Consumer goods

“ The transition from household to business expenditure involves an extended use of the word utility, which is worth noting. Commodities like bread, sugar, or privately owned motor-cars are sometimes called "consumers' goods" in contrast to "producers' goods," which comprise things such as raw materials, machinery, the services of typists and so forth, which are bought by business men for business purposes. ”

“ They consist also of what may be called the policy of the whole business—the quick comprehension of the fluctuating wants of the consumer, the extent to which these may be led, the extent to which they must be followed, the constant power of adjusting the supply of a commodity to the demand. ”

“ People sometimes speak as though the commodities which constitute our capital, instead of being mainly, as our plain sense tells us that they are, factories, machinery and other durable instruments, were rather a store or stock of immediately consumable goods. The argument takes the following form. It is consumers' goods, things like food and clothes, which the farmer, the builder and their workpeople consume while they are working. ”

“ The fact that the owner of the commodities, under the designation of producer, sells them over their value, and under the designation of consumer, pays too much for them, does not carry us a single step further. ”

“ A, B, and C represent different raw materials, and they are changed by a series of transmutations into A ́ ́ ́, B ́ ́ ́, and C ́ ́ ́, which stand for all the consumers' goods that the society uses. They represent food, clothing, furnishings, vehicles, and countless means of comfort and pleasure. ”

“ In regard to manufactures, as opposed to raw products, it is to be remarked “that, as the course of price in the field of raw products is, on the whole, upward, so in that of manufactured goods the course is, not less strikingly, in the opposite direction. ”

“ The raw stuff that goes into food, clothing, furnishings, or the like will become consumers' goods, while the raw material of tools will, in its final form, the tools themselves, have one more lease of life as capital goods. ”

“ If you wish the consumer to be guaranteed, both as to value and as to healthfulness, you are forced to know and to determine all that constitutes good and honest production, to be continually at the heels of the manufacturer, and to guide him at every step. ”

“ Every article in this list, which might be lengthened, can now be made or prepared for use out of the house of the consumer, not only better but more cheaply by the concentration of capital and labor in large industrial enterprises. ”

“ When a shirt-maker turns out a product and exchanges it for a pair of shoes made by a shoemaker there are no overhead costs. Each producer adds to his wardrobe an item that makes his life more satisfactory.
Examples of simple barter are seldom found in market economies. Civilized society assembles quantities and varieties of goods and services in the market place, invites consumers to choose among the wares and provides money to make transactions quick and easy. ”

“ In measure as the division of labor is developed, production for personal use diminishes, and the production of commodities increases, until it finally becomes the universal form of production, and one commodity (money) is developed as a universal equivalent. As a [249] consequence of the development of the production of merchandise, the purchase and sale of goods becomes a special profession. The merchant buys for a different reason from that which influences his customers. While the latter buy for consumption, the former buys to sell again and make a profit out of the transaction. ”

“ Nor is it enough to say, that people must and will have goods, and that the consumption is the same; it is evident that consumption is not the same; and in those nations where they give no credit, or not so much as here, the trade is small in proportion, as I shall show in its place. ”

“ The ideal is that where a society exists the main raw materials of the industry shall be bought wholesale instead of retail, and the main products of the industry sold retail instead of wholesale; that thereby middlemen’s and other profits shall be reduced to a reasonable figure, and that the consumer shall get the most efficient possible service with regard to his supplies. ”

“ Seeing that production is limited by consumption, what rule must be followed in distributing the results of production to be consumed in order to develop consumption to the highest possible point, and thereby in turn to create the greatest possible demand for production. ”

“ With general growth of population and wealth the increased consumption of cloth calls, in the end, for more capital in the form of the looms themselves.
General Consumption as affected by a Specific Increase of Productive Power.—Consumption in the generic—the use of consumers' goods of every kind—grows as the power to make the good increases; but a point that is of great importance is that any specific increase of productive power brings about a general increase of consumption. It brings about a greater all-round creating and using of commodity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. ”

“ The standardization that effects large economies for the consumer results in profits of such gross magnitude to the producer that he can scarcely know what to do with his money. But his effort must be sincere, painstaking, and fearless. ”

“ Consumers need to understand the market economy, both here and abroad, and their options for earning, spending, saving, and investing income. Increased consumer and economic education in schools, workshops, the media, and the distribution of informative materials from government and business give consumers a greater appreciation of their rights and responsibilities in our incomparable American economy. ”

“ But since, on the contrary, they continue to be produced as long as there are consumers for them, and are produced in increased quantity to meet an increased demand; the choice made by a consumer to expend five thousand a year in luxuries, keeps a corresponding number of labourers employed from year to year in producing things which can be of no use to production ”

“ If they employ it in purchasing foreign goods for home consumption, they may either, first, purchase such goods as are likely to be consumed by idle people, who produce nothing, such as foreign wines, foreign silks, etc.; or, secondly, they may purchase an additional stock of materials, tools, and provisions, in order to maintain and employ an additional number of industrious people, who reproduce, with a profit, the value of their annual consumption. ”

