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

200 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK to produce wealth enormously in excess of the bare necessaries of life. Must we, then, now speed up and work over-time in order to have stock to capitalize and to capitalize it? Is this hard fate the normal economic lot of man? Unhappily I am convinced that it is. I think it demonstrable that the normal increase of population, and the unceasing effort of man to raise his standard of living keep him forever at tension, and that therefore he pro- vides himself with stock to save only by speeding up and working over-time. I shall not here undertake to prove that increasing population and a rising standard of living do create the tension, but shall content myself with the “therefore.” It will not be denied, I assume, that unless the standard of living is raised, the motive to go on saving and capitalizing fails, nor will it be denied that if population presses on the where- withal of existence (construed as the standard of living) stock can be increased and capitalized in one of two ways only (1) through saving by cutting out luxuries and comforts, 1.e., lower- ing the standard of living, in which case motive is impaired; or (2) by working longer hours and harder. We seem therefore to be driven to the conclusion that (2) is the normal way, and must continue to be the normal way of accumulating capital goods and expanding capitalistic production. Reservations, perhaps denials come to mind. It may be alleged that the motive to save is not impaired by present frugality for the purpose of maintaining or raising a standard of living in the future, for self or family. This might be conceded but for three stubborn facts: One, the force of the motive to save for the future is weakened in modern populations by a common and intrenched belief that a certain amount of “conspicuous waste” is necessary to maintain social standing, and that social standing is necessary to insure economic standing and family advancement. Two, a considerable part of any “provision for the future” ulti- mately disappears in “deferred consumption,” and so from the productive process. And three, humans of the vigorous sort obviously prefer to work over-time (for a price) than to attempt severe retrenchment of expenditure. A further reservation and contention, namely, that improved machinery and better processes provide us with surplus goods to capitalize, I think wholly invalid, because it confuses dates. How do we get the better machines and so on, and what do we do

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