Commodity production

“ Such a view of the process of exchange indeed leaves no room for a commodity surplus inside the country. Any product of a worker’s annual labour must, from this point of view, represent a certain quantity of material of which it is made, of tools which have been used in its manufacture, and of the products which served to maintain the workers during the period of production. ”

“ When wages rise, it is generally because the increase of wealth and capital have occasioned a new demand for labour, which will infallibly be attended with an increased production of commodities. To circulate these additional commodities, even at the same prices as before, more money is required, more of this foreign commodity from which money is made, and which can only be obtained by importation. Whenever a commodity is required in greater abundance than before, its relative value rises comparatively with those commodities with which its purchase is made. ”

“ Means of production play an ever growing part in the productive process and on the commodity market. Compared to the machine, the worker recedes further into the background and the demand resulting from the consumption of the workers is also put into the shade by that which results from productive consumption by the means of production. ”

“ Because this phenomenon of over-supply, and consequent inconvenience or loss to the producer or dealer, may exist in the case of any one commodity whatever, many persons, including some distinguished political economists, have thought that it may exist with regard to all commodities; that there may be a general over-production of wealth; a supply of commodities in the aggregate, surpassing the demand; and a consequent depressed condition of all classes of producers. ”

“ But the commodity produced in these ten hours will represent a greater value than that of ten hours’ labour, for it will also contain the value of the flour, of the oven which is used, of the premises, of the fuel and so on, in short the value of all the means of production necessary for baking. Under one condition alone could the value of any one commodity be strictly equal to v + s; if a man were to work in mid-air, without raw materials, without tools or workshop. ”

“ But the cost of the material forming generally a very small portion of the entire cost of the manufacture, the agricultural labour concerned in the production of manufactured goods is but a small fraction of the whole labour worked up in the commodity. All the rest of the labour tends constantly and strongly towards diminution, as the amount of production increases. Manufactures are vastly more susceptible than agriculture, of mechanical improvements, and contrivances for saving labour ”

“ There are others again, who consider a country rich or poor, according to the quantity of labour that it can purchase.27 But why should gold, or corn, or labour, be the standard measure of value, more than coals or iron?—more than cloth, soap, candles, and the other necessaries of the labourer?—why, in short, should 381any commodity, or all commodities together, be the standard, when such a standard is itself subject to fluctuations in value? Corn, as well as gold, may from difficulty or facility of production, vary 10, 20, or 30 per cent., relatively to other things ”

“ Our associated efforts are being extended continually along the lines of economy in manufacture, in the matter of standard grades and sizes, inspection and insurance. Where is the commodity that can be intelligently transported and marketed without a thorough knowledge of both production and consumption? ”

“ The internal actions constituting social functions, exemplify the general principle no less clearly. Supply and demand are continually being adjusted throughout all industrial processes; and this equilibration is interpretable in the same way as preceding ones. The production and distribution of a commodity, is the expression of a certain aggregate of forces causing special kinds and amounts of motion. The price of this commodity, is the measure of a certain other aggregate of forces expended by the labourer who purchases it, in other kinds and amounts of motion. ”

“ Malthus then proceeds to shew, that demand and high price will as effectually encourage the production of raw produce, as the demand and high price of any other commodity will encourage its production. ”

“ The loss of quality that is so evident at every level of spectacular language, from the objects it glorifies to the behavior it regulates, stems from the basic nature of a production system that shuns reality. The commodity form reduces everything to quantitative equivalence. The quantitative is what it develops, and it can develop only within the quantitative. ”

“ The interests of the consumer of any commodity whatsoever should always prevail over the interests of the producer. ”

“ The imported commodity is always paid for, directly or indirectly, with the produce of our own industry: that industry being, at the same time rendered more productive, since, with the same labour and outlay, we are enabled to possess ourselves of a greater quantity of the article. ”

“ The exchangeable value of all commodities, whether they be manufactured, or the produce of the mines, or the produce of land, is always regulated, not by the less quantity of labour that will suffice for their production under circumstances highly favourable, and exclusively enjoyed by those who have peculiar facilities of production ”

“ Capital is no longer the invisible center governing the production process; as it accumulates, it spreads to the ends of the earth in the form of tangible objects. The entire expanse of society is its portrait. ”

“ The materials of manufacture being all drawn from the land, and many of them from agriculture, which supplies in particular the entire material of clothing; the general law of production from the land, the law of diminishing return, must in the last resort be applicable to manufacturing as well as to agricultural history. As population increases, and the power of the land to yield increased produce is strained harder and harder, any additional supply of material, as well as of food, must be obtained by a more than proportionally increasing expenditure of labour. ”

“ If any one commodity could be found, which now and at all times required precisely the same quantity of labour to produce it, that commodity would be of an unvarying value, and would be eminently useful as a standard by which the variations of other things might be measured. ”

“ In speaking then of commodities, of their exchangeable value, and of the laws which regulate their relative prices, we mean always such commodities only as can be increased in quantity by the exertion of human industry, and on the production of which competition operates without restraint. ”

