Principles of Political Economy: Abridged with Critical, Bibliographical, and Explanatory Notes, and a Sketch of the History of Political Economy — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Principles of Political Economy: Abridged with Critical, Bibliographical, and Explanatory Notes, and a Sketch of the History of Political Economy
John Stuart Mill · en
In discussing Cost of Labor (_supra_, pp. 225, 226), Mr. Mill
found that the advances of the immediate producer consisted not
only of wages, but also of tools, materials, etc., in the price of
which he was including the profits of an auxiliary capitalist who
advanced the capital for making these tools, etc. But, then, if a
line of division were to be passed down through all these
advances, separating wages from profits, he urged that, if all the
capitalists (auxiliary and immediate both) were one, all the
advances of the capitalist might be considered as wages. Profits
did not form a part of the outlay to the capitalists in the former
analysis. And this seems correct enough. Now, however, he suggests
that the outlay of the immediate producers should include the
profit of the auxiliary capitalist. More than this, Mr. Mill now
includes in cost to the capitalist the profit of the immediate
capitalist. For example, in his illustration of the manufacture of
linen, he includes not merely the profit of the auxiliary capital
engaged in spinning and weaving, but the profit of the immediate
and last capitalist, the linen-manufacturer, also. This includes
in the cost of producing an article a profit not realized until
after the commodity is produced.
It is now time to give a more correct idea of cost of production.
Every one admits, for example, that the “cost of production” of
wheat is less in the United States than in England. If, for
instance, three men with a capital of one hundred dollars may on a
plot of ground, A, in the United States produce one hundred
bushels of wheat, it will happen that the same men and capital
will only produce sixty bushels on ground, B, in England.
[Illustration: Cost of Production.]
In ordinary language, then, we say that the cost of production is
greater in England than in the United States, because the same
labor and capital here produce one hundred bushels for sixty in
England; or, what amounts to the same thing, that less labor and
capital could produce sixty bushels in the United States than
sixty bushels in England. If we suppose that one fourth of the
crop is profit, and three fourths is assigned to wages in both
countries, then in the United States the one hundred dollars of
capital receives twenty-five bushels of profit, while in England
it receives only fifteen; and the three men receive as wages in
the United States twenty-five bushels each, while in England they
receive only fifteen bushels each. The first important induction
to be made is that where cost of production is low, wages and
profits are high. The high productiveness of extractive industries
in the United States is the reason why wages and profits are
higher here than in older countries.