Some Readings in Economics: Prepared for the Use of Students in Course I, Political Economy, University of Michigan |
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30 cents abroad acre Adam Smith amount Austrian School balance of trade best land bullion bushels capital cause circulation commerce commodities condition consequence consumed consumption corn cotton cultivation dealers demand denominations depends determined diminishing economic employed employment entrepreneur equal exchange existence exports fact fall former furnished gain give gold and silver grade greater hand human important increase industry inferior moneys iron kind labor labor power Law of Cost law of value legal tender less loss manufacturer marginal utility matter means ment merchant metal monetary natural price obtained output particular Political Economy possible premium present principle profit purchase quantity rate of wages rent respect rise risk sack satisfaction scarcity sell speculative standard money subsidiary money supply suppose surplus theory things tion token coin undertaking United wants wealth wellbeing wheat
Popular passages
Page 198 - By necessaries I understand not only the commodities which are indispensably necessary for the support of life, but whatever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest order, to be without.
Page 16 - It is the great multiplication of the productions of all the different arts, in consequence of the division of labour, which occasions, in a well-governed society, that universal opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people.
Page 206 - In a perfectly fair lottery, those who draw the prizes ought to gain all that is lost by those who draw the blanks. In a profession where twenty fail for one that succeeds, that one ought to gain all that should have been gained by the unsuccessful twenty.
Page 51 - As IT IS THE power of exchanging that gives occasion to the division of labour, so the extent of this division must always be limited by the extent of that power, or, in other words, by the extent of the market.
Page 25 - The sovereign, for example, with all the officers both of justice and war who serve under him, the whole army and navy, are unproductive labourers. They are the servants of the public, and are maintained by a part of the annual produce of the industry of other people. Their service how honourable, how useful, or how necessary soever, produces nothing for which an equal quantity of service can afterwards be procured.
Page 194 - The market price of labour is the price which is really paid for it, from the natural operation of the proportion of the supply to the demand; labour is dear when it is scarce and cheap when it is plentiful. However much the market price of labour may deviate from its natural price, it has, like commodities, a tendency to conform to it.
Page 24 - THERE is one sort of labour which adds to the value of the subject upon which it is bestowed: there is another which has no such effect. The former, as it produces a value, may be called productive; the latter, unproductive
Page 133 - It would be too ridiculous to go about seriously to prove, that wealth does not consist in money, or in gold and silver ; but in what money purchases, and is valuable only for purchasing.
Page 52 - As by means of water-carriage, a more extensive market is opened to every sort of industry than what land-carriage alone can afford it, so it is upon the seacoast, and along the banks of navigable rivers, that industry of every kind naturally begins to subdivide and improve itself...
Page 207 - ... gained by the unsuccessful twenty. The counsellor at law, who, perhaps, at near forty years of age, begins to make something by his profession, ought to receive the retribution, not only of his own so tedious and expensive education, but of that of more than twenty others who are never likely to make anything by it. How extravagant soever the fees of counsellors at law may sometimes appear, their real retribution is never equal to this.