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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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part I. Theory

Collection:: Economics Books

WAGES NOT UNIFORM — NON-COMPETING GROUPS 45 and purchase. Goods do not exchange directly for goods; they are sold for money and bought for money. The immediate actuating force is always that of the individual transaction — the sale of goods to advantage; and this means sale at a profit. How then can we have any assurance that such conclusions as were deduced in the preceding chapters concerning the influence of comparative labor costs have validity for the actual world? Goods are not bartered — wheat for linen — between countries. They are sold by individuals for cash. Their sale depends on prices; and prices are not necessarily, perhaps not usually, deter- mined by quantities of labor given to producing the goods. How modify, adapt, reconcile our analysis of international trade to these plain facts? Let us revert to the case considered in the preceding chapter. The figures with which we there began, it will be remembered, were as follows: [n the U. S. 10 deys’® PalleU:. S. & Germany Germany 1 Wages "FR TOTAL PropUCE Y wheat men hea, _o0 linen Domestic SuppLy Price $0.75 $0.75 $1.00 $0.662 The money cost of production of wheat is lower in the United States than in Germany; that of linen is lower in Germany. Trade takes place, the United States sending wheat, Germany sending linen. We still treat the wages outlay — that which the business world designates as “labor cost” — as if it were the sole item in supply price; return to capital is left for subsequent treatment. Suppose now, that the German wheat laborers get as wages not $1.00 a day but only $0.663. Suppose them to be, among the Germans, in a non-competing group, unfavorably situated, receiving less wages than obtained in other industries, but unable to betake themselves to the more prosperous group and therefore permanently in receipt of the lower pay. For the present, accept differences of this kind, whether in Germany or in the United States, as simply existent, disregarding the question how they

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