Consumption (economics)

“ The increase of consumption proceeds from the increase of wealth. 2. The increase of price proceeds from the increase upon the value of labour, and not from the scarcity of forest, nor the height of the demand for firing. As to the first, I believe the fact will not be called in question, as it is one of the superfluities of consumption complained of, and put down to the account of luxury and extravagance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They are of this kind, that, given the number of a population, the quantity of the staple food required is nearly a fixed quantity, and this almost irrespective of price. Except among the poorest, increased cheapness will not stimulate a larger consumption; while, on the other hand, all, at any cost within the range of their means, will obtain their usual supply. ”

“ 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 modern tendency on the part of the economist to recognize consumption as an important factor in economic discussion is a product of the unconscious and unnamed movement above referred to, which is nothing less than a movement that has been slowly progressing for ages for a pain economy towards a pleasure economy. ”

“ In opposition to these palpable absurdities, it was triumphantly established by political economists, that consumption never needs encouragement. All which is produced is already consumed, either for the purpose of reproduction or of enjoyment. The person who saves his income is no less a consumer than he who spends it: he consumes it in a different way; it supplies food and clothing to be consumed, tools and materials to be used, by productive labourers. Consumption, therefore, already takes place to the greatest extent which the amount of production admits of ”

“ These disclosures may be a reflection of the greater returns to wage earners, enabling them to buy more costly food and better clothing. However, the statistics of the consumption of these commodities can hardly be regarded as evincing any great improvement in the scale of living even in the matters of food and clothing. ”

“ But if C has received the fair value for his expenditure in articles of subsistence or luxury, which he has consumed on himself, or by means of his servants or guests, these articles have ceased to exist, and nothing has been produced to replace them: while if the same sum had been employed in farming or manufacturing, the consumption which would have taken place would have been more than balanced at the end of the year by new products, created by the labour of those who would in that case have been the consumers. ”

“ Manufacturing industry increases its produce in proportion to the demand, and the price falls; but the produce of land cannot be so increased; and a high price is still necessary to prevent the consumption from exceeding the supply. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Productive consumption, according to the strict definition of the earlier economists, is consumption directly applied to the creation of some material product. But a new element was introduced into the question by Mr. Mill's definition—that labour and expenditure are also productive, "which, without having for their direct object the creation of any useful natural product, or bodily or mental faculty or quality, yet lead indirectly to promote one or other of those ends." ”

“ Wherever the consumer and the producer are brought into close connection with each other, the increase of consumption is wonderful, even where there is no reduction in the nominal price; and wherever they are separated, the diminution of consumption is equally wonderful, even where there is a reduction of the nominal price—and it is so because the facility of exchange diminishes as the distance increases. ”

“ If we look at the effects produced not on the money, which merely changes hands, but on the commodities which are used and consumed, we see that, in consequence of the income-tax, the classes who pay it do really diminish their consumption. ”

“ I speak of the law of consumption, which the majority of political economists may well be reproached with having too much neglected.
Consumption is the end, the final cause of all the phenomena of political economy, and, consequently, in it is found their final solution. ”

“ If a consumer changes from paying away a part of his income in wages, to spending it that same day (not some subsequent and distant day) in things for his own consumption, and perseveres in this altered practice until production has had time to adapt itself to the alteration of demand, there will from that time be less food and other articles for the use of labourers, produced in the country, by exactly the value of the extra luxuries now demanded; and the labourers, as a class, will be worse off by the precise amount. ”

“ In the case of food, as those who have already enough do not require more on account of its cheapness, but rather expend in other things what they save in food, the increased consumption occasioned by cheapness, carries off, as experience shows, only a small part of the extra supply caused by an abundant harvest ”

“ The general increase of living standards, compared with thirty to forty years ago, brought about a simultaneous increase of the demand and an increase of personal consumption even among the producers, the farmers, themselves. ”

“ Farther, the consumption made by any nation for the same term of years, is equal to the whole natural produce and labour of the inhabitants for that time, minus the quantity of such produce and labour, as is, or has been equal in value to the actual national specie. ”

“ The elimination of speculation and other "crazes"—that is, the maintenance of production in legitimate and healthful relation to consumption is, as I think, indisputably the only remedy; but how this is to be brought about is more than I can say. Economists, surveying the broad field over long distances of time, are contented to say that these periods are but perturbations; that production in the end does adjust itself to consumption. ”

“ Taxes on the produce, properly so called, whether fixed or ad valorem, do not affect rent, but fall on the consumer: profits, however, generally bearing either the whole or the greatest part of the portion which is levied on the consumption of the labouring classes. ”

