Overproduction

“ Both manufacturing and employment are in-and-out affairs. Instead of a steady progression we go ahead by fits and starts—now going too fast, now stopping altogether. When a great many people want to buy, there is said to be a shortage of goods. When nobody wants to buy, there is said to be an overproduction of goods. I know that we have always had a shortage of goods, but I do not believe we have ever had an overproduction. We may have, at a particular time, too much of the wrong kind of goods. That is not overproduction—that is merely headless production. ”

“ We have heard a great deal in times past, and more particularly of late, of ‘overproduction,’ and it is supposed to account for many of our business troubles. Now overproduction is a strictly relative condition, and its remedy is either to produce less or to dispose of more. ”

“ You get this, you "blanket-stiff", you "husky", or "wop", or whatever you are—you disinherited of the earth, you proletarians who have only your labor-power to sell, you weak and sickly ones who are condemned to elimination? There has come, let us say, a period of "overproduction"; you have raised too much food, and therefore you are starving, you have woven too much cloth, and therefore you are naked, you have finished the world for your masters, and it is time for you to move out of the way. ”

“ The great modern crises which convulse the world's markets arise from overproduction, which, in its turn, arises from the planlessness that inevitably characterizes our system of commodity production. ”

“ You compel a man to work and produce $2,764 worth of goods and you give him $457 to buy them with, and you ask: "Why is it that we have overproduction, and why is it that our warehouses are full of goods, and our workshops have to shut up, and our workmen are turned out on the highway because there is nothing to do?" ”

“ But since the capitalistic method of production little by little spreads itself over the whole earth, it becomes increasingly difficult to find countries where capitalism has not been implanted. Hence overproduction tends to become chronic. ”

“ Was there over-production in all? Has each person in these United States got all the clothing and articles of comfort and luxury he can possibly desire? How can overproduction be chargeable with this state of affairs, when, by a little thought upon the matter, we might see that the evidence points to the fact that every increase of goods brings a corresponding increased demand for such goods?
If there is one thing more than another working-men long for, it is high wages. To keep up their pay they unite in trades'-unions and analogous combinations. The employer wages war against this effort. ”

“ The advocates of the gold standard persistently claim that the real cause of our distress is overproduction—that we have produced so much that it made us poor—which implies that the true remedy is to close the factory, abandon the farm, and throw a multitude of people out of employment—a doctrine that leaves us unnerved and disheartened, and absolutely without hope for the future. ”

“ Overproduction, in the sense of more being produced than is actually needed, may occur under any system. But it could, as a matter of course, cause no injury so long as the producers produce for the satisfaction of their own wants. If, for instance, in the generation gone by, a farmer's crop of grain happened to be larger than he needed, he stored up the grain against poorer years, and when his barn was full, he would feed his cattle with the residue, or, at worst, let it lie and spoil. ”

“ In times of depression, or "hard times," there is, under the modern industrial system at least, no overproduction in the sense of a production so large as to overtax the working capacity of the industrial appliances and processes employed, nor so large, even, as to overtax the normal powers of the force of workmen or require them to work overtime and holidays. ”

“ But if, in consequence of this resettlement, the manufacture of useless and injurious articles, which now are produced with great rapidity in the great manufacturing plants, shall be diminished, and the now usual overproduction Of necessary articles shall come to an end, while the amount Of corn, vegetables, fruit, domestic animals, shall be increased, this will in no way diminish the wealth of people, but will only increase it. ”

“ If you cannot consume what you produce, it follows that in time there is bound to be overproduction, because the few capitalists cannot absorb the surplus. The market is glutted, business comes to a standstill and mills and factories shut down. ”

“ A heavy overproduction would easily have been prevented, while competition both among the factories and the individual members would have been maintained, thus securing the best kind of work, while under the present system of production we are suffering from a want both of quantity and quality”. ”

“ They are, for it sometimes happens that overproduction shuts up the shops and manufactories. But these men have been taught to work with their hands, and their bodies have been fitted for such service. When they can’t get work at their trades, they do something else. ”

“ We affirm it to be unquestioned that there can be no such economic paradox as overproduction, and at the same time tens of thousands of our fellow-citizens remaining half clothed and half fed, and piteously clamoring for the common necessities of life. ”

“ It is not worth their while, and it might even work them pecuniary harm. Commonly their apprehension of the discrepancy which forbids an aggressive pursuit of industrial business is expressed by the phrase "overproduction." An alternative phrase, intended to cover the same concept, but less frequently employed, is "underconsumption." ”

“ One school says that the speculation produced the depression by causing overproduction, and point to the warehouses filled with goods that cannot be sold at remunerative prices, to mills closed or working on half time, to mines shut down and steamers laid up, to money lying idly in bank vaults, and workmen compelled to idleness and privation. ”

“ When the supply exceeds the demand, the value of this overproduction must greatly diminish; and every attempt will be made to produce, at any loss, an increased consumption. How many pairs of these gloves would you like to have, sir? ”

“ Here we find an interesting and progressive series of attempts to grapple with the difficulties of the problem. For a long time economists and business men advanced the theory of overproduction, forgetful of the fact that there really cannot be any such phenomenon as too much actual production of wealth. ”

