Social economics

“ The view which has been presented thus far and which will be adhered to is that economics should rest upon sociology. That economics does rest upon sociology is shown by many considerations. The chief problem of theoretical economics is the problem of economic value. But economic value is but one sort of value which is recognized in society, moral and aesthetic values being other examples of the valuing process, and all values must express the collective judgment of some human group or other. ”

“ It is rather an attempt to show that economics plays a big, if not major, part in the formation and development of social integrations and institutions, and toward that end it was necessary to outline, broadly, the economic principles which bear upon the thesis. ”

“ A measure of this nature is a necessary and logical step in the direction of social equality, and we hope, by its means, to put an end to the irrational rule of supply and demand which even nowadays to a great extent obtains, and which so much tends to place obstacles in the way of production, and to raise the price of things correspondingly. The Community produces, let us say, articles of consumption, furniture, clothes, and so on. ”

“ Thus social capital and its counterpart, the whole of social surplus value, are not merely real quantities, having an objective existence, but, what is more, the relation between them, the average profit, guides and directs the whole process of exchange. ”

“ Values to-day permit their holders either to purchase means of production and of profit or their products. In the transformed society, when the private capital of production and exploitation shall have been made social, when the social community shall have placed the means of production at the disposition of associated laborers, the indemnity values which shall have been given the capitalists of yesterday will permit them no longer to buy the means of production, of rent, and of profit: they will permit them to buy only the products of the transformed social activity. ”

“ The primary task may be to secure a better adjustment of the economic interests of employer and employee through an improvement of the wage system, but in the larger sense the industrial problem is a social and moral one. ”

“ But the profit which he gained after a laborious life was but an infinitesimal fraction of the enormous increase of efficiency which resulted to the national industry. We cannot doubt that the whole gigantic system which at least maintains a population several times multiplied, which maintains part of it in wealth and a large proportion in reasonable comfort, has been due to the labours of many men, each working for his own interest and animated chiefly by the desire of wealth. So much remains true of the economist's doctrine of the natural harmony between individual and public interest. ”

“ No longer must industry be thought of as a mere revenue-producing process, in which Capital, Labor, Management, and the Community meet like so many rival and contending factions, each to appropriate to itself by force or might the largest possible share of the fruits of industry. Industry must be thought of, as in reality it is, as in the nature of social service, and participation in industry, whether in the form of labor or capital investment, as social service of the highest kind, since upon its successful accomplishment rest all other forms of human service. ”

“ It is hoped that these evils may be remedied by a reconstruction of society, in which the means of production shall all be public property, and every man's income be simply a salary in proportion to the quantity of his labour. ”

“ Comparing simple reproduction of the social capital with its reproduction on a rising scale, we arrive at the most important conclusion that in capitalist economy the demand for commodities is in a sense independent of the total volume of social consumption. ”

“ If this be the essence of social development, we may dispense with sociology, for the economist long ago described the social system of wealth far better than the sociologist has ever done, and that without aid from biology. It must be admitted, therefore, either that the phenomena of specialization, communication and exchange are not the sole primary characters, or else that society is nothing more than the long familiar economic aggregate. ”

“ Such injuries as particular men now suffer from the introduction of economical devices are, as a rule, more than atoned for even to these men by the greater productivity of social labor, as it is applied in new ways, and by the greater abundance of social capital. These gains are the result of improvements made in the earlier periods, and they benefit every one who labors. ”

“ Likewise, the importance to industry of active and enterprising leadership. Thirdly: the social and economic evil effects of great inequality of wealth. Fourthly: the fact that the health, energy, spirit, and intelligence of the wage earners are 243 factors of high importance in the creation of a stable and effective industrial régime, and that the development and display of these qualities by individuals are affected by their economic conditions and surroundings, here and now. Likewise, the importance of giving the best possible opportunity to all to develop their natural ability. ”

“ We have social welfare as the result of wealth consumed, or used up. Society is interested in all the wealth accumulated, and the methods of its accumulation and its fair distribution are a part of social machinery; yet these have their chief significance in the final consumption. It is not what we have, but what we do with it, that makes society interested in our possessions. It is not what society has, but how it uses it, that settles the chief questions of welfare or illfare. ”

“ His whole theory consists of a logical extension of this theory, according to which pauperism and crises result from one and the same circumstance—viz., “that when economic processes are left to themselves in respect to the distribution of goods, certain relations (Verhältnisse) connected with the development of society bring it about that as the productivity of social labor [163] increases, the wages of the laboring classes constitute an ever-decreasing portion of the national product.” ”

“ The main factor in the production of wealth among civilized men is the social organism, the machinery of associated labor and exchange by which hundreds of millions of individuals provide the demand for one another's product and mutually complement one another's labors, thereby making the productive and distributive systems of a nation and of the world one great machine. ”

“ The above economic fiction confuses the laws that regulate the general movement of wages, or the ratio between the working-class—i.e., the total labour-power—and the total social capital, with the laws that distribute the working population over the different spheres of production. ”

