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:: The relation between statics and dynamics / John Maurice Clark

Collection:: Economics Books

68 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK other methods, by the limitation of output to maintain price, and by the adjustment of rights through litigation and through the more fundamental process of modifying the rights themselves by statutes or court decisions which make new law. Thus all these things are productive from the purely private standpoint, though the gains of some individuals must usually be weighed against the losses of others. These activities are also essential contributing factors in the process of technical produc- tion and of social creation of utilities; performing certain essential functions; though they are not the only possible agencies by which these functions can possibly be performed: merely the agencies to which these functions are entrusted under the present economic system. They are thus productive as a whole, in all the main senses of the term; but particular acts may still be purely parasitic, increasing the gains of one person wholly at the expense of others. They involve conflicts of interest, in which the gain or loss of any one party cannot be taken as a gauge of the resultant gain or loss to the community. These conflicts of interests are unavoidable, and any system of settling them inevitably involves “wastes” of some sort, and the defeating of certain interests that others may prevail. Thus the mere existence of “wastes” in the present system does not neces- sarily carry condemnation, any more than the fact that the present system of handling these conflicts performs a necessary productive function carries necessarily a verdict of approval. A discriminating study of the facts should furnish the scientific basis on which efforts at improvement may be based, but parasitic activities can at best be minimized, and never totally eliminated. These are some of the difficulties necessarily faced by the dynamic concept of production. 14. Conclusion From the foregoing it appears that there are many factors in dynamics which involve qualititive or “chemical” changes in the static assumptions, and require new inductions to establish their effects. Does the change to dynamics, then, mean the disappear- ance of statics as such in the pursuit of a study of a wholly different type? This is a question which will ultimately be answered by the test of experience. Dynamic study must not

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