Comparative advantage

“ There may be no inherent advantage on one part, or disadvantage on the other, but only a present superiority of acquired skill and experience. A country which has this skill and experience yet to acquire, may in other respects be better adapted to the production than those which were earlier in the field: and besides, it is a just remark of Mr. ”

“ Since these things differ through a wide range, and since their combinations may vary through a wide range, it is possible that the results may vary through a wide scale of degrees. Moreover, the more intense the competition, the greater are the prizes of success and the heavier are the penalties of failure. ”

“ The variety itself has an invigorating effect on what, for want of a more philosophical appellation, we must term the animal spirits; so important to the efficiency of all work not mechanical, and not unimportant even to that. The comparative weight due to these considerations is different with different individuals; some are more fitted than others for persistency in one occupation, and less fit for change ”

“ By comparative value I mean its worth to men in comparison with other things of acknowledged importance, such as the creation of industries, the government of States, the manipulation of the politics of an age, the achievements in war and discovery, and the lives of admirable men. ”

“ This advantage which one class has possessed over another cannot long exist under the rapid spread of intelligence, which marks the present generation; and it behooves this people to give due consideration to any scheme which proposes to lessen this advantage. ”

“ You say that things so unlike can't be compared. But, whether consciously or intentionally or otherwise, that comparison is being made constantly in practical life, and most times to the advantage of money. ”

“ All the results which, singly, call only he anticipated with great trouble, now have to be balanced on the same scales against one another; and it so often happens that for this casuistry of advantage, owing to the difference in quality of all these possible results, both scales and weights are found wanting. ”

“ For us who deal, not with the various forms of animal life, but with the various products of human intelligence, the legitimacy of the Comparative Method rests on the well-ascertained similarity of the working of the human mind in all races of men. ”

“ The determination of the degree in which these two elements of value can be united in land, or in which either element must, or should, in particular cases, be sacrificed to the other, forms the most important branch of economical inquiry respecting preferences of things. ”

“ Then also there is the great resource of Feigned Cases, which, provided only they be cases possible to occur, open up to Reasoning a new means of proving and correcting. Besides these, which it enjoys in common with them, Economics, as we shall soon see, possesses one other great advantage over and above the rest of the Moral Sciences. ”

“ In many species of manufacture, the work is performed with more and more advantage, as every body knows, the more it can be divided; and, in many instances, what sets bounds to that division, is rather the number of hands the master can afford to maintain, than any other circumstance. ”

“ Any one who cares to take stock of that matter and is in a position to know what is going on can easily assure himself that the reasons which decide in such a case are not advisedly accepted reasons intrinsic to the needs of efficiency for the work in hand, but rather reasons of competitive expediency, of competitive advantage and of prestige; except in so far as it may all be -- as perhaps it commonly is -- mere unreflecting conformity to the current fashion. ”

“ More than that, many of the greatest discoveries, using the word "great" as applied to commercial advantage rather than to abstract progress in knowledge, have been made by those who were pursuing research for its own sake rather than for any immediate commercial advantage to be derived from it. ”

“ So the more you are able to analyze administration and work out elements that can be compared, the more you invent quantitative measures for the qualities you wish to promote, the more you can turn competition to ideal ends. ”

“ For the value of competition is determined by the value of the standards used to measure it. Instead, then, of asking ourselves whether we believe in competition, we should ask ourselves whether we believe in that for which the competitors compete. ”

“ If, amid all our difficulties, I should venture to assert that we have one great advantage, provided we could improve it as we ought, I believe most of my readers would be long in conjecturing what possible advantage could ever fall to our share. ”

“ If they could exchange to better advantage with each other they probably would discover it as soon as the interested manufacturers and political orators who can prove so eloquently that they know the other man's business better than he knows it himself. ”

“ Or we may put the same proposition in other words, and, admitting the existence of every inferior grade of advantage in a higher state of civilization which subsisted in the preceding, we shall find, first, that, taking state for state, the proportional numbers of those who enjoy the higher degrees of advantage increases with a constantly accelerated rapidity as society advances ”

“ Every improvement involves, from a quantitative point of view, more or less of capital or of labour, so that it is the “antagonizing” influences, which are nearly all qualitative, which appear to be really important. ”

“ THE COMPARISON OF VALUES IS EFFECTED WITH OUT A POINT OF COMPARISON BETWEEN THEM, AND WITHOUT A UNIT OF MEASURE,—such is the proposition which the economists of the nineteenth century, rather than accept the revolutionary idea of equality, have resolved to maintain against all comers. ”

“ It facilitates an economical selection and arrangement. In the third place, it makes choice of alternatives possible. If we can predict the outcome of acting this way or that, we can then compare the value of the two courses of action; we can pass judgment upon their relative desirability. ”

“ Both have their relative advantages and defects, but the object of one has been to bring the best to the highest development, while the other is concerned with increasing the efficiency of the average man. ”

“ Things will be compared in number thus: so that more advantages may be preferred to fewer; fewer evils to more; more lasting advantages to those which are more short-lived; those which have an extensive application to those the effect of which is narrowed: those from which still further advantages may be derived, and those which many people may imitate and reproduce. ”

“ Every few years great discoveries are made; the use of the comparative method, long ago applied superficially and partially to History, has now become, owing to its employment in other fields of work, far more valuable and remunerative ”

