Consumption

“ But it is not only the object that production provides for consumption. It gives consumption its definite outline, its character, its finish. Just as consumption gives the product its finishing touch as a product, production puts the finishing touch on consumption. ”

“ Let us then consider consumption proper.
Consumption is directly also production, just as in nature the consumption of the elements and of chemical matter constitutes production of plants. It is clear, that in nutrition, e. g., which is but one form of consumption, man produces his own body; but it is equally true of every kind of consumption, which goes to produce the human being in one way or another. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Yet if it is important to know how the wealth of the country is produced, it is of equal importance to know how it is consumed, and that whether the consumption takes the form of porridge and flannelette for the child of a dock-labourer, of drink and admission to a football match for the miner or cotton-operative, or of a gardener, and a holiday in Switzerland for the hard-working doctor or stockbroker. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The general fact, however, that goods for final use are, as a rule, injured or destroyed either by the act of consumption or by the exposures that are incidental to it, justifies the use of this term to express the receiving of a service from the usable article. It is a process in which the commodity acts on men's sensibilities and, as a general rule, exhausts itself while so doing. It is worth remembering that this exhaustion of the good is not the essential part of 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Human nutrition is a long process. There’s many a ship ’twixt the cup and the lip, to paraphrase an old proverb. Food is produced by the human race collectively,—not by individuals for their own consumption, but by interrelated groups of individuals, all over the world, for the world’s consumption. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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." ”

“ What they consume in keeping up or improving their health, strength, and capacities [pg 062] of work, or in rearing other productive laborers to succeed them, is Productive Consumption. But consumption on pleasures or luxuries, whether by the idle or by the industrious, since production is neither its object nor is in any way advanced by it, must be reckoned Unproductive: with a reservation, perhaps, of a certain quantum of enjoyment which may be classed among necessaries, since anything short of it would not be consistent with the greatest efficiency of labor. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Present and future economic goods. The Consumption of Wealth.—All economic goods are produced for the purpose of being used. This use is what the economist calls consumption. Some economic goods are in finished form, ready for immediate consumption at any time; others are in the form of raw materials or half-finished products not yet ready to be used. Hence we distinguish between present and future economic goods. ”

“ But if we keep to the plane of final consumption, there appears a second sort of situation. Our interest in the commodity before us may be due to a suggestion of some sort that prompts us to take a step beyond the limits that our present formed desires mark out. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The facts afford you another illustration of the great law of supply and demand,—that as you cheapen and multiply products or manufactures of any kind, so will the consumption of them increase. If pound-cake could be had at the price of corn-bread, does it not strike you that the community would consume little else? ”

“ The duties upon the cheaper luxuries of home produce, destined for home consumption, fall pretty equally upon people of all ranks, in proportion to their respective expense. The poor pay the duties upon malt, hops, beer, and ale, upon their own consumption; the rich, upon both their own consumption and that of their servants. ”

“ They, in time of plenty, reserve and store away food. But this is food necessary for their body consumption, not gold, silver, copper, or paper money for which they have no use. They cannot eat or cover themselves with it. ”

“ How much do I consume in those provisions which I make for a wider culture through books, pictures, music and the like?" What is your average intake of this world's good things? That measure of consumption will indicate the measure of your responsibility. If you are born to the purple and fare sumptuously in all these ways then the world has a right to demand that you shall render back in corresponding measure that useful service which is your plain duty. ”

“ Under the requirement of conspicuous consumption of goods, the apparatus of living has grown so elaborate and cumbrous, in the way of dwellings, furniture, bric-a-brac, wardrobe and meals, that the consumers of these things cannot make way with them in the required manner without help. ”

“ The Canon of Conspicuous Consumption is a term which describes a method of showing off one’s wealth by an elaborate consumption of goods.XXIII-65 Conspicuous consumption is seen more in matters of dress than in any other line of consumption. ”

“ On the other hand, the demand for means of consumption changes the more readily the more these take on the character of unnecessary luxuries, whose possession or use is agreeable but not indispensable. ”

“ Leisure held the first place at the start, and came to hold a rank very much above wasteful consumption of goods, both as a direct exponent of wealth and as an element in the standard of decency, during the quasi-peaceable culture. From that point onward, consumption has gained ground, until, at present, it unquestionably holds the primacy, though it is still far from absorbing the entire margin of production above the subsistence minimum. ”

“ But the human proclivity to emulation has seized upon the consumption of goods as a means to an invidious comparison, and has thereby invested consumable goods with a secondary utility as evidence of relative ability to pay. This indirect or secondary use of consumable goods lends an honorific character to consumption and presently also to the goods which best serve the emulative end of consumption. ”

“ Consumption. Once our fathers were wild and lived in the open air: they scarcely ever died, as we do, of consumption. Crowded cities, bad drainage, overwork, want of healthful exercise, stimulating food, dissipation,—these are human cage-life. If a man is threatened with consumption, let him go back to the plains and forests before it is too late. ”

“ It is love which causes, in the great majority of men, the principal physiological and psychical expenditure of the forces accumulated in larger or smaller quantities by the consumption of daily bread, and which the daily labor has not absorbed or which parasitic inaction has left intact. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The quasi-peaceable gentleman of leisure, then, not only consumes of the staff of life beyond the minimum required for subsistence and physical efficiency, but his consumption also undergoes a specialisation as regards the quality of the goods consumed. He consumes freely and of the best, in food, drink, narcotics, shelter, services, ornaments, apparel, weapons and accoutrements, amusements, amulets, and idols or divinities. ”

“ By and large, of course, goods are not wanted except for prospective use—beyond the measure of that urgent current consumption that plays no part in the theoretical refinements for which the dictum is invoked. ”

“ We have won the battle for production! Returns now completed of the output of all classes of consumption goods show that the standard of living has risen by no less than 20 per cent over thepast year. ”

“ Still, this is not the sort of thing required: for, of food, unless in expectation of a scarcity, no one wishes to possess more at once, than is wanted for immediate consumption; so that a person is never sure of finding an immediate purchaser for articles of food ”

“ 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 ”

“ For leaving out of the question the slovenly and beastly habits engendered amongst the labouring classes by constantly lifting their principal food at once out of the earth to their mouths, by eating without the necessity of any implements other than the hands and the teeth, and by dispensing with everything requiring skill in the preparation of the food, and requiring cleanliness in its consumption or preservation ”

“ Improvements in agriculture or machinery by increasing productiveness permanently increase profits (XX, cf. V and XXIII) .
To these may be added—
5. Consumption and accumulation equally promote demand, and are both of them ineradicable tendencies of our nature, the one adding to our enjoyments, the other to our power (XIX) .
6. Accumulation increases not only production, but consumption (XXI) .
7. It is worth while to establish the truth of a principle, even if we cannot establish its utility (XXI) .
In Letters XXIII to LXVIII, and in LXXVIII to LXXX, the positions are as follows:—
1. ”

“ 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. ”