登陆注册
15317300000044

第44章 HUMAN COSTS IN THESUPPLY OF CAPITAL(3)

This extra payment was regarded by the classical economists as a cost or price paid for an effort of abstinence.More recent economists have usually chosen to substitute for abstinence 'waiting' or some equally colourless term.But abstinence is better, for it does suggest a painful effort involving some human cost, some play of motives naturally adverse to saving which requires to be overcome by a positive economic payment.Thus, not merely the economic, but the moral or human necessity of interest is best asserted.

This abstinence or postponement of possible present consumption of commodities is admittedly the condition or even the cause of the supply of the productive instruments which increase the production of future wealth and incidentally furnish the fund out of which the interest is paid.For our present purpose, then, it makes no difference whether we look at the primitive saving which stored consumables for future use, or the modern saving which causes productive instruments to be created, applied and maintained.

The question whether there are human costs of saving, and what they are, is in the last resort the same in both cases.

Out of any individual, or social, income a certain amount or proportion of saving evidently may be 'costless' in the human sense.That is to say, the person or society that saves it sustains no organic loss or injury by doing so, though he may sometimes think or feel he does.If he does so think or feel, society must set a counter-weight against this false imaginary loss, in the shape of interest.But, as we have already noted, there is a good deal of saving which represents the calculated outlay over a period of time, which the owner of an income will make in his own interest.

In such cases there is no human cost, and if an economic cost (interest)is defrayed, it has no human correlative.From the standpoint of human distribution of wealth it involves a waste.

The organic utility to individuals of hoarding, in order, by distributing consumption over a longer period of time, to get from it a larger aggregate of goods, will thus furnish a considerable quantity of instrumental capital to modern industry.For, only by putting the postponed consumption into the form of instrumental capital, can the savers establish the lien they want upon the future output of consumables.If all the required capital could be got by this simple play of motives, the savers balancing more useful future units of consumption against less useful present units, with due allowance for risks connected with postponement, the supply of capital would be humanly 'costless.' Though some element of risk, inherent in the proceeding, would, taken by itself, carry a cost, the superior utility attaching to the postponed units of consumption, as compared with that which the same number of units would afford when added to the consumption already provided, would offset that cost, so that the arrangement, as a whole, would be costless.

§5.Though the method of our analysis has obliged us to approach this problem of saving as part of our enquiry into processes of production, because it is the means by which a productive factor, viz.capital, is supplied, it appertains directly to the process of consumption, or outlay of income on consumables.As the current expenditure of any member of industrial society will be distributed among a number of different purchases, contributing by natural, conventional, or purely personal connections, towards a standard of consumption endowed with maximum utility (or what the consumer takes for such), so will it be with the distribution of expenditure over points of time.Let us elevate into a clear conscious policy of calculation what is in large measure a blind instinctive conduct, and the organic relation between the two 'economies' is apparent.It involves an intricate balancing of larger future utilities, weighted by risks, against smaller present utilities not so weighted.To take the simplest instance.If, out of an income of £600 coming in this year, I decide to consume £500in the current expenditure of the year and to put aside £100 for consumption in five years' time (when I purpose to work only half-time and earn only half my present income), I shall have estimated that the luxuries which i could buy this year by the sixth hundred pounds expenditure are slightly less agreeable or 'useful' to me than the comforts purchasable by the fourth hundred pounds as visualised five years off, with an allowance for the chance that i may then be dead, or that I may have come into a legacy which renders this postponement of consumption unnecessary.In a word, this economic ego must be conceived as operating by a plan of outlay which, in regard to the disposal of the current income, has a longitude and latitude of survey and valuation.Just as the different ingredients of present consumption make a complex organic whole with delicately proportioned parts, the size and form of each dictated by the unified conception of the current standard of comfort, so the disposition of the income over a series of points of time in which present values of each several consumable and of the whole standard are compared with future values, involves the similar application of a plan for the realisation of my economic ideal.

Though a fully rational conception and calculus, either for the composition of current expenditure or for prospective outlays, is very rare, some half-conscious, half-instinctive calculus of the sort must be accredited to everybody.3So far as it is rightly conducted by their reasoning or just instinct, it means that, out of all or most of the members of an industrial society, some humanly costless saving could be got, some contribution towards the socially desirable fund of capital.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 恋魔(已完结)

    恋魔(已完结)

    世人眼中吸血的恶魔,她却不觉他可怕,并深深的爱上他,是女人善良怜悯的本性吗?他,从未有人敢靠近,也从不想接近人,却莫名的接受她,深爱她,怕她知道他的真实身份(千年雪狼),却躲不开,反而越陷越深
  • 情债孽缘

