CAPITALISM a Treatise on Economics George Reisman
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
CAPITALISM CAPITALISM A Treatise on Economics Prepublication, Interim Edition George Reisman Jameson Books, Ottawa, Illinois Copyright © 1998, 1996, 1990 by George Reisman. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. Mail order copies of this book may be purchased from the publisher by call- ing 800-426-1357. All inquiries should be addressed to Jameson Books, 722 Columbus St., Ottawa, IL 61350. (815)-434-7905. Fax: (815)-434-7907. Distributed to the book trade by MidPoint Trade Books. All returns to the MidPoint warehouse. Bookstores, please call 800-243-0138 to order. Photocopying of excerpts from Jameson Books editions are licensed through the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923. Call 508-750-8400 for information. ISBN: 0-915463-73-3 Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 96-78105 Manufactured in the United States of America 09 08 07 06 05 04 / 8 7 6 5 4 To Ludwig von Mises, my teacher, and Edith Packer, my wife. CONTENTS IN BRIEF PREFACE xxxix INTRODUCTION 1 PART ONE THE FOUNDATIONS OF ECONOMICS CHAPTER 1. ECONOMICS AND CAPITALISM 15 CHAPTER 2. WEALTH AND ITS ROLE IN HUMAN LIFE 39 CHAPTER 3. NATURAL RESOURCES AND THE ENVIRONMENT 63 PART TWO THE DIVISION OF LABOR AND CAPITALISM CHAPTER 4. THE DIVISION OF LABOR AND PRODUCTION 123 CHAPTER 5. THE DEPENDENCE OF THE DIVISION OF LABOR ON CAPITALISM I 135 CHAPTER 6. THE DEPENDENCE OF THE DIVISION OF LABOR ON CAPITALISM II: THE PRICE SYSTEM AND ECONOMIC COORDINATION 172 CHAPTER 7. THE DEPENDENCE OF THE DIVISION OF LABOR ON CAPITALISM III: PRICE CONTROLS AND ECONOMIC CHAOS 219 CHAPTER 8. THE DEPENDENCE OF THE DIVISION OF LABOR ON CAPITALISM IV: SOCIALISM, ECONOMIC CHAOS, AND TOTALITARIAN DICTATORSHIP 267 CHAPTER 9. THE INFLUENCE OF THE DIVISION OF LABOR ON THE INSTITUTIONS OF CAPITALISM 296 CHAPTER 10. MONOPOLY VERSUS FREEDOM OF COMPETITION 375 CHAPTER 11. THE DIVISION OF LABOR AND THE CONCEPT OF PRODUCTIVE ACTIVITY 441 PART THREE THE PROCESS OF ECONOMIC PROGRESS CHAPTER 12. MONEY AND SPENDING 503 CHAPTER 13. PRODUCTIONISM, SAY’S LAW, AND UNEMPLOYMENT 542 CHAPTER 14. THE PRODUCTIVITY THEORY OF WAGES 603 viii CAPITALISM CHAPTER 15. AGGREGATE PRODUCTION, AGGREGATE SPENDING, AND THE ROLE OF SAVING IN SPENDING 673 CHAPTER 16. THE NET-CONSUMPTION/NET-INVESTMENT THEORY OF PROFIT AND INTEREST 719 CHAPTER 17. APPLICATIONS OF THE INVARIABLE-MONEY/NET-CONSUMPTION ANALYSIS 809 CHAPTER 18. KEYNESIANISM: A CRITIQUE 863 CHAPTER 19. GOLD VERSUS INFLATION 895 EPILOGUE CHAPTER 20. TOWARD THE ESTABLISHMENT OF LAISSEZ-FAIRE CAPITALISM 969 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WRITINGS IN DEFENSE OF CAPITALISM 993 INDEX 1001 CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES xxxv LIST OF TABLES xxxvii PREFACE xxxix Notes l INTRODUCTION 1. Procapitalist Economic Thought, Past and Present 1 2. Pseudoeconomic Thought 6 Marshallian Neoclassical Economics: The Monopoly Doctrine and Keynesianism 7 Mathematical Economics 8 3. Overview of This Book 9 Notes 11 PART ONE THE FOUNDATIONS OF ECONOMICS CHAPTER 1. ECONOMICS AND CAPITALISM PART A. THE NATURE AND IMPORTANCE OF ECONOMICS 1. Economics, the Division of Labor, and the Survival of Material Civilization 15 2. Further Major Applications of Economics 16 Solving Politico-Economic Problems 16 Understanding History 17 Implications for Ethics and Personal Understanding 17 Economics and Business 18 Economics and the Defense of Individual Rights 18 PART B. CAPITALISM 1. The Philosophical Foundations of Capitalism and Economic Activity 19 2. Capitalism and Freedom 21 Freedom and Government 21 Freedom as the Foundation of Security 22 x CAPITALISM The Indivisibility of Economic and Political Freedom 23 The Rational Versus the Anarchic Concept of Freedom 23 The Decline of Freedom in the United States 26 The Growth of Corruption as the Result of the Decline of Freedom 26 3. Capitalism and the Origin of Economic