“ For every additional sum, devoted to the purchase of a commodity, limited in quantity as food is, must cause a rise of price, since one cannot increase his own consumption without diminishing the remainder which is, to be consumed by others. Secondly, they would devote a further portion of it to the purchase of food for the benefit of their families. I do not here mean, merely infant families, but children commonly maintaining themselves, though not earning a maintenance as ample as they could wish. ”

“ We say nothing as to which is the wisest direction for consumption to take, with all it stimulating power; we do not deny that consumption may make champagne, diamonds, silks, broadcloth, fine furniture abundant, at the cost of more useful and desirable things. The thing is simply that the energy, the zeal, the exertion of men are so expansive, that great demand compels to great production; and, of course, we understand the economic principle that there can be no production without capital ”

“ An increase in the cost of production of a commodity, if it be an article of the first necessity, will not necessarily diminish its consumption; for although the general power of the purchasers to consume, is diminished by the rise of any one commodity, yet they may relinquish the consumption of some other commodity whose cost of production has not risen. In that case, the quantity supplied will be in the same proportion to the demand as before ”

“ 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. ”

“ This subject may be most intelligently examined through the statistics of production and consumption. The production statistics, which have been summarized in a previous chapter, give only a partial picture; for there are some commodities whereof we produce a surplus that we export, obtaining in exchange for them other commodities, such as sugar, rubber, silk, flax, coffee and tea that we do not raise at all, or else but inadequately. It is therefore the statistics of consumption to which we need to refer in order to form a true idea respecting our seale of living. ”

“ The demand for consumption determines the direction in which labour will be expended in production. This principle is so simple and obvious that it needs no further illustration, yet in its light all the complexities of our subject disappear, and we thus reach the same view of the real objects and rewards of labour in the intricacies of modern production that we gained by observing in the first beginnings of society the simpler forms of production and exchange. ”

“ If by making one thousand men produce as much of the commodity as two thousand formerly produced, you so reduce costs as to double the consumption of the article, you keep all the men who formerly made it in their accustomed places of employment. ”

“ A larger portion of the produce of society is changed into surplus produce, and a larger part of the surplus produce is supplied for consumption in a multiplicity of refined shapes. In other words, the production of luxuries increases. [141] The refined and varied forms of the products are also due to new relations with the markets of the world, relations that are created by Modern Industry. ”

“ Hence consumption is also standardised, proximately in mechanical terms of consumable products but finally, through the mechanism of the market, in terms of price, and like other price phenomena consumption also is competitively subject to and enforced by the like accountancy in terms of the money unit. ”

“ If, then, an addition were made to the circulating medium in the hands of unproductive consumers exclusively, a larger portion of the existing stock of commodities would be bought for unproductive consumption, and a smaller for productive, which state of things, while it lasted, would be equivalent to a diminution of capital ”

“ I maintain, as I think you have done, that consumption as compared with production is always greatest where capital is most accumulated. Diminish the capital of England one half, and you undoubtedly augment profits, but it will not be in consequence of a greater proportion of demand but of a greater proportion of production; demand as compared with production could hardly fail to diminish. Individuals do not estimate their profits by the material production, but nations invariably do. ”

“ When less is not produced, what one person forbears to consume is necessarily added to the share of those to whom he transfers his power of purchase, in the case supposed I do not necessarily consume less ultimately, since the labourers whom I pay may build a house for me, or make something else for my future consumption. But I have at all events postponed my consumption, and have turned over part of my share of the present produce of the community to the labourers. ”

“ It encourages consumption as much as expenditure of revenue unaccompanied by accumulation. It enables the things consumed to be replaced, instead of being utterly destroyed.
Whatever is consumed by those who are carrying forward the business of production has been called productive consumption. Whatever, on the other hand, is consumed by those who are not engaged in re-producing, has been called unproductive consumption. ”

“ It is also worthy of observation that the per-centage proportion of deaths from consumption under thirty and forty is higher in the class of tradesmen than in that of the artisan and labourer, although the ratio of cases of consumption is greater in the latter class. ”

“ Consumption varies according to the price and the quality, and nobody knows or can figure out what future consumption will amount to, because every time a price is lowered a new stratum of buying power is reached. ”

“ Some of these cater to highly elastic wants, and persons who use a quantity of them may be induced to use more without discarding anything else. Such an absolute enlargement of consumption is highly probable in the case of any material that enters into a vast number of products, and this, together with the enlargements that come by substitution, may suffice to create a great demand for the raw material and call for as much labor in the subgroup that makes it as was used before the improvement was made. ”