Backcover
Essentials of Economics
The Macmillan Company
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
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Essentials Of Economic Theory
AS APPLIED TO MODERN PROBLEMS OF INDUSTRY AND PUBLIC POLICY
BY
JOHN BATES CLARK
PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
AUTHOR OF “THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH,”
“THE PHILOSOPHY OF WEALTH,” “THE PROBLEM OF MONOPOLY,” ETC.
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1915
All rights reserved
LVMI
Copyright, 1907,
Copyright, 1907,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1907. Reprinted July, 1909; July, 1915.
Slight editing for typos and use consistency was done on this digital edition. No changes to the content were made.
Digital edition September 2013 by the Mises Institute
ISBN: 978-1-61016-014-8
eISBN: 978-1-61016-617-1
Preface
In a work on the “Distribution of Wealth,” which was published in 1899, I expressed an intention of offering later to my readers a volume on “Economic Dynamics, or The Laws of Industrial Progress.” Though eight years have since passed, that purpose is still unexecuted, and it has become apparent that any adequate treatment of Economic Dynamics will require more than one volume of the size of the present one. In the meanwhile it is possible to offer a brief and provisional statement of the more general laws of progress.
Essentials Of Economic Theory
I. Wealth and Its Origin
WEALTH AND ITS ORIGIN
The creation and the use of wealth are everywhere governed by natural laws, and these, as discovered and stated, constitute the science of Economics. Some of them come into operation only when men live in more or less civilized societies and work in an organized way, while others are operative wherever men work at all. Every man who lives must have something that can be called wealth, and, unless it is given to him, he must do something in order to get it.
II. Varieties of Economic Goods
VARIETIES OF ECONOMIC GOODS
Passive Capital Goods.—Labor spends itself on materials, and these, in their rawest state, are furnished by nature herself. They “ripen” as the work goes on. Every touch that is put on them imparts to them more of the utility which is the essence of wealth. They are technically “goods,” or concrete forms of wealth, from the moment when they begin to acquire this utility, though for a time they are in an unfinished state.