“ The consumer must also be indirectly benefited as well as the producer, from the fact that such a policy would prevent a glut in the market of such perishable articles and the consequent discouragement on the part of the producer, sometimes ending in a resolution to grow no more fruit for market, owing to the loss entailed. ”

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

“ The product and manufacture might be much increased, if we had money to imploy the people: but, I’m of opinion we have not any great quantity of goods, more than what is consumed or exported. allow selling cheaper would occasion a greater demand; that the greater demand, would occasion an increase in the product, and manufacture, to the value of a 100000 lib. ”

“ The great end of legislation in matters of national wealth, according to the prevalent opinion, was to create consumers. A great and rapid consumption was what the producers, of all classes and denominations, wanted, to enrich themselves and the country. This object, under the varying names of an extensive demand, a brisk circulation, a great expenditure of money, and sometimes totidem verbis a large consumption, was conceived to be the great condition of prosperity. ”

“ The saving of present goods for future use is encouraged by the motive of gaining the interest. Many consumption goods grow into higher uses in the hands of the owner, whether he uses them for himself or not. ”

“ There is not enough encouragement in the present situation to lull to inactivity any one who is interested in the improvement of the producer’s conditions, but just enough to prevent complete discouragement and to suggest promising fields for future work in the interest of those who make what others use.
MORE CONSCIENCE FOR THE CONSUMER THE consumer is he who uses wealth. Each of us, therefore, is a consumer. The wealth which we use is of two classes. The first includes natural products; the second, those commodities which have been made from natural products through human agency. ”

“ Let us now see what kind of provision we have laid in for future manufactures—what amount of raw material we have on hand, which, when converted into goods, shall enable us to liquidate this heavy balance, and provide for the future payment of a constantly increasing supply of articles of daily consumpt. We were to be fed by the foreigner, and to work for him, he finding us both the food and materials. ”

“ The amounts of money which different people are prepared to pay for different consumers' goods are no reliable indication of the real utilities, the amounts of human satisfaction which they yield. Here we must take account not only of varying needs and capacities for enjoyment, but of the very unequal manner in which purchasing power is distributed among the people. ”

“ It is too narrow an understanding of production which confines it merely to the making of things. Production includes not merely the making of things, but the bringing of them to the consumer. The merchant or storekeeper is thus as truly a producer as is the manufacturer, or farmer, and his stock or capital is as much devoted to production as is theirs. ”

“ Why Consumers may suffer while Particular Producers may be Favored.—It will be seen that this principle affords an inducement for making a special classification of certain goods and carrying them for less than merchandise of a generally similar kind is carried for. ”

“ In short, all these vices, besides many others which I omit, are multiplied by the extreme complication of mercantile affairs; for products do not pass once only through the greedy clutches of commerce; there are some which pass and repass twenty or thirty times before reaching the consumer. ”

“ Consumers should have access to a wide assortment of competitively priced goods and services produced here and abroad; accurate information on product content and care, on contractual agreements, on the cost of credit-essentially whatever facts are needed to make an informed choice. ”

“ When we consider that the individual's value to the rest of society is measured by the excess of his production over consumption, while his position in industry is determined by his rate of accumulation, which is merely his acquisition minus his consumption, we shall see how important it is that acquisition and production should be identified. ”

“ It is thus that agriculture and manufactures are essentially allied in their interests; that unrestrained commerce is equally essential to the real and permanent interests of agriculture and manufactures; that capital and labour are equally united in their interests, whether applied to agriculture, manufactures, or commerce; that the producer and the consumer are equally united in their most essential interest, which is, that there should be cheap production. ”

“ Hermann, St. Untersuchungen, 20 ff., distinguishes three politico-economical points of view; that of the producer, that of the consumer, and that of the whole nation's economy. The producer calls his labor productive, in case he receives back his outlay of capital with the rate of profit usual in the trade of the country. To this point of view, therefore, every service which is paid for, according to wish, seems productive. On the other hand, the consumer ascribes productiveness to all those kinds of labor the achievements of which he may use, and which he can obtain at a convenient price. ”

“ It is true, therefore, of every particular producer or dealer, that a great demand, a brisk circulation, a rapid consumption, of the commodities which he sells at his shop or produces in his manufactory, is important to him. The dealer whose shop is crowded with customers, who can dispose of a product almost the very moment it is completed, makes large profits, while his next neighbour, with an equal capital but fewer customers, gains comparatively little. ”

“ Those manufactures, therefore, that are produced upon a large scale are the sort of manufactures in which we may expect the greatest reduction in cost; in which, therefore, the fall in price, with the progress of society, will be most marked. But the manufactures which are produced upon the largest scale are those for which there exists the largest demand—that is to say, are those which enter most extensively into the consumption of the great mass of people. They are [pg 484] also, I may add, those in which a fall in price is apt to stimulate a great increase of demand. ”

“ Ultimately, from the demand of the final consumer comes all the demand that is directed toward the agencies of production, even though the laborer sees his immediate market in the person of the employer, and the capitalist or landlord sees his immediate market in the person of the active business man. ”

“ If there be no free competition between industries, then the value of those commodities which has been said, in the above classification, to depend on cost of production, will be governed by the law of Reciprocal Demand. ”