The Increase of Capital |
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accumulation of capital Adam Smith argument best iron market Book capitalist in superintendence certain ratio commercial crises common crisis of 1866 cultivation deficiency of consumers demand and supply diminish diminution Earl of Lichfield effect employed England expense fall of profits find employment Flanders HARVARD COLLEGE increase of capital increase of marriages increase of population increase of production interest tends invested labour tends labouring class lower the rate manufacture military exercises Mill says Mill's Principles monopoly number of paupers obtain over-production political economy Poor Law Board practical minimum Principles of Political productive power rate of interest rate of profit remuneration result reward of labour saving classes sent abroad shorter hours standing army supply of labour suppose surplus of wealth tained taxation tends to rise things tion trade unproductive consumption unproductive expenditure value of labour wages of superintendence waste waste land Wealth of Nations
Popular passages
Page 21 - Nor is there much satisfaction in contemplating the world with nothing left to the spontaneous activity of nature; with every rood of land brought into cultivation which is capable of growing food for human beings ; every flowery waste or natural pasture ploughed up, all quadrupeds or birds which are not domesticated for man's use exterminated as his rivals for food, every...
Page 9 - Wages, then, depend mainly upon the demand and supply of labour; or as it is often expressed, on the proportion between population and capital. By population is here meant the number only of the labouring class, or rather of those who work for hire ; and by capital, only circulating capital, and not even the whole of that, but the part which is expended in the direct purchase of labour.
Page 5 - According therefore, as this produce, or what is purchased with it, bears a greater or smaller proportion to the number of those who are to consume it, the nation will be better or worse supplied with all the necessaries and conveniences for which it has occasion.
Page 22 - All has been done for it that industry and an extreme love of gain can devise. There is not a foot of waste land in the Engadine, the lowest part of which is not much lower than the top of Snowdon. Wherever grass will grow, there it is; wherever a rock will bear a blade, verdure is seen upon it ; wherever an ear of rye will ripen, there it is to be found. Barley and oats have also their appropriate spots ; and wherever it is possible to ripen a little patch of wheat, the cultivation of it is attempted.
Page 25 - ... contended, that if consumers were to save and convert into capital more than a limited portion of their income, and were not to devote to unproductive consumption an amount of means bearing a certain ratio to the capital of the country, the extra accumulation would be merely so much waste, since there would be no market for the commodities which the capital so created would produce.
Page 19 - It corrupts even the activity of his body and renders him incapable of exerting his strength with vigour and perseverance, in any other employment than that to which he has been bred.
Page 24 - There is not an opinion more general among mankind than this, that the unproductive expenditure of the rich is necessary to the employment of the poor.
Page 19 - His dexterity at his own particular trade seems, in this manner, to be acquired at the expence of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues. But in every improved and civilized society this is the state into which the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent it.
Page 27 - ... and economize to obtain what they did not desire, suppose that a foreigner arrives, and produces an additional quantity of something of which there was already enough. Here, it will be said, is over-production ; true, I reply ; over-production of that particular article: the community wanted no more of that, but it wanted something. The old inhabitants, indeed, wanted nothing; but did not the foreigner himself want something?
Page 18 - In the progress of the division of labour, the employment of the far greater part of those who live by labour, that is, of the great body of the people, comes to be confined to a few very simple operations ; frequently to one or two.