“ But in so far as the causes are moral or psychological, dependent on institutions and social relations, or on the principles of human nature, their investigation belongs not to physical, but to moral and social science, and is the object of what is called Political Economy.
The production of wealth; the extraction of the instruments of human subsistence and enjoyment from the materials of the globe, is evidently not an arbitrary thing. ”

“ We have introduced several branches of profitable industry, and established a market for their products; and finally, in the constitution which follows, we have applied the principles of social justice to the distribution of profits in such a manner that the best results are to be expected. ”

“ In this analysis he to a considerable extent follows and improves upon Senior, who had previously defined cost of production as the sum of the labour and abstinence necessary to production. (3) His exposition of the natural or social limit to free competition, and of its bearing on the theory of value. He points out that in any organized society there can hardly be the ready transference of capital from one employment to another, which is the indispensable condition of free competition; while class distinctions render it impossible for labour to transfer itself readily to new occupations. ”

“ In its purely economical operation the principle of individual competition receives as unqualified condemnation from the social reformers as in its moral. In the competition of laborers they see the cause of low wages; in the competition of producers the cause of ruin and bankruptcy; and both evils, they affirm, tend constantly to increase as population and wealth make [36] progress ”

“ The common run of political economists confuse these together, under the designation of economic laws, which they deem incapable of being defeated or modified by human effort; ascribing the same necessity to things dependent on the unchangeable conditions of our earthly existence, and to those which, being but the necessary consequences of particular social arrangements, are merely co-extensive with these: given certain institutions and customs, wages, profits, and rent will be determined by certain causes ”

“ The collective body gets a greater income than before, and the workers share in the gain.
Importance of the New Forms which the Social Income Takes.—This increasing income takes the form in which society now requires it, and it is this which brings about the readjustment of labor—or the changes in the amounts of labor used in particular subgroups—which have caused hardship in the past. ”

“ The pecuniary activities of men, efforts directed to acquisition and operations incident to the acquisition or tenure of wealth, are treated as incidental to the distribution to each of his particular proportion in the production of goods. Pecuniary activities, in short, are handled as incidental features of the process of social production and consumption, as details incident to the method whereby the social interests are served, instead of being dealt with as the controlling factor about which the modern economic process turns. ”

“ Effect upon individuals and classes Who can say to what infinite powers the wealth-producing capacity of labour may not be raised by social adjustments that will give to the producers of wealth their fair proportion of its advantages and enjoyments? Every new power engaged in the service of man would improve the condition of all. ”

“ The industrial efficiency of two men working without society might have differed as two to one--that is, while one man was able to produce a full quarter dollar's worth of work a day, the other could produce only twelve and a half cents' worth. ”

“ We shall see that they do not have it at all in static social industry, and that they have it only in a limited way in dynamic social industry, or that which is carried on by a society undergoing organic change. ”

“ In other words, what are the chief lines of economic change required to bring about a readjustment between modern methods of production and social welfare? The answer to this question requires us to amplify our interpretation of the industrial evolution of the past century by producing into the future the same lines of development that they may be justified by the appearance of consisting with some rational social end. ”

“ Social Economy the Chief Subject of Study.—We care most to know how an organized society produces and uses its wealth, and in making this inquiry we encounter at once phenomena that are not universal. [Pg 60] The civilized society creates its wealth coöperatively, by the joint action of its various members; that is, it proceeds by means of a division of labor and an exchanging of products. Moreover, it has, in some way, to share the sum total of its gains among its various members. ”

“ On social and moral grounds, also, apart from dry considerations of political economy, progress intelligence and a higher standard of life are more likely to be found with large cities, manufactures, and a variety of industrial occupations than with a dead level of a few millionaires and a few shepherds, or of a few landlords and a dense population of poor peasants. ”

“ Economic thought, too, has reached a stage where it is endeavoring to re-define its concepts in the light of sociological knowledge. The material resources of the earth as well as industrial and business enterprises, in fact all economic values, are being measured, and re-valued in terms of their societary significance. ”

“ But further, they have a distinct social and economic aim, namely, to correct the present inequalities of wealth, and substitute for the competitive system an industry controlled by all in the common interest, and distributing on principles of equity and reason, mutually agreed on, the wealth produced. With this view they acknowledge the duties of fair pay and good conditions for their own employees, and of not buying goods made under bad conditions. ”

“ Therefore society as a whole must take possession of industrial capital, production for use must be substituted for production for profit, work at a good wage must be guaranteed to every one who asks for it, and the fair distribution of wealth among the workers must be regarded as of more primary importance than the quantity which is produced. ”

“ Commerce, which owes its origin to social need, has almost wholly lost the social motive. If we are not making money ourselves, we hire ourselves out as the money-making tools of others; and while some of us aim at larger profits, the rest of us hope for larger wages. ”

“ Social organs, like individual organs, remain stationary if there come to them normal proportions173 of the commodities produced by the society as a whole. If because the demands made on an industry or profession are unusually great, those engaged in it make excessive profits, more citizens flock to it and the social structure constituted by its members grows; while decrease of the demands and therefore of the profits, either leads its members to choose other careers or stops the accessions needful to replace those who die, and the structure dwindles. ”