VIII. Of Co-operation, or the Combination of Labour IX. Of Production on a Large, and Production on a Small Scale PAGR XII. Of Popular Remedies for Low Wages XIII. The Remedies for Low Wages further considered XIV. Of the Differences of Wages in different Employments II. Of Demand and Supply, in their relation to Value III. Of Cost of Production, in its relation to Value IV. Ultimate Analysis of Cost of Production VIII. Of the Value of Money, as dependent on Demand and Supply IX. Of the Value of Money, as dependent on Cost of Production XI. Of Credit, as a Substitute for Money XII. Influence of Credit on Prices XIII. Of an Inconvertible Paper Currency XVI Of some Peculiar Cases of Value XVIII. Of International Values XXII. Influence of the Currency on Exchanges and on Foreign Trade XXIII. Of the Rate of Interest XXIV. Of the Regulation of a Convertible Paper Currency XXV. Of the Competition of different Countries in the same Market BOOK IV. INFLUENCE OF THE PROGRESS OF SOCIETY ON -I. General Characteristics of a Progressive State of Wealth II. Influence of the Progress of Industry and Population on Values and III. Influence of the Progress of Industry and Population on Rents, 464 1 PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. IN every department of human affairs, Practice long precedes Science : systematic enquiry into the modes of action of the powers of nature, is the tardy product of a long course of efforts to use those powers for practical ends. The conception, accordingly, of Political Economy as a branch of science, is extremely modern; but the subject with which its enquiries are conversant has in all ages necessarily constituted one of the chief practical interests of mankind, and, in some, a most unduly engrossing one. That subject is Wealth. Writers on Political Economy profess to teach, or to investigate, the nature of Wealth, and the laws of its production and distribution: including, directly or remotely, the operation of all the causes by which the condition of mankind, or of any society of human beings, in respect of this universal object of human desire, is made prosperous or the reverse. Not that any treatise on Political Economy can discuss or even enumerate all these causes; but it undertakes to set forth as much as is known of the laws and principles according to which they operate. Every one has a notion, sufficiently correct for common purposes, of what is meant by wealth. The enquiries which relate to it are in no danger of being confounded with those relating to any other of the great human interests. All know that it is one thing to be rich, another thing to be enlightened, brave, or humane; that the question how a nation is made wealthy, and how it is made free, or virtuous, or eminent in literature, in the fine arts, in arms, or in polity, are totally distinct enquiries. Those things, indeed, are all indirectly connected, and re-act upon one another. A people has sometimes become free, because it had first grown wealthy; or wealthy, because it had first become free. The creed and laws of a people act powerfully upon their economical condition; and this again, by its influence on their mental development and social relations, re-acts upon their creed and laws. But though the subjects are in very close contact, they are essentially different, and have never been supposed to be otherwise. It is no part of the design of this treatise to aim at metaphysical nicety of definition, where the ideas suggested by a term are already as determinate as practical purposes require. But, little as it might be expected |