“ This simple statement does explain much of the phenomenon, but it is far from telling the whole story, and even if it were a complete explanation, it would by no means dispose of the reality of overproduction as a constant menace, even when not a dire reality, facing almost every business man. ”

“ If he does not succeed in selling his commodities he is left without money to buy the commodities that are necessary to him. Overproduction can thus have very harmful results for those who hold commodities. ”

“ Overproduction of any article quickly lowers the value of it throughout the area, and a mass of unemployed laborers affects wages throughout the area more speedily than it does in the great environing zone. ”

“ They were in the plight of a man building a house with dynamite for mortar, for credit can be compared with nothing else.
"If you would see how needless were these convulsions of business which I have been speaking of, and how entirely they resulted from leaving industry to private and unorganized management, just consider the working of our system. Overproduction in special lines, which was the great hobgoblin of your day, is impossible now, for by the connection between distribution and production supply is geared to demand like an engine to the governor which regulates its speed. ”

“ Reduction of manual labor is synonymous with lowering of price, and, consequently, with increase of exchange, since, if the consumer pays less, he will buy more.
But reduction of manual labor is synonymous also with restriction of market, since, if the producer earns less, he will buy less. And this is the course that things actually take. The concentration of forces in the workshop and the intervention of capital in production, under the name of machinery, engender at the same time overproduction and destitution ”

“ That there are more goods in the American market than is at present demanded, under existing conditions, is a certainty. But if over-production has glutted one market, why not seek another? Why stop mills and factories? Why turn laboring-men into the street? Is there no channel of least resistance for business to travel in? An over-production of goods is an over-production of wealth. Has the nation more wealth and comfort than it can manage or knows what to do with? ”

“ In many places people are dismissing their workmen; in others they've taken fright, closed the factories, and are just letting the machine go ahead inside. It's insane over-production. Factories that haven't got the Absolute are stopping production altogether. ”

“ Take, for instance, over-production, a word which every day re-echoes in our ears. Is there a single economist, academician, or candidate for academical honours, who has not supported arguments, proving that economic crises are due to over-production—that at a given moment more cotton, more cloth, more watches are produced than are needed! Have we not, all of us, thundered against the rapacity of the capitalists who are obstinately bent on producing more than can possibly be consumed! ”

“ I am accused of attributing the business depression to over-production, whereas I distinctly said speculative over-production—over-production brought about by centralization of wealth and vast appliances of machinery, which under artificial stimulus produces an excess at one period, and then at another, stopping all production, turns hosts of workmen into the streets idle and empty-handed, followed consequently by a great reduction of consumption. ”

“ If by some mad access of misdirected industry we produced enough and too much of everything, our whole machinery of buying and selling would break down. This indeed does happen constantly on a small scale in the familiar phenomenon of over-production. But in the organization in which we live over-production tends to check itself at once. If the world's machinery threatens to produce a too great plenty of any particular thing, then it turns itself towards producing something else of which there is not yet enough. ”

“ The fact that warehouses and granaries are full leads to the assumption that over-production has destroyed the market and the demand for labor. This is quite probably true of all articles of such a nature as to be held for speculative purposes. The staple grains and fancy live stock are illustrations of these. An universal over-production, so long as the articles produced are adapted to current wants, is impossible, since every man's product, if needed, is his means of securing another man's product to meet his own wants. ”

“ On the other hand, unlimited extension of production, also compulsory under competition, for every manufacturer. On both sides, unheard of development of productive forces, excess of supply over demand, over-production, glutting of the markets, crises every ten years, the vicious circle: excess here, of means of production and products—excess there, of laborers, without employment and without means of existence. ”

“ Almost any practical man of business, upon being asked what the trouble is, would attribute it to over-production. To this the economist promptly exclaims that there can be no such thing. "What," he would say, "over-production! too much wealth! an excess of prosperity! ”

“ This check to production, beginning at the basis of interlaced industry, propagates itself from exchange point to exchange point, cessation of supply becoming failure of demand, until, so to speak, the whole machine is thrown out of gear, and the spectacle is everywhere presented of labor going to waste while laborers suffer from want.
This strange and unnatural spectacle of large numbers of willing men who cannot find employment is enough to suggest the true cause to whomsoever can think consecutively. ”

“ Nothing could foreshadow the ruin of a system founded on what is strongest in human nature, pride and cupidity. However, keen observers discovered several grounds for uneasiness. The most certain, although the least apparent, were of an economic order, and consisted in the continually increasing amount of over-production, which entailed long and cruel interruptions of labour, though these were, it is true, utilized by the manufacturers as a means of breaking the power of the workmen, by facing them with the prospect of a lock-out. ”

“ In the face of labor-saving machinery, of organized production, of the increased efficiency of combination, you would set the economic sun back a whole generation or so to the time when there were no great capitalists, no great machinery, no railroads—a time when a host of little capitalists warred with each other in economic anarchy, and when production was primitive, wasteful, unorganized, and costly. ”

“ To this condition of industry the antithetical terms, over-production and under-production, may be both correctly applied, according as one regards production as a state or as a process. The state of trade in a depression is one of over-production—the industrial body is congested with goods which are not drawn out for consumption fast enough. This plethora debilitates the industrial body, its functional activities are weakened. The slackness of trade thus induced is rightly described as under-production. ”