Political Economy, for Plain People: Applied to the Past and Present State of Britain

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Longman's, Green, and Company, 1873 - Economics - 353 pages
 

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Page 122 - Rent is that portion of the produce of the earth, which is paid to the landlord for the use of the original and indestructible powers of the soil.
Page 83 - ... any sort of action or operation, whether performed by man, the lower animals, machinery, or natural agents, that tends to bring about a desirable result!
Page 39 - ... antagonist muscles, regulate the extent of his dealings, and the prices at which he buys and sells. An abundant supply causes him to lower his prices, and thus enables the public to enjoy that abundance ; while he is guided only by the apprehension of being undersold ; and, on the other hand, an actual or apprehended scarcity causes him to demand a higher price, or to keep back his goods in expectation of a rise.
Page 86 - The profit obtained by the owner of capital from its productive employment, whether in his own hands or those of another party, to whom it is lent, is to be viewed in the light of a compensation to him for abstaining for a time from the consumption of that portion of his property on his personal gratification...
Page 321 - The laws and conditions of the production of wealth, partake of the character of physical truths. There is nothing optional, or arbitrary in them. Whatever mankind produce, must be produced in the modes, and under the conditions, imposed by the constitution of external things, and by the inherent properties of their own bodily and mental structure.
Page 40 - And in the pursuit of this object, without any comprehensive wisdom, or any need of it, they cooperate, unknowingly, in conducting a system which, we may safely say, no human wisdom directed to that end could have conducted so well : — the system by which this enormous population is fed from day to day.
Page 321 - It is not so with the Distribution of Wealth. That is a matter of human institution solely. The things once there, mankind, individually or collectively, can do with them as they like.
Page 282 - On these grounds it has been proposed to correct the legal standard of value (or, at least, to afford to individuals the means of ascertaining its errors), by the periodical publication of an authentic pricecurrent, containing a list of a large number of articles in general use, arranged in quantities corresponding to their relative consumption, so as to give the rise or fall, from time to time, of the mean of prices ; which will indicate, with all the exactness desirable for commercial purposes,...
Page 187 - Land and trade," to borrow the just and forcible expressions of Sir Josiah Child, "are TWINS, and have always, and ever will, wax and wane together. It cannot be ill with trade but lands will fall, nor ill with lands but trade will feel it.
Page 97 - ... to be made up of, 1. Interest of capital, or what can be got for its use without personal labour or risk; 2. Insurance against the risks incident to the particular business in which the stock is employed ; 3. Wages of labour for the personal superintendence, skill, or talent of the capitalist; 4. Monopoly gains, arising from the possession of exclusive advantages, such as secret or patented processes or instruments, superior connexions, facilities of local position, of soil, mines, collieries,...

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