登陆注册
15317300000005

第5章 THE HUMAN STANDARD OF VALUE(3)

While an elaborate division of intellectual labour has been applied, both to the study of the objective structure of industry and to the psychology of the various agents of production, no corresponding studies of consumption have been made.When the products of industry pass over the retail counter, economic science almost entirely loses count of them.They pass from sight into the mysterious maw of 'the Consumer.' it has never occurred to the economist that it is just as important to have a clear and close knowledge of what happens to products when they have become consumer's goods, as it is to trace their history in the productive stages.It would, of course, be untrue to say that modern economists completely ignore methods and motives of consumption.Their studies of value and of markets compel them to direct equal attention to forces regulating Supply and Demand, and many of them assign a formal superiority to the demand for final commodities which issues from Consumers, as the regulator of the whole industrial system.But while this has evoked some interesting enquiries into quantities and modes of consumption, the main interest of these enquiries has lain, not in the light they shed upon the use and enjoyment got from consumption, but in the effects of that consumption upon demand as a factor in problems of price and of production.In a word, the economic arts of consumption still run in subordination to the arts of production, and the very nature of the interest taken in them attests their secondary place.Half of the field of economic survey important from the standpoint of human welfare thus stands unexplored or ill-explored.

§3.A necessary result of this identification of economic subject-matter with the productive apparatus, has been to impose upon the study of economics a distinctively mechanical character.The network of businesses and trades and processes, which constitutes industry, may indeed, by an interpretative effort of imagination, be resolved into the myriads of thoughts, desires and relations which are its spiritual texture.Every business, with its varied machinery and plant, its buildings, materials, etc., is the embodiment of conscious human effort, and the personnel of management and operatives represent a live current of volition and intelligence, directing and cooperating with it.A business, thus regarded, is a distinctively spiritual fabric.

Nor is this true only of those industries employed in fashioning material goods.The complicated arrangements of communications and of commerce with their ganglia of markets, by which goods pass from one process to another and are gathered, sorted and distributed in regulated channels throughout the world of workers and consumers, represent an even more delicate adjustment of psychical activities.Economic science tends, undoubtedly, to become less material in its outlook and treatment, and to give more attention to the psychological supports of the industrial system.Not only have we many special studies of such economic questions as saving and investment, business administration and other critical operations of will and judgment, but in such works as those of M.Tarde in France, and Mr.Wicksteed in this country, we find attempts at a systematic psychological interpretation of industry.Economics, indeed, according to the latter writer, is a branch of the science of 'preferences,' the application of intelligent human volition to the satisfaction of economic wants.

And yet the science remains distinctively mechanical and unfitted for the performance of any human interpretation of industry.This is due to the failure of our psychological economists to tear themselves free from the traditions of a Political Economy which in its very structure has made man subservient to marketable wealth.The accepted conception of the Art of Political Economy is that it is directed to the production of wealth whose value is attested by the purely quantitative calculus of money' and the Science of Political Economy is virtually confined to discovering and formulating the laws for the production of such wealth.The basic concepts of Value, Cost, and Utility, are subjected to this governing presupposition.

Their primary significance is a monetary one.The value of any stock of wealth is signified in money, the cost of its production, the utility of its consumption, are registered in monetary terms.The psychological researches which take place into processes of thought and desire are not regarded as having significance on their own account, but merely as means or instruments in the working of industrial processes.The study of motives, interests, and ideas in the process of invention, or in the organisation and operation of some productive work, treats these thoughts and feelings not in their full bearing upon human life, its progress or happiness, but in exclusive relation to the monetary end to which they are directed.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 等不到的爱系列

    等不到的爱系列

    已经上了大学,依旧是不谙世事的孩子。青涩,这个专属于青春的代名词,在大学的校园里总是有一种特别的味道的,酸酸的,甜甜的···青涩酸甜,可能就是青春的味道。拿爱情纪念青春,拿青春换明天;十年老一岁,祭我不逝的青春年华...
  • 若我们未曾远去

    若我们未曾远去

    回忆在时间里沉淀时间在回忆中消失触感在重复中麻木我们在麻木中重复爱情在指缝间承诺指缝在爱情下交缠没有在拥有中挣扎拥有在挣扎里回忆
  • 你好我的宝贝

    你好我的宝贝

    这是一个真实的故事请大家多多关注;生长在温州农村的80后妈妈,一个再婚女人对以后美好幸福生活的向往与追求。但是再婚后的生活往往没有像她想象那么简单幸福,最终这段美好向往的婚姻短短坚持三年就结束了
  • 邪帝诱妻:傲世狼妃大姐大

    邪帝诱妻:傲世狼妃大姐大

    简单来说,这就是一只自恋的狼陪伴某个落魄少年走向辉煌的道路。复杂点说,就是某年某月某日,零佑扛上莫宸。零佑,是在车祸横死穿越成狼崽的黑道大小姐。莫宸,是被亲人陷害背负废材名的白道皇太子。当傲娇VS腹黑,左道VS旁门,禽兽VS人渣(大雾)——且看狼王和邪帝的成长之路,一切尽在《邪帝诱妻:傲世狼妃大姐大》!【本文周更,偶尔爆发】
  • 权志龙之我回来了

    权志龙之我回来了

    宝宝的处女座。本文主要讲关于我们龙哥和同公司的亚洲女神杨雪泫的你侬我侬的爱情故事。其中也会出现一些别的明星。希望大家喜欢!!!!
  • 杀破道

    杀破道

    老君封神一战,洒三千道种在人间。一颗种子在人间破土而出,于是上清大陆风起云涌,这颗破土的种子能否平安的长大,开花,结果?数万年来有上千颗种子发芽,却没有一颗能够长大。。。。。。。。。。。。夜一只是一个普通的少年,他如同白纸一般来到了这纷扰的世界。他从来没有崇高的理想,他只是希望好好的活着,如果再能够修炼,那就是最美好的了。他努力的活着,却一不小心活得如此精彩。就让我们和夜一一起精彩吧。。。
  • 武者修仙

    武者修仙

    修真没落的时代,修武盛行,万余年的时间,先天武者,避世不出的修士,都将慢慢的回到这片天地之中。新人果奔求收藏。
  • HR不会告诉你的那些面试技巧

    HR不会告诉你的那些面试技巧

    本书将面试中的技巧分为了四大板块:准备篇,主要介绍如何在面试之前做好准备,包括资料准备、形象设计,以及心理准备。战场篇,主要介绍面试时的一些应对策略,如何和HR巧妙过招,同时还包括一些面试礼仪等。案例篇,把技巧运用到实际的案例中,从成功中获得经验,从失败中吸取教训。总结篇,对前文所述的面试技巧做一些总结。
  • 追天道魂

    追天道魂

    天无棱,地无边,追天一念间。追天道魂是我的处女作~!多多支持
  • 进退两难:一十七

    进退两难:一十七

    睡醒从一介不算优异但好歹工资优厚的社会人变回了看父母心情拿零花的学生?!重回啃老时代居然还不是她以前经历过的精英学霸的生活。这是谁的人生啊!还有这位看起来比她还少女的表弟是哪里来的啊!还好,还是遇到以前认识的人了。许俊哲,你那个橘子头是怎么回事啊!