Economic essays

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1753623200

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-136107

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Economic essays

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: Macmillan

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: viii, 368 S.; Ill., graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Alternatives seen as basic economic facts / Franklin H. Giddings

Collection:: Economics Books

198 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK namely: In a given situation, and within a given period, during which the standard of living is held constant, and the material means of production (tools, machines, and structures) undergo no substantial change in kind or quantity, is it possible by thrift (saving and industriousness) substantially to increase the rate of accumulation of concrete capital without putting increasing strain upon the agents and instruments of production at the moment existent and functioning, and thereby increasing the unit cost of accumulating capital? The results of my study were presented in three articles.” These called forth criticisms from Professor Bohm-Bawerk and Mr. James Bonar.” To my contentions relative to the cost of production of capital goods and the cause of interest I shall return presently. At this point I speak only of my contribution, if such it was and is, to the explanation of the effective nature and functioning of concrete capital and its relation to a possible escape from the economics of exploitation. Borrowing an idea from Francis A. Walker's definition of money I maintained that concrete capital is what concrete capital does. From this proposition it follows that not all “present goods” or “stocks” are capital goods, or capital goods in equal degree. They must be capitalized in a productive process and I undertook to show how. Bohm-Bawerk had shown in the Positive Theorie des Kapitales that capitalistic production differs from production by unaided human labor in being less direct, by reason of the interpolation of intermediate products between the beginning of labor and the completion of the final goods, and that such indirect production is more fruitful than direct production is because every intermediate product enlists the cooperation of an auxiliary force (einer Hilfskraft). What he had not shown, and what no writer before him had shown was, the specific thing that the intermediate product must be in order to enlist the coopera- tion of an auxiliary force. Starting from Spencer’s definition of life as a continuous adjust- ment of internal relations to external relations, I argued that pro- 1 «Phe Cost of Production of Capital,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. ITI, July, 1889; “The Theory of Capital,” ibid., Vol. IV, January, 1890; and “The Growth of Capital and the Cause of Interest,” ibid. Vol. V, January, 1891. 2 Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. IV, April, 1890.

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