“ The sole ground of these, the principle underlying them everywhere, is Diversity of Advantage between different Men and between different Nations in different respects. All exchanges whatsoever depend on diversity of relative advantage in the production of commodities or services or credits as between the persons exchanging ”

“ Do the advantages more than compensate for the disadvantages, or vice versa? You perceive? Sometimes there seems to be a complete balance of forces—an equilibrium—the scale will not incline either way. ”

“ Such. is the power of arrangement merely: such is the wondrous effect of difference simply in organization or order, the constituent substances being absolutely the same. Nor is the difference confined to a passing appearance merely: but the current values of the two things among men are at similar extremes: the one being accounted of the highest price, and sometimes almost priceless,—the other of little value, comparatively worthless. ”

“ Here too, as everywhere, this competition benefits the thing, or the work, which is the object of competition. The greater and more general the competition, the more quickly improvements and inventions are made in the branch of labour, and the higher is the grade of perfection of the labourers themselves. ”

“ You are an integral factor, so to speak, of the social problem, but your value is determined by your relation to other quantifies in the complex system with which you are identified. As a segregated unit, you diminish in value. ”

“ Come, tell me that!"
"Well," said I, "I suppose there would be a difference according to circumstances in people's action about these matters."
"I should think so, indeed," said he. "At all events, experience shows that it is so. Amongst us, our differences concern matters of business, and passing events as to them, and could not divide men permanently. ”

“ The class distinctions simply result from the different degrees of success with which men have availed themselves of the chances which were presented to them. Instead of endeavoring to redistribute the acquisitions which have been made between the existing classes, our aim should be to increase, multiply, and extend the chances. ”

“ In comparing therefore the value of the same commodity, at different periods of time, the consideration of the comparative skill and intensity of labour, required for that particular commodity, needs scarcely to be attended to, as it operates equally at both pe14riods. ”

“ Are there not some which not only have not been included but cannot possibly be included under any classification? You see, you gentlemen have, to the best of my knowledge, taken your whole register of human advantages from the averages of statistical figures and politico-economical formulas. Your advantages are prosperity, wealth, freedom, peace—and so on, and so on. ”

“ Wherever you employ a force of any sort, to carry a point of real importance, reject all nice calculations of economy. Better to be a thousand per cent, over the mark, than the smallest fraction of a unit under it. ”

“ Success, under conditions of personal competition, depends upon concentration upon some single task, and this concentration stimulates the demand for rational methods, technical devices, and exceptional skill. ”

“ As a natural result of this diversity any two of these villagers may profitably exchange their respective efforts with each other, provided of course each has a desire for the product of the other, to the manifest lessening of the effort of each relatively to the satisfaction of each, and the more so as the relative superiority of each to the other in his own trade is the greater. ”

“ The second principle I shall take notice of is that of comparison, or the variation of our judgments concerning objects, according to the proportion they bear to those with which we compare them. We judge more of objects by comparison than by their intrinsic worth and value; and regard every thing as mean, when set in opposition to what is superior of the same kind. ”

“ It has been due in the main to the writing up of values. In other words the people have not bad the enjoyment of more goods per person, but merely about the same supply expressed in different unit values. ”

“ But combinations are of various sorts; there are express combinations entered into by people having the same interest for a particular purpose. Those are done by a sort of an agreement, when the interest of the individual and of the body are the same. ”

“ Many of the most obvious evils in the particular system of competition now adopted, may be summed up in the statement, that the tests according to which success is awarded, are not so contrived as to secure the success of the best competitors. ”

“ These are simple instances, but the conduct of life is throughout an attempt to organise impulses so that success is obtained for the greater number or mass of them, for the most important and the weightiest set. And here we come face to face again with the problem of value. How shall we decide which among these are more important than: others, and how shall we distinguish different organisations as yielding more or less value one than another? ”

“ And therefore the question, Why do different individuals obtain from the totality of effort different proportions of benefit?
The reply is suggested by the actions of men in primeval barter. When man first learned that, by yielding a portion of the result of his efforts for the benefit of another in return for a portion of the benefit of the result achieved by that other, increased benefit could be obtained for himself, he naturally yielded only so much of benefit as would bring him greater benefit in return, and so also with the other. ”

“ You take a thousand men and a thousand women. Give to each batch an equal amount of intelligence, instruction and experience, and whether you put them on the Productive end or the Consumptive end, there won't be five cents' worth of difference between them. ”

“ Convenience, economy and efficiency are the bases of classification, but these things are not restricted to verbal communication with others nor to inner consciousness; they concern objective action. They must take effect in the world. ”

“ When instead of efforts joined in doing the same thing different things are effected by them—when division of labor arises, with accompanying barter of products, the arrangement implies that each in return for something which he has in superfluous quantity, gets an approximate equivalent of something which he wants. ”

“ It is only by a euphemistic metaphor that we are accustomed to speak of the businessmen as producers of goods. Gains due to such efficiency are differential gains only. They are a differential as against other businessmen on the one hand, and as against the rest of the community on the other hand. ”

“ In all these, and many other cases, we learn that human wants tend towards variety; each separate want is soon satisfied, or made full (Latin, satis, enough, and facere, to make) , and then some other want begins to be felt. ”