The Place of Consumption in Economic TheoryUniversity of Wisconsin--Madison, 1927 - 380 pages |
Common terms and phrases
Adam Smith Alfred Marshall American analysis appeared behavior Bentham Boileau buyer Cannan capital chapter classical economists conceived concept conflict consumption in economic consumption of wealth cost of production demand desire discussion distribution doctrine economic activity economic theory economic thought emphasis exchange fact force functioning happiness hedonism Ibid idea income increase individual industry interest J. A. Hobson James Mill labor labor power Lauderdale laws Malthus marginal marginal utility means Mercantilists mind nature Patten perhaps philosophy physical Physiocrats pleasures and pains Political Economy Principles problem producer and consumer Professor Commons Professor Mitchell profits purchasing power purpose quantity Quesnay reason Ricardo satisfaction Say's sensations significance Sismondi social Stuart Chase study of consumption subject of consumption supply theorists things tion trade transaction Trend of Economics United use-value utility Wealth of Nations welfare words writers
Popular passages
Page 63 - By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words, to promote or to oppose that happiness.
Page 58 - How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.
Page 63 - The interest of the community is one of the most general expressions that can occur in the phraseology of morals: no wonder that the meaning of it is often lost. When it has a meaning it is this. The community is a fictitious body, composed of the individual persons who are considered as constitutinc as it were its members.
Page 70 - It cannot be very difficult to determine who have been the contrivers of this whole mercantile system; not the consumers, we may believe, whose interest has been entirely neglected ; but the producers, whose interest has been so carefully attended to; and among this latter class our merchants and manufacturers have been by far the principal architects.
Page 118 - Could we suddenly double the productive powers of the country, we should double the supply of commodities in every market ; but we should, by the same stroke, double the purchasing power. Everybody would bring a double demand as well as supply : everybody would be able to buy twice as much, because every one would have twice as much to offer in exchange.
Page 59 - They consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their own conveniency, though the sole end which they propose from the labours of all the thousands whom they employ, be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements.
Page 63 - To a person considered by himself, the value of a pleasure or pain considered by itself, will be greater or less, according to the four following circumstances : 1. Its intensity. 2. Its duration. 3. Its certainty or uncertainty. 4. Its propinquity or remoteness.
Page 63 - They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it.
Page 63 - ... that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words, to promote or to oppose that happiness. I say of every action whatsoever; and therefore not only of every action of a private individual, but of every measure of government.
Page 118 - Each person's means of paying for the productions of other people consist of those which he himself possesses. All sellers are inevitably and ex vi termini buyers. Could we suddenly double the productive powers of the country, we should double the supply of commodities in every market; but we should, by the same stroke, double the purchasing power. Everybody would...