessity, but on developed
wants--in the economic sense of the term. Such social institutions as
property and inheritance owe their origin and their justification to
their average effect on the motives to activity. If society is to
develop, if progress is to continue, human wants--not of the grosser
sort, but ever more refined--must continue to emerge and urge men to
action.
§ II. DESIRES FOR NON-MATERIAL ENDS, AS SECONDARY ECONOMIC MOTIVES
[Sidenote: The real man in economics]
1. _The spiritual nature of man must not be ignored in economic
reasoning._ There has been much and just criticism of the earlier
writers and of their conclusions because so little account was taken by
them of any but the motive of self-interest in economic affairs.
Generally it was assumed that men knew their own interest, and sought in
a very unsympathetic way those things which would gratify their material
wants. Thus man in economic reasoning was made an abstraction, differing
from real men in his lack of manifold spiritual and social elements.
[Sidenote: Desires for the non-material may become economic motives]
2. _The main classes of non-material wants that are secondarily economic
are fear of temporal punishment; sentiments of moral and religious duty;
pride, honor, and fear of disgrace; and pleasure in work for itself, for
social approval, or for a social result._ The first is best illustrated
by slavery, where the slave is not impelled to seek wealth for his own
welfare, but is driven by punishment to perform the task. The object is
to create within the mind of the slave a motive that will take the place
of the ordinary economic motive. The feeling of religious or moral duty
leads men to act often in direct opposition to the usual economic
motive. The taboo is faithfully observed by the members of a savage
tribe who suffer as a result the severest hardships. A religious
injunction prevents the use of food that would save from starvation.
Pride, either of family or of calling; the soldier's honor leading him
to sacrifice not only his future but his life; the love of social
approval, holding men to the most disagreeable tasks--these illustrate
how strongly social sentiments oppose the narrower motive of immediate
self-interest as generally thought of. Pleasure in work for work's sake,
and pride in the result, may act as motives quite as strong in some
cases as desire for the product that can be used. And even where this
does not change the kind of work done, it comes in to influence the
interest and earnestness with which the work is performed.
[Sidenote: Economists must overlook no influence on value]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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