The Elements of Political Economy

Front Cover
Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1858 - 573 pages
 

Selected pages

Contents

Law was no advocate of an unlimited inconvertible paper
19
14
20
SECTION
21
7
24
If there were no exchanges there could be no science
26
Liabilities of the parties
27
Effects of a diminution of the cost of production of an article
28
Strikes caused by erroneous opinions on this point
30
Such discussions are excluded from this Treatise
32
Meaning of CIRCULATION
34
SECTION
35
Circulating Medium is the medium which circulates commodities
40
Resolution of the House of Commons in 1776
44
SECTION
46
The essence of Currency is personal liability
49
Length of time it took to abolish the Usury Laws
52
Application of this Conversation
53
The term Value in Political Economy is to be restricted to
59
Other considerations which prove that the rate of discount
62
Examples of positive and negative values
65
Effects of carrying out into practice such ideas
68
Necessary to explain the conception of the science
81
General principles drawn from the preceeding examples
85
Meaning of CREDIT Money Labor and Credit represent
94
Political Economy includes the Present Values of all future
100
General principles regarding price
103
Meaning of FIXED and FLOATING CAPITAL
106
General law in experimental science
111
16
112
Meaning of SUPPLY
118
Progress of public opinion respecting Copyright
124
37
125
40
126
CHAPTER I
127
50
133
51
134
Corn is an example of the error that cost of production
148
Especially in the case of public debts
156
Gold and silver the measures but not the standard of value
163
SECTION II
170
Price is in all cases a struggle between buyer and seller
177
ON THE APPLICATION OF THE LAW OF PRICE TO CASES OF THE PURCHASE
188
Meaning of EXCHANGEABLE VALUE
200
72
235
Preliminary Remarks
241
It is not labor that confers value but value that attracts labor 23
246
Meaning of CONSUMPTION
250
What currency
260
35
261
The quantities of Currency in different countries vary very
263
Example of this
266
Essential distinction between real and accommodation bills
272
6
280
46
339
Stoppage of the Bank of England in 1797
350
CHAPTER VI
353
23
355
An alteration in the Mint price of gold means an alteration
361
Overtrading causes an outflow of bullion
371
Different effects that may be produced by introducing more
372
Errors on this subject
381
77
385
The two causes which indicate the rate of Exchange
391
97
397
Exchanges and the market price of bullion
403
The same continued
440
Specific meaning of overissue
448
Meaning of CAPITAL and CREDIT
451
First conception of Capital and Interest
458
SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE CURRENCY OF ENGLAND
459
2
467
80
473
20
476
116
508
SECTION PAGE 71 Great rise in the price of gold and fall in the exchanges
516
State of facts agreed upon
517
Some of the doctrines maintained by the Committee
519
81
520
The Government maintains that the coinage of England never did contain any definite weight of bullion
521
Absurdity of this opinion
522
The House of Commons votes that 21 was equal to 27
523
Consequences of this vote Further depreciation of the note
524
Great mercantile disasters in 18151617
525
Great destruction of paper currency and restoration of the remainder to par
526
Third suspension of cash payments by the Bank of England
527
Appointment of committees by both Houses of Parliament
528
The British pound means 5dwts 3274grns of gold 22
529
Table shewing the different values for which the pound weight of silver and gold were ordered to pass current by various mint indentures from 1344...
531
Table showing the chief variations in the market price of gold bullion from 1790 to 1819 and the true value of the Bank of England 1 note during th...
532
CHAPTER VII
533
Great importance of the question
535
The whole end of Political Economy is to regulate the currency
536
23
542
40
556
principle
560
Sir Robert Peels statements erroneous
562
Plan of the Act
564
First trial of the Act
565
The same continued
566
Triumph of the principles of the Bullion Report
567
The Bank Act composed of two incongruous elements
568
Second suspension of the Act
569
65
570
Fatal defect of the Bank Act and true method of regulating the Paper Currency
571
Absurdity of the Currency principle
572

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Page 194 - value of corn is regulated by the quantity of labour bestowed on its production on that quality of land, or with that portion of capital, which pays no rent. Corn is not high because a rent is paid, but a rent is paid because corn is high...
Page 208 - The five following are the principal circumstances which, so far as I have been able to observe, make up for a small pecuniary gain in some employments, and counterbalance a great one in others...
Page 190 - Rent is that portion of the produce of the earth which is paid to the landlord for the use of the original and indestructible powers of the soil. It is often, however, confounded with the interest and profit of capital, and, in popular language, the term is applied to whatever is annually paid by a farmer to his landlord.
Page 282 - ... any body politic or corporate whatsoever created or to be created, or for any other persons whatsoever united or to be united in covenants or partnership exceeding the number of six persons in that part of Great Britain called England, to borrow, owe, or take up any sum or sums of money on their bills or notes payable on demand or at any less time than six months from the borrowing thereof...
Page 210 - The probability that any particular person shall ever be qualified for the employment to which he is educated is very different in different occupations. In the greater part of mechanic trades, success is almost certain; but very uncertain in the liberal professions. Put your son apprentice to a shoemaker, there is little doubt of his learning to make a pair of shoes; but send him to study the law, it is at least twenty to one if ever he makes such proficiency as will enable him to live by the business.
Page 318 - Credit has a great, but not, as many people seem to suppose, a magical power ; it cannot make something out of nothing. How often is an extension of credit talked of as equivalent to a creation of capital, or as if credit actually were capital.
Page 114 - ... and exclusively enjoyed by those who have peculiar facilities of production ; but by the greater quantity of labour necessarily bestowed on their production by those who have no such facilities ; by those who continue to produce them under the most...
Page 439 - ... hands are safe, the operation is so far, and in this, its first step, useful and productive to the public. But as soon as the portion of circulating medium in which the advance was thus made, performs in the hands of him to whom it was advanced, this, its first operation as capital — as soon as the notes are exchanged by him for some other article which is capital, they fall into the channel of circulation, as so much circulating medium, and form an addition to the mass of currency.
Page 463 - The evils produced by this state of the currency were not such as have generally been thought worthy to occupy a prominent place in history. Yet it may well be doubted whether all the misery which had been inflicted on the English nation in a quarter of a century by bad Kings, bad Ministers, bad Parliaments, and bad Judges, was equal to the misery caused in a single year by bad crowns and bad shillings.
Page 205 - The market price of labour is the price which is really paid for it, from the natural operation of the proportion of the supply to the demand; labour is dear when it is scarce and cheap when it is plentiful. However much the market price of labour may deviate from its natural price, it has, like commodities, a tendency to conform to it.

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