Essentials of Economic Theory As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy

Excerpt: ... shall see why such a general enlargement of the output of all the shops creates no displacements of labor which entail hardships. If the power is used more in the upper subgroups than in the lower ones,-if it is more frequently available for fashioning raw materials than for producing them through agriculture or mining,-the development of it checks in some degree the drift of labor from the lower subgroups toward the upper ones, which has been referred to in an earlier chapter. Utilizing the power of Niagara, that of Alpine torrents and other unused streams, that of the waves of the sea, and that which has long slumbered in the culm heaps of coal mines, will give increased facility for producing nearly everything; and though the amount of the enlargement of output will vary in different cases and some effect on the movements of labor will be produced, few serious hardships will result, and a majority of the persons who will suffer from these changes at all will get an offsetting benefit from the enlarging productiveness of industry. FOOTNOTES 1 It is also true that an entire variety of gems or other things of this genus might, by mere cheapness, be branded as too common to be used by the very wealthy, except for new and inferior modes of adornment. 2 It is worth noticing (1) that uniformly reducing the cost of everything would cause comparative changes in consumption. Anything which should take away a quarter of the cost of every article in the entire list of social products would increase the consumption of some articles more than it would increase that of others. There is an extremely theoretical case in which there might even be a lessening of the effectual demand for a few things because a uniform reduction of twenty-five per cent would cause other things to be extensively substituted for them. This thinkable possibility is not practically important. A detailed study would show (2) that a reduction in the cost of any single article...