PART FOUR
THE FieLp oF CONSUMPTION
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE UNITED STATES AS A MARKET
THE object of all kinds of industry and commerce is to provide consum-
ers with the right kinds of goods. The word * consume ”’ sometimes
means simply “ eat’ ; but it may also mean * use in any way.” In
this sense every one of us is a consumer. Every day of our lives we
consume food, shoe-leather, clothing, furniture, pencils, knives, and a
hundred other things. Whenever we travel we consume a little share
of a train, trolley car, steamboat, or automobile. When we go to a
picture show we are among the consumers for whom the theater, the
films, and the musical instruments were made. In fact, consumption
is by far the most universal of the four fields of industrial and commer-
cial geography. Vast numbers of people do not engage in either pri-
mary production or manufacturing, and many have little to do with
any transportation except that in which they themselves supply the
power. But no one can live without being a consumer. It is for the
sake of ourselves as consumers that we engage in primary production.
in transportation, and in manufacturing.
How the character of the consumers influences the market. In the
ordinary language of business, the consumers are spoken of as * the
market.” The wholesale market consists of the people who buy goods
with the purpose of selling them again; the retail market consists of
the people who buy goods for their own use, or at least with no purpose
of selling them. Every business man needs to understand exactly
what sort of market his goods will find. The farmers, for instance,
raise wheat because there is a good market for it; but if they should
all raise three times as much as now, the market would be destroyed.
There would be so much wheat that the price would drop so low that
the wheat farmers could scarcely make a living. Suppose a merchant
wishes to sell textiles in the Amazon valley. Since the people there
are few in number and poor, and live in a warm climate, he may be
able to sell a small amount of thin cotton clothing; but he finds no
market at all for heavy, expensive woolens.
As a rule, backward peoples provide only a small market, while
progressive peoples supply a large market. In the same way city
people provide a larger market in proportion to their numbers than
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