Distribution (economics)

“ The Distribution of Wealth, as well as its Production, is effected through Trade. As in the Productive Process from the very beginning of Labor specialization up to the point of delivery to ultimate consumers, so in the process of Distribution, Trade is the continuous and the culminating agency. It determines the kind of Wealth and the quantity that each factor in Production shall receive. ”

“ Functional distribution is the attribution of value to agents or classes of producers, to land, machinery, and labor considered impersonally as groups of productive agents. Personal distribution is the actual apportioning of income to living persons. This theme now to be dealt with is the more important practically, for the abstract discussion of rent and interest is of use only as it helps to an understanding of this vital human problem. It is well to recall also the distinction between wealth income, money income, and psychic income. ”

“ Nor is distribution, considered in its impersonal or economic form, any other than the logical valuing of the shares of the factors in economic production. Impersonal distribution is coextensive with economic production. Whatever a good, logically considered, contributes to value in production, that is its share of the product. Personal distribution, it is true, brings in other great influences which have been partly considered, but which will be treated more fully in the division to follow, on the influence of the state in the distribution of income. ”

“ The momentous change in the status of the workman which accompanied the revolution of industrial processes, transformed the whole problem of labor from the question of production to that of distribution, and it is the effort to find an equitable adjustment of the problem of distribution that is taxing to the utmost the ingenuity of economists, philosophers, and statesmen. ”

“ Presumably, then, as Production of Wealth has two Basic factors—in technical terms Labor and Land, in other terms Man and Natural Resources—so Distribution of Wealth has two basic apportionments, one corresponding to the Labor or Man factor in Production, the other to the Land or Natural Resource factor—Wages for Labor, Rent for permission to use Land.
That there can be neither Wages for Labor nor Rent for Land unless Wealth has been produced, is a manifest law of nature. The nonexistent being naturally indivisible, Production of Wealth must precede Distribution of Wealth. ”

“ The study of personal distribution should include a further explanation of the various elements that unite to form the individual's income. "Distribution" in economics is the reasoned explanation of the way in which the total product of a society is divided among its members. It is a logical question and not an ethical one. The economist first asks, What is the effect of utility on value? and, next, What is the relation of these goods to the personal incomes of the members of society? ”

“ As has been suggested in an earlier paragraph, it is characteristic of hedonistic economics that the large and central element in its theoretical structure is the doctrine of distribution. Consumption being taken for granted as a quantitive matter simply,—essentially a matter of an insatiable appetite,—economics becomes a theory of acquisition; production is, theoretically, a process of acquisition, and distribution a process of distributive acquisition. The theory of production is drawn in terms of the gains to be acquired by production ”

“ Production is determined [according to the economists] by universal natural laws, while distribution depends on social chance: distribution can, therefore, have a more or less stimulating effect on production: exchange lies between the two as a formal (?) social movement, and the final act of consumption Pg 276which is considered not only as a final purpose, but also as a final aim, falls, properly, outside of the scope of economics, except in so far as it reacts on the starting point and causes the entire process to begin all over again. ”

“ To treat of production apart from the distribution which is comprised in it, is plainly an idle abstraction. Conversely, we know the character of the distribution of products the moment we are given the nature of that other distribution which forms originally a factor of production. Ricardo, who was concerned with the analysis of production as it is organized in modern society and who was the economist of production par excellence, for that very reason declares not production but distribution as the subject proper of modern economics. ”

“ Individual deliveries, in contrast with Distribution into the two basic categories, Wages and Rent, consist in the delivery of Wealth to individuals in proportion to the effective demands of each. Their demands are limitless, for when satisfied with quantity they naturally demand quality. But there is a limit to all effective demands. The limitation on the one hand is the producer’s ability to produce, and on the other the consumer’s ability to obtain in Trade. Ability to produce depends in high degree at any time upon the general productive knowledge of the time. ”

“ As has already been suggested, the efficiency of the wage earners plays a part in determining their field of employment in this competition for employment.
Secondly, the simpler statements of the action of the factor of relative plenty and scarcity, such as are represented by the marginal diagrammatic expositions familiar in economics, obscure the fact that distribution is a process in which human wills are actively engaged. The constant assertion of will is a real force in the working out of distribution. ”

“ The aim, however, in the development of this theory of distribution, has been to proceed by gradual steps, as in a series of geometrical propositions, from the simple and familiar acts and experiences of the individual's every-day life, through the more complex relations, to the most complex, practical, economic problems of the day. The hope has long been entertained by economists that a conception of the whole problem of value would be attained that would coördinate and unify the various "laws,"—those of rent, wages, interest, etc. ”

“ Into the distribution between individuals and classes there enter other and variable factors, governed by no fundamental economic law; and here, the conclusion should at once suggest itself, is the field for action designed to alter the distribution of wealth. ”

“ Economists, like Ricardo, who are accused above all of having paid exclusive attention to production, define distribution, therefore, as the exclusive subject of political economy, because they instinctively [5] regard the forms of distribution as the clearest forms in which the agents of production find expression in a given society. ”