“ To equalize, therefore, their expectation of profit, the one commodity must rise in price, or the other must fall, or both.343 Commodities made chiefly by immediate labor must rise in value, as compared with those which are chiefly made by machinery. ”

“ As we have seen above there is a tendency in the present economic system to lower the price of commodities, since each producer tries to increase his profits, if only temporarily, by seeking to improve the processes of production. ”

“ These commodities {343} are severally and collectively liable to fall short; either from deficient harvests, from waste in war, from losses abroad, or from too great a diversion of labour or capital in some special direction. When a scarcity of some chief commodity or necessary occurs, what is the remedy? The commodity of which there is an excess (or if none is in excess, then that which can best be spared) is exported in exchange for an additional supply of the deficient commodity. ”

“ X, Y, Z, the different kinds of commodities produced in the world which are exchanged against each other in the process of reaching the consumers. This exchange of commodities for each other, it need hardly be said, does not increase the number or quantity of commodities already in existence; since their production, as we have seen, requires labor and capital in connection with natural agents. Mere exchange does not alter the quantity of commodities produced. ”

“ If the quantity of labour realized in commodities, regulate their exchangeable value, every increase of the quantity of labour must augment the value of that commodity on which it is exercised, as every diminution must lower it. ”

“ Neither can I discover exactly what connexion the constant labour necessary to produce the wages and profits on a commodity has with its value. If it be a good measure for one commodity, it must be for all commodities; and, as well as valuing wheat by the constant quantity of labour necessary to produce the particular quantity given to the workman, together with the profit of the farmer on that particular quantity, I might value cloth or any other thing by the same rule. ”

“ In making labour the foundation of the value of commodities, and the comparative quantity of labour which is necessary to their production, the rule which determines the respective quantities of goods which shall be given in exchange for each other, we must not be supposed to deny the accidental and temporary deviations of the actual or market price of commodities from this, their primary and natural price. ”

“ Whether we were dealing with the price of an ordinary commodity, with joint products, land or capital, we came across relationships which seemed altogether more fundamental than our present industrial system ”

“ If the same portion be so employed, then will the same demand exist for cloth, shoes, corn, and hats, as before, and the same portion of capital will be devoted to their production. If, in consequence of the price of foreign commodities being cheaper, a less portion of the annual produce of the land and labour of England is employed in the purchase of foreign commodities, more will remain for the purchase of other things. ”

“ If we suppose the occupations of the society extended, that some provide canoes and tackle necessary for fishing, others the seed and rude machinery first used in agriculture, still the same principle would hold true, that the exchangeable value of the commodities produced would be in proportion to the labour bestowed on their production ”

“ VII. Every commodity of which the supply can be indefinitely increased by labour and capital, exchanges for other things proportionally to the cost necessary for producing and bringing to market the most costly portion of the supply required. ”

“ Springing out of a manifestation of natural law which is rightly distinguished in Economics as “division of labor,” and thus inspiring and facilitating specialization in the Production of Wealth, Trade is a natural phenomenon. Within manifest limits and without extra exertion two producers can produce more than twice as much as one, four more than twice as much as two, and so on, subject only to the limitations of Natural Resources. By exchanging products they therefore naturally multiply their productive powers. ”

“ In every country there must come a time, the utility of commodities being taken into account, when a unit of labour and capital provides less utility when applied to the creation of cotton goods, say, than when applied to producing something else for home consumption or for export in exchange for commodities wanted at home. ”

“ If corn had been cheap and wages low, my profits would have been high; as it is, they are low. I want to know in these two cases whether the commodity does really exchange for the two specific quantities of labour mentioned above. You answer my question by saying that you always make a reserve of the first quantity, and all above it you call profits. But I contend that labour of one value has been expended on the commodity, and, when it comes to market, it is exchanged for labour of another value, and that is the sole reason why the balance, over and above the labour expended on it, is small. ”

“ The natural price of all commodities excepting raw produce and labour has a tendency to fall, in the progress of wealth and population; for though, on one hand, they are enhanced in real value, from the rise in the natural price of the raw material of which they are made, this is more than counterbalanced92 by the improvements in machinery, by the better division and distribution of labour, and by the increasing skill, both in science and art, of the producers. ”

“ The area over which it could be performed was greatly enlarged, the cost of materials was reduced through cheaper transportation, new devices and processes were developed as a result of the competition, cheaper raw material was obtained from countries where plentiful supplies and cheap labor give low prices, and the opportunity of locating the factory near the place of production or at some convenient meeting point between the various places of production—all these contributed to reduction of cost and increase of supplies of material of manufacture. ”

“ It is clear that every political economist must construct his exposition of productiveness on his prior notions of goods and value. We must, therefore, draw a distinction between expositions which are logical but altogether too narrow, and wholly erroneous ones.311
[pg 169] Thus, the Mercantile System admits every mode of applying the three factors of production, but considers them really productive only in so far as they increase the quantity of the precious metals possessed by the nation, either through the agency of mining at home, or by means of foreign trade. ”