Producer

“ One producer might get much and another little, but every one would get something. The secret of getting most evidently lay in producing the thing most required.
I remembered, too, that Mildred Averill had defined the producer as he seemed to her: I suppose I mean all who contribute, either directly or indirectly, either mentally or physically, to the sum total of our needs in living. ”

“ We may, therefore, consider the capital of a producer as measured by the means which he has of possessing himself of the different essentials of production: namely, labour, and the various articles which labour requires as materials, or of which it avails itself as aids. ”

“ Every man is a consumer, and ought to be a producer. ”

“ 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 real producer of all the necessities and luxuries of life was actually giving nine-tenths of the fruits of his labor to a class of loafers and schemers who took it as a divine right, and then begrudged him the one-tenth he received of his own production. I observed that for every one of these producers there were ten non-producers who spent their time and efforts devising the best ways and means to confiscate that which had been produced. ”

“ I acknowledge there may not be adequate motives for production, and therefore things will not be produced; but I cannot allow first that with these inadequate motives commodities will be produced, and secondly that, if their production is attended with loss to the producer, it is for any other reason than because too great a proportion is given to the labourers employed. ”

“ When the big modern plant and distributing agents as convenient intermediaries first came in and put the producer physically out of touch with the consumer, a lessening of care and responsibility upon the part of the producer was almost inevitable. ”

“ Scarcely a single article of consumption comes from the hand of a single producer, but all run through a number of productive processes so that those who finally fit it for our use are only the last in a long row of producers. The production of articles for consumption and for the means of production have a wholly different character. The production for further production belongs to the domain of gigantic industries such as the iron industry, mining, etc. ”

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

“ But again, you may say that the producer and consumer are identical. If the manufacturer gain by protection, he will make the agriculturist also a gainer; and if agriculture prosper, it will open a vent to manufactures. ”

“ These restrictions also frequently interfere with the processes of manufacture, requiring the producer to carry on his operations in the way most convenient to the revenue, though not the cheapest, or most efficient for purposes of production. ”

“ The producer must be a man of many parts. He must have a keen instinct for dramatic situation, possess wide histrionic ability and experience, have a sharp eye for minute detail, be supplied with unlimited energy, and capacity to extract the utmost from his company. ”

“ Accordingly, since each of the power units employed in the work was simultaneously both producer and consumer, a certain natural limit was placed on the accumulation of productive forces in any one locality. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From this standpoint, both acquisition (κτητική) and production (ποιητική) are subordinate arts. [575] So far is Aristotle 89from giving no place to production, that a later chapter of the Politics is devoted to the consideration of the scheme of supply, including production. [576] To be sure, he does not lay much emphasis on genuine production in his enumeration. Industry is barely mentioned, while agriculture is discussed in detail. His “free-holder” is a consumer of the gifts of nature, rather than a real producer. ”

“ But he will have a market. What causes him to need one? This. That he may be able to get that which he does not produce or make himself. And is there not some one else producing or making those very things, and who needs what the farmer alone produces or makes? If yes, then we have found the whole secret of what we call business - two producers or makers of different articles making an exchange one with the other. ”

“ The growth of commerce converted them into producers. The love of roving, the restless energy, the dislike of restraint, the thirst for independence, and a sort of morbid passion for the wild solitudes of nature, were alike gratified in their selection of employment. ”

“ In every society in which production has developed naturally, to which class that of to-day belongs, the producers do not master the means of production but the means of production dominate the producers. ”

“ In many cases the producers and dealers are the same persons, at least as to the ownership of the funds and the control of the operations. The tailor, the shoemaker, the baker, and many other tradesmen, are the producers of the articles they deal in, so far as regards the last stage in the production. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The belief is almost universal among manufacturers that for economy the number of brain workers, or non-producers, as they are called, should be as small as possible in proportion to the number of producers, i.e., those who actually work with their hands. ”

“ The same is true of the manufacturer, whose complicated, and it may be extensive, business relations with the producers and dealers who supply him with raw material, with the workmen who convert such material into finished wares, with the merchants or agents who market the products of his factory, all require his oversight and direction. ”

“ As it now stands, authors who annually produce the raw material for manufacturing purposes to an amount in value of millions, supporting vast populations of people, authors whose mental produce rivals and exceeds in commercial value many of the great staple products of our fields, are the only producers who have no distinct property in their products, who are not protected in holding on to the feeble tenure the law gives them, and whose quasi-property in their works, flimsy as it is, is limited to a few years, and cannot with certainty be handed down to their children. ”

