International trade

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1758394757

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-136209

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Taussig, Frank William http://d-nb.info/gnd/120199459

Title:: International trade

Place of publication:: New York, NY

Publisher:: Macmillan

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: XXI, 425 Seiten; graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part II. Problems of verification

Collection:: Economics Books

COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE AND PROTECTION 189 without effect, in others was followed by great industrial develop- ment. The explanation of the differences is again to be found in the fact that the combination and interplay of human and physical causes, while serving to bring about in some directions a com- parative advantage in the United States, yet proved by no means equally effective in each and every phase of the industry. In two quite different parts of the iron and steel manufacture American producers have shown themselves able to produce cheaply, to command the home market, to export. These are on the one hand the heavy industry — crude iron and steel, beams, plates, rails, structural material; and, on the other hand, the making of tools and machines. In the heavy industry, the richness of the natural resources explains much. The extraordinary coal deposits of the Pittsburgh region, and the no less extraordinary deposits of iron ore on Lake Superior, were the foundations for a burst of development unprec- edented in history. But there was much more than this physical advantage. The coal and the ore were a thousand miles apart, and gave opportunity for long distance transportation — a species of industry in which, as I have already remarked, the Americans have achieved unique successes. It is not to be doubted that here, as in other achievements of transportation, a contributing factor has been the existence over the entire continent of absolute and permanent free trade. But still other human elements counted. Large-scale operations, mass production, elaborate plant, labor-saving devices thru standardization of products and of processes — these have been characteristic of American engineer- ing and management. With these, partly as cause and partly as effect, have come the great industrial combinations, both vertical and horizontal, until the industrial unit in the iron trade has exceeded the wildest dreams of the preceding century. The familiar story need not be again rehearsed. Nothing brings into sharper relief the plain fact that here American industry has triumphed ; and this not merely because of the bounty of nature, but in large part because of the peculiarly effective application of man’s faculties.

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