Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy
John Stuart Mill · en
This is the truth which the deniers of general over-production have
seized and enforced; nor is it pretended that anything has been added
to it, or subtracted from it, in the present disquisition. But it is
thought that those who receive the doctrine accompanied with the
explanations which we have given, will understand, more clearly than
before, what is, and what is not, implied in it; and will see that, when
properly understood, it in no way contradicts those obvious facts which
are universally known and admitted to be not only of possible, but of
actual and even frequent occurrence. The doctrine in question only
appears a paradox, because it has usually been so expressed as
apparently to contradict these well-known facts; which, however, were
equally well known to the authors of the doctrine, who, therefore, can
only have adopted from inadvertence any form of expression which could
to a candid person appear inconsistent with it. The essentials of the
doctrine are preserved when it is allowed that there cannot be permanent
excess of production, or of accumulation; though it be at the same time
admitted, that as there may be a temporary excess of any one article
considered separately, so may there of commodities generally, not in
consequence of over-production, but of a want of commercial confidence.
NOTE:
[6] Probably; because most articles of an ornamental description being
still required from the same makers, these makers, with their capital,
would probably follow their customers, Besides, from place to place
within the same country, most persons will lather change their
habitation than their employment. But the moving on this score would be
reciprocal.
ESSAY III.
ON THE WORDS PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE.
It would probably be difficult to point out any two words, respecting
the proper use of which political economists have been more divided,
than they have been concerning the two words _productive_ and
_unproductive_; whether considered as applied to _labour_, to
_consumption_, or to _expenditure_.