“ Distribution primarily Functional rather than Personal.—Where men get incomes that are composed of wages, interest, and profits, economic science should, in the first instance, tell us how the rates of wages and interest and the amount of profits are determined. A study of the static laws of distribution concerns itself with the reward of labor as such, and the reward of capital as such, while a study of dynamics takes account of pure profits. ”

“ Profits under Modern Conditions," and "The Natural Rate of Wages." They are studies of the new conditions of the distribution of wealth resulting from the interference with competition caused by pools, trusts, labor unions, etc., and aim to show how much of the Ricardian theory of distribution persists in this new stage of economic evolution. ”

“ The internal actions constituting social functions, exemplify the general principle no less clearly. Supply and demand are continually being adjusted throughout all industrial processes; and this equilibration is interpretable in the same way as preceding ones. The production and distribution of a commodity, is the expression of a certain aggregate of forces causing special kinds and amounts of motion. The price of this commodity, is the measure of a certain other aggregate of forces expended by the labourer who purchases it, in other kinds and amounts of motion. ”

“ The increased effectiveness which comes by reason of the increased population attaches to all labour, and the gain on the superior qualities of land will more than compensate for the diminished production on the quality last brought in. The aggregate wealth production, as compared with the aggregate expenditure of labour, will be greater, though its distribution will be more unequal. ”

“ In the wider sense the term also includes the apportionment of the sacrifices incurred in the joint production. Distribution, as thus defined, is the element that appears in economic life in consequence of social organization. This is a secondary element, indeed; for man, nature and their relations and interactions are the primary facts, and the relations of men to each other come logically after these. ”

“ In fact, however, although economists do discuss how—if at all—the system of production and distribution of goods can be improved, they have always regarded it as their principal function to describe accurately what the rules that govern production and distribution really are, rather than what they ought to be. ”

“ These terms mutually exclude each other. The income of any individual may be made up from any one, two, or all three of these sources; but in the effort to discover the laws of distribution we must keep them separate. ”

“ The economist, it is said, analyses with great pomp and ceremony the laws governing the distribution of wealth among the agents of production, but says practically nothing about the distribution between individuals and classes, which is the only thing of any real interest to practical people. Now the economist concentrates on the agents of production for the very good reason that it is only with respect to them that any clear and certain laws as to distribution can be laid down. ”

“ If the income distribution remains the same (all incomes grow with the same rate) then also the average income, y = W grows at the same rate, and then also the net income distribution remains the same, and then the ratio of net average to subsistence remains the same too. ”

“ In production the person is embodied in things, in [consumption157] things are embodied in persons; in distribution, society assumes the part of go-between of production and consumption in the form of generally prevailing rules; in exchange this is accomplished by the accidental make-up of the individual.
Distribution determines what proportion (quantity) of the products the individual is to receive; exchange determines the products in which the individual desires to receive his share allotted to him by distribution. ”

“ It has to apportion labor among different occupations for the sake of collective production, which is a grand synthetic operation whereby each man puts something into a common total which is the income of all society. It has, further, to divide the grand total into shares for its different members—an analytical operation in which each man takes something out of the aggregate for his personal use. This is distribution in the narrower sense of that term—the apportionment among the members of a civilized society of the fruits of production. ”

“ Distribution must now be considered from a non-competitive point of view; and the storm center of discussion will be found in the treatment of rents or monopoly gains. Wages are individual products; but interest and rents must be held to be social, or at least semi-social, products. ”

“ Seeing distinctly that labor was the basis of all production (not merely in agriculture) , he shows (Books I and II) that the wealth of a country depends on the skill with which its labor is applied, and upon the proportion of productive to unproductive laborers. The gains from division of labor are explained, and money appears as a necessary instrument after society has reached such a division. He is then led to discuss prices (market price) and value; and, since from the price a distribution takes place among the factors of production, he is brought to wages, profit, and rent. ”

“ Wages, profits, interest and rent take the product.—It is common to consider distribution as made in the forms of wages for labor given without risk as to the product, profits to the one whose labor is associated with risk of loss as well as gain, interest to the one who furnishes capital in any form and waits for his compensation, and rent to the landlord, or owner of estate, whose property is used for a definite time and returned. ”

“ But to labour expended in the subdivided branches of production that require proximity to other producers and especially to labour expended in that final part of production which consists in distribution, it will yield much larger returns. ”

“ On what principle can we divide the earth into sections for economic purposes? These are some of the questions which must be answered if a theory of distribution is to have any definiteness of meaning, and they arise whenever we try to establish a static standard of any kind. ”

“ A kind of equilibrium establishes itself between the value of all the productions of the land, the consumption of the different kinds of commodities, the different sorts of works, the number of men employed at them, and the price of their wages.
Wages can be fixed and remain constantly at a definite point only in virtue of this equilibrium, and of the influence which all the parts of the society, all the branches of production and commerce, exercise upon one another. ”

“ That it can reach only through production. * * * If we look over the legislation by which the ruling portion of our communities have striven to affect the distribution of wealth, we shall find that (as if conscious of its hopelessness) they have seldom if ever tried directly to affect the distribution of wealth; but have tried to affect distribution indirectly through production. ”