    情债孽缘

    她原是天帝之女,宠爱万千。只因一次下凡游历,被他吸引,魂牵梦绕,无法忘怀。舍弃鞋8仙体,伴他三世,助他三世,最后只得到一句多谢你,和一身伤痕。三生三世,她历经一切疾苦,磨难。却始终无法如愿
  • 纨绔神医

    纨绔神医

    人分三六九等,美女五花八门,繁华都市,林森奉行天意,纵横花都!拳打镇关西,脚踢疤瘌种,医治绝症女,抱得美人归!纨绔风云再起,林森揭竿而来,纨绔?哼!看林森不爽的人多了去了,他们算老几!
  • 福妻驾到

    福妻驾到

    现代饭店彪悍老板娘魂穿古代。不分是非的极品婆婆?三年未归生死不明的丈夫?心狠手辣的阴毒亲戚?贪婪而好色的地主老财?吃上顿没下顿的贫困宭境?不怕不怕,神仙相助,一技在手,天下我有!且看现代张悦娘,如何身带福气玩转古代,开面馆、收小弟、左纳财富,右傍美男,共绘幸福生活大好蓝图!!!!快本新书《天媒地聘》已经上架开始销售,只要3.99元即可将整本书抱回家,你还等什么哪,赶紧点击下面的直通车,享受乐乐精心为您准备的美食盛宴吧!)
  • 盐道枭雄

    盐道枭雄

    清道光三十年(1850年),清廷积疾难返,官吏腐败,衰弱日显,民不聊生,以通州知府陈之道为首的一批正直志士,不畏权贵,与贪官污吏、恶霸进行坚决、巧妙地作斗争,拯救灾民于水火,最终打败对手,情节跌宕起伏。反映了在封建社会,生活在底层的人民奋勇抗击的悲壮故事。
  • 起点终点都是你

    起点终点都是你

    人前她是舞蹈小公举,人后她是嗜酒爱哭鬼。哥哥守护,少爷独宠、会长陪伴,终究还是没有保护好她。她投入大把时间精力来追求梦想,到最后却没能得到想要的东西。绝望轻生,才懂得什么是自己想要的。这场人生亦喜亦悲,最终还是含泪离去,独自带娃修养闪耀影视界。霸气女王华丽回归……少爷家一娃“加油祝你永远找不到妈妈”、女王家一娃“我只要哥哥不要爸爸”,某人已被严重嫌弃,不带这么玩的……
  • 异世之玄魔

    异世之玄魔

    一代传奇将军李阳在五十五岁时因伤病逝,却离奇般的来到了魔武大陆,降生在东华帝国的东森行省,一个叫李家庄的地方的他,在这个主修玄气和魔法世界他又能够走多远?武者等级——玄者、玄士、玄师、玄宗、玄王、玄皇、玄帝、玄圣、玄神魔法等级——法者、法士、法师、法宗、法王、法皇、法帝、法圣、法神
  • 完美道父

    完美道父

    老外光明正大把教堂开到咱华夏大地上,本道身为“太一道”第十二代掌门,不开个道堂和他们对搞如何对得起列祖列宗?想把皮鞋擦亮吗?想提升睡眠质量吗?想自首又不敢去公安局吗?请去对面教堂!想要资金周转……啊呸呸呸!想要做个有信仰有梦想的新新青年吗?想要做捍卫地球和平的超级英雄蜘蛛蝙蝠钢铁奥特曼侠吗?想要穿着道袍开着大奔引来百分百的回头率吗?(什么?你说现在大奔满大街?我说的重点是道袍!)想要修炼道法飞升成仙长生不死吗?那就来我家道堂吧!凭什么隔壁教堂的蓝精灵是神父我就是弱爆了的道长?请叫我道父!别在我面前装大爷,《道德经》在手,我就是你们的老子!——————————入教前请确认节操槽满值,请勿携带舒肤佳、凡士林、青瓜茄子等违禁物品,谢谢合作。
  • 火凤凰之鬼影

    火凤凰之鬼影

    国际恐怖杀手赵凯,冷血手段残忍,不论你是谁?只要你惹怒赵凯,不论你逃到哪里,他将不死不休的追杀你,他自己都不知自己杀了多少人啦?赵凯因为杀人过多,心里早就以杀人为他活下去的人生目标,只能以四个字形容他:杀人如麻。可是他就算在厉害,也有死的那一刻,人总有生老病死的那天,赵凯在他27岁那年因得了心脏病晚期;死于美国加州一家私人医院抢救室。可是上帝偏偏给他开了个大玩笑,上帝给他一次重生机会,赵凯还会像前世做个杀手吗?
  • 征服总裁女友

    征服总裁女友

    小司机成子非一不小心睡了首富的女人,被女人强行认做表弟,带进了首富家的公司,卷入了总裁争夺之中,却没想到他才是真正的总裁接班人------。