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
3. _Progress takes place where new wealth gratifies marginal wants as
intense as those of the preceding period._ If the utility of every kind
of goods decreased uniformly as wealth increased, desire would steadily
decline in intensity. But old wants vary and new wants develop with
prosperity. Desire grows by what it feeds on. Ambition passes on to
other and higher peaks. The direction of the individual man's life thus
is determined by the expenditure of his increasing income. Wealth makes
possible a new adjustment of life, a new character, both in the
individual and in the society.
[Sidenote: Wealth a means to living]
The thought that needs emphasis in this connection is that, while
production and consumption are separable in thought and distinguishable
in practice, they are not opposed in their ultimate purpose. The highest
fruits of production are in the lessons of sacrifice and discipline, and
in its opportunities for experience and self-expression. The best result
of the consumption of wealth is not the gratification of appetite, but
the strengthening of the spiritual forces within men. The world is to
rise to a higher social stage not by banishing labor and by multiplying
sensual enjoyments of the commoner sort. Wealth, even in an economic
view, is not the end of life, but merely the means to its realization.
[Sidenote: Variety and harmony in the choice of goods]
4. _Enjoyment is increased by a proper variety and harmony of goods._ As
the old kinds of goods increase in amount and fall in value, there must
be a substitution of new goods. An element added to the dress or to the
diet heightens greatly the total gratification. The result is a unit.
Think of a dinner without butter, or a cranberry-pie without sugar, or a
dress-suit without a linen collar. Certain combinations are essential to
the requirements of developed taste and present a problem of
complementary goods. Combinations of complementary goods enhance the
enjoyment; inharmonious combinations decrease it. That certain things
"go together" is a fact that rests often in the nature of things.
Complementary colors please the eye; well-seasoned dishes please the
palate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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