Consumer

“ The essence of this pseudoresponse to an unanswerable communication is the acceptance and consumption of commodities. The consumer’s compulsion to imitate is a truly infantile need, conditioned by all the aspects of his fundamental dispossession. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ W. abruptly ask:
“W., what is a consumer?” The unexpectedness of the interrogation found me at fault for a moment; but reflecting a little while and looking at the silk-worms, I concluded the best way to put it was: “A consumer, my dear, is—well, a consumer in this country is one who consumes.” Thinking that no exception could be taken to such a definition, I was triumphant.
“W.,” said that pertinacious person, “you don’t hang together well, if any. You said the other day that this tariff thing was for the benefit of the producer, etc.” ”

“ I expressed this important need in the following passage of my book. “The true ‘value’ of a thing is neither the price paid for it, nor the amount of present satisfaction it yields to the consumer, but the intrinsic service it is capable of yielding by its right use. ”

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

“ 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. ”

“ The consumer hears what the producer received, the producer hears what the consumer paid, and then somebody gets to thinking and talking. Discussions lead to investigations, and investigations lead to conferences. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The portion of her people who are engaged as factors,--for this is the true calling of the man who is a regular agent between the common producer and the common consumer,--are of a high class as factors, but not of the high class of merchants. ”

“ Suppose every year new millions were flocking to her shores, and every one of those new millions in a few years, as soon as they tasted the delights of a broader life, would become as great a consumer as any one of her own people. ”

“ A conglomerate of the readings mentioned above is the mug shot of the abstract consumer, behind whom are all the others who constitute their individuality through the transactions that make up the market. A used car or computer salesman, a small retailer, and a university professor identify themselves in different ways in and through the market. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All production is for the purpose of ultimately satisfying a consumer. ”

“ The balance between consumption and production makes price. The market settles, and alone can settle, that price. Market is the meeting and conference of the consumer and producer, when they mutually discover each other's wants. Nobody, I believe, has observed with any reflection what market is, without being astonished at the truth, the correctness, the celerity, the general equity, with which the balance of wants is settled. ”

“ Those who are sensitive to consumer needs and services and recognize that well-informed consumers mean business-repeat sales and sound market relationships-can expect to be rewarded with continuing opportunities to serve and profit. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I urge all business persons, educators, members of the professions, public officials, consumer leaders, and the media to observe this week by emphasizing and promoting the fundamental importance of consumer rights in our marketplace. ”

“ Whether trusts, through their control of prices of the particular commodities which they manufacture, have actually advanced the selling price to the consumer, has been and is still the subject of much discussion. ”

“ It is not, however, enough for the consumer to know the producer. The latter also must have opportunity to get acquainted with the world for which he labors. If he is to feel the usefulness of his work he must have a good general education and a broad outlook. ”

“ In order to completeness and full acceptability to the consumer it must also show the honorific element. It results that the producers of articles of consumption direct their efforts to the production of goods that shall meet this demand for the honorific element. ”

“ What we make goes direct to the consumer and pays him for his work. The middle man who buys from the manufacturer and sells to the consumer and makes a profit out of articles that are not better but frequently worse for going through his hands does not exist here. ”

“ And every family at this time is lamenting the unmerciful roguery of forestallers and engrossers, and those who increase the price upon all adulterated commodities, without any feeling for the consumer. ”

“ Every individual may organize a consumer's league, leaguing himself with the powers of righteousness. Will he read a yellow journal or a pink or a white one? A nickel or two will buy either. He has a dollar; will he go to the theater or buy ten dishes of ice-cream? He decides to buy a book, and more type and paper are made, and more printers are employed; he subscribes to foreign missions and Christian workers penetrate farther into Africa. ”