“ What a country wants to make it richer, is never consumption, but production. Where there is the latter, we may be sure that there is no want of the former. To produce, implies that the producer desires to consume; why else should he give himself useless labour? He may not wish to consume what he himself produces, but his motive for producing and selling is the desire to buy. Therefore, if the producers generally produce and sell more and more, they certainly also buy more and more. ”

“ At the moment there are several independent producers at work throughout the world. They have a large open market for the disposal of their wares and find no difficulty whatever in selling all they can produce. ”

“ The interests of the producers were the main object of legislative fostering and philosophic thought—and for this plain reason, that they constitute the great body of society, and their interests chiefly were thought of. ”

“ There are some who do not seem to belong to any of the active classes, who are yet producers, manufacturers, and distributors by their head, more than their hand; men who have fertile heads, producers, manufacturers, and distributors of thought—active in the most creative way. ”

“ And Production—let the reference to this fact be not overlooked—comprises Delivery throughout the whole Productive Process to and including its termination in delivery to ultimate consumers. Railway49 workers and sailors and storekeepers and household servants and waiters at hotels and restaurants and all their Economic associates from employer to “menial,” are producers as truly as are farmers, mechanics or manufacturers. ”

“ The success of this production, the abundance it generates, is experienced by the producers as an abundance of dispossession. As their alienated products accumulate, all time and space become foreign to them. ”

“ It cannot be very difficult to determine who have been the contrivers of this whole mercantile system; not the consumers, we may believe, whose interest has been entirely neglected; but the producers, whose interest has been so carefully attended to; and among this latter class, our merchants and manufacturers have been by far the principal architects. In the mercantile regulations which have been taken notice of in this chapter, the interest of our manufacturers has been most peculiarly attended to; ”

“ Production is but a leading forth; it is but movement. We move the cotton-seed to the soil, the cotton to the Northern mill, the cloth to the seaboard; then, by the steamship, we move it to where it is more needed than by ourselves; we move back the tea, and the tea is but the final product of the labor of the freedman, the operative, and the sailor, each of whom is or may be our countryman, and each of whom is counted as a representative of home industry. ”

“ One where the material is itself an object of general or extensive consumption, and a fit and productive source of revenue. Another where a manufacture of a simpler kind, the competition of which with a like domestic article is desired to be restrained, partakes of the nature of a raw material from being capable by a further process to be converted into a manufacture of a different kind, the introduction or growth of which is desired to be encouraged. ”

“ For if on the one side stand those who are employed in the simple and rude products, and on the other those who desire to enjoy something that has been already worked up, the manufacturer, with his skill and hand, is the mediator through whom the other two receive something from each other: each is enabled to gratify his wishes in his own way. The household economy of many crafts, which took its form and colour from the occupation, was likewise an object of my quiet attention ”

“ There are four fundamental facts connected with the subject, viz., the points of production, places of consumption, methods of operation and means of communication. Production is upon the farm, consumption in the cities and towns, methods, to be determined by experience, and the mode and means of conveyance, a government function.
Regarding the first of these divisions, certain facts are apparent. The balance of trade, eight to one is against the farmer at the point of production; he receives very much more than he sends. ”

“ The Manufacturing Industry.—It is the function of the agriculturist and the herdsman, the miner and the lumberman, to produce the raw material. The sailor and the train-hand, the longshoreman and the teamster, transport them to the industrial centres. It is the business of [181] the manufacturer and his employees to turn them into the finished product for the use of society. ”

“ There are hundreds among us who have made fortunes as manufacturers. How does the case stand with them? They have set up a factory, it may be, in some sequestered spot, where a village has immediately arisen. The population has increased from year to year; the capital of the manufacturer has increased with it; his works been extended; new labourers have arrived; and in the evening of his days he retires with a handsome property honourably gained, and it is his joy that he owes nothing to any man. ”

“ Furthermore, although it may seem a very simple thing to provide that those who do the manual work shall have all the product, it is plain, so soon as we reflect upon the complicated combinations of labor which are involved in any case of production, and also upon the complicated character of modern "products" and the way in which they contribute to, and depend upon each other, that it would be impracticable to divide the products among those who have done the labor part of production. ”

“ Thus, labour expended in the acquisition of manufacturing skill, I class as productive, not in virtue of the skill itself, but of the manufactured products created by the skill, and to the creation of which the labour of learning the trade is essentially conducive. ”

“ The spirit of enterprise, useful and prolific as it is, must necessarily be contracted or expanded in proportion to the simplicity or variety of the occupations and productions which are to be found in a society. It must be less in a nation of mere cultivators than in a nation of cultivators and merchants; less in a nation of cultivators and merchants than in a nation of cultivators, artificers, and merchants.
7. As to the Creating, in Some Instances, a New and Securing in All a More Certain and Steady Demand for the Surplus Produce of the Soil. ”