“ The undertaking is praiseworthy, and has accomplished some good. But its effects are limited by obvious causes. It is extremely difficult in many cases for the consumer to discover the conditions of production of what he wishes to buy. It is a nuisance to have to burden himself with such perplexing considerations. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Such alleged explanations were shrewdly caricatured by the cartoon showing many persons standing in a circle, each accusing his neighbor: the consumer blaming the retailer; the retailer, the wholesaler; the wholesaler, the middleman; the middleman, the manufacturer; the manufacturer, the workman; the workman, the trust; while (to complete the circle) the trust blames the extravagant consumer. ”

“ The intention is to prove that we, the consumers, are your property! that we are yours body and soul! that you have an exclusive right over our stomachs and our limbs! that it belongs to you to feed and clothe us on your own terms, whatever be your ignorance, incapacity, or rapacity! ”

“ 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. ”

“ But in the final analysis it is the knowledgeable consumer and the responsible business person whose decisions will determine the success or failure of products and services in the competitive marketplace. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Food is set on our tables ready to eat. It might as well have been created that way, for all our concern. The thousands of operations that go into an article before the consumer buys it—no, there is no reason why use and want should make us callous and indifferent to the hows and wherefores. ”

“ National Consumers Week 1987 is dedicated to reminding us that the exercise of these rights helps to maintain the vigor of our economic system-creating positive pressure for better products, services, and warranties-and that consumer education is a lifelong process. ”

“ Economic goods may, therefore have a greater or smaller utility depending upon the place, the time, and the consumer. Bear in mind, moreover, that each consumer matches the utility of one commodity with the utility of other commodities which he finds available, and his demand follows the direction 41of the greater utility. ”

“ Consumers' goods may be regarded in the two distinct ways in which it is necessary to regard capital goods. We may look at particular articles for consumption, as they begin their careers by ministering to their owners' needs, and follow them as they wear out and finally perish. This gives a conception of them which is analogous to the conception of capital goods rather than to that of capital. ”

“ As regards the mass of civilized mankind, the idiosyncrasies of the individual consumers are required to conform to the uniform gradations imposed upon consumable goods by the comprehensive mechanical processes of industry. ”

“ I urge consumers, businesses, educators, community organizations, labor unions, the media, and government officials to identify, emphasize, and promote activities during National Consumers Week that draw attention to the importance of service in consumers' purchasing decisions. ”

“ Competition is not only the basis of protection to the consumer but is the incentive to progress. ”

“ In short, every person should either be a producer or a paid agent or officer of consumers and producers, and our entire system of shopkeeping reduced to a magnificent system of immense public markets. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The purely individual action of Consumers, however, can have but little effect for good. For only comparatively few have sufficiently developed social consciences to realize the desirability of such action; and even if more had, their means of discovering which goods are justly made are so limited as seriously to hamper their activity. ”

“ Consumer, every man may in turn be both producer and consumer, 324, 325. The wishes and desires of consumers are those which are in harmony with the public interest, 325. Consumers and producers should be left free to take care of their own interests, 326. The effect of inventions and discoveries on the interests of consumers and producers represented by diagrams, 331, 332. Advantages from inventions, or from local situation, climate, etc., slip rapidly from the hands of producers, and go to enlarge the enjoyments of consumers, 333, 334. ”

“ Distributing producers, or those who convey the raw material to the manufacturer, and the manufactured article to the consumer,—comprehending the commission merchants, wholesale dealers, importers, grocers, butchers, and shopkeepers of every description; their vast machinery being the ships, railroads, highways, waggons, horses, and men by which this distribution is effected. ”

“ This science separates mankind into two chief classes, viz., those who produce the wealth and supplies of a community, and those who consume them. Consumers are divided again simply into productive and unproductive consumers, but producers [2] are of various types, the three principal being:—
1st. Agricultural and mining producers, or those "who obtain from nature the raw materials of food, clothing, and shelter. ”

“ It frequently happens that an element of the standard of living which set out with being primarily wasteful, ends with becoming, in the apprehension of the consumer, a necessary of life; ”