Institutions 27 4. Capitalism and the Economic History of the United States 28 5. Why Economics and Capitalism Are Controversial 31 The Assault on Economic Activity and Capitalism 31 The Prevailing Prescientific Worldview in the Realm of Economics 32 Economics Versus Unscientific Personal Observations 32 Economics Versus Altruism 33 Economics Versus Irrational Self-Interest 34 Economics Versus Irrationalism 35 6. Economics and Capitalism: Science and Value 36 Notes 37 CHAPTER 2. WEALTH AND ITS ROLE IN HUMAN LIFE 1. Wealth and Goods 39 2. Economics and Wealth 41 3. The Limitless Need and Desire for Wealth 42 Human Reason and the Scope and Perfectibility of Need Satisfactions 43 Progress and Happiness 45 The Objectivity of Economic Progress: A Critique of the Doctrines of Cultural Relativism and Conspicuous Consumption 46 The Objective Value of a Division-of-Labor, Capitalist Society 48 4. The Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility and the Limitless Need for Wealth 49 5. Applications of the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility 51 Resolution of the Value Paradox 51 Determination of Value by Cost of Production 52 Determination of Consumer Spending Patterns 52 Say’s Law 53 CONTENTS xi 6. “Scarcity” and the Transformation of Its Nature Under Capitalism 54 7. Time Preference and the Scarcity of Capital 55 The Foundations of Time Preference 55 The Scarcity of Capital 56 A Word on Capital Accumulation and the Rate of Return 58 Time Preference, Rationality, and Freedom 58 8. Wealth and Labor 58 The Scarcity of Labor and Its Ineradicability 59 Notes 61 CHAPTER 3. NATURAL RESOURCES AND THE ENVIRONMENT PART A. NATURAL RESOURCES 1. The Limitless Potential of Natural Resources 63 The Energy Crisis 66 2. The Law of Diminishing Returns 67 The Law of Diminishing Returns and the Limitless Potential of Natural Resources 69 Diminishing Returns and the Need for Economic Progress 70 3. Conservationism: A Critique 71 PART B. THE ECOLOGICAL ASSAULT ON ECONOMIC PROGRESS 1. The Hostility to Economic Progress 76 2. The Claims of the Environmental Movement and Its Pathology of Fear and Hatred 76 The Actual Nature of Industrial Civilization 76 The Environmental Movement’s Dread of Industrial Civilization 78 The Toxicity of Environmentalism and the Alleged Intrinsic Value of Nature 80 The Alleged Pollution of Water and Air and Destruction of Species 83 The Alleged Threat from Toxic Chemicals, Including Acid Rain and Ozone Depletion 85 The Dishonesty of the Environmentalists’ Claims 86 The Alleged Threat of “Global Warming” 87 Why Economic Activity Necessarily Tends to Improve the Environment 90 3. The Collectivist Bias of Environmentalism 91 Environmentalism and Irrational Product Liability 95 xii CAPITALISM Environmentalism and the Externalities Doctrine 96 4. The Economic and Philosophic Significance of Environmentalism 98 5. Environmentalism, the Intellectuals, and Socialism 99 6. Environmentalism and Irrationalism 106 The Loss of the Concept of Economic Progress 106 Irrational Skepticism 106 The Destructive Role of Contemporary Education 107 The Cultural Devaluation of Man 112 Notes 115 PART TWO THE DIVISION OF LABOR AND CAPITALISM CHAPTER 4. THE DIVISION OF LABOR AND PRODUCTION 1. The Division of Labor and the Productivity of Labor 123 The Multiplication of Knowledge 123 The Benefit from Geniuses 124 Concentration on the Individual’s Advantages 125 Geographical Specialization 125 Economies of Learning and Motion 126 The Use of Machinery 127 2. The Division of Labor and Society 128 3. Rebuttal of the Critique of the Division of Labor 129 4. Universal Aspects of Production 130 Notes 133 CHAPTER 5. THE DEPENDENCE OF THE DIVISION OF LABOR ON CAPITALISM I PART A. THE NATURE OF THE DEPENDENCIES 1. Dependence of the Division of Labor on Private Ownership of the Means of Production 135 Socialism and Collectivism Versus Economic Planning 136 Capitalist Planning and the Price System 137 2. The Dependence of the Division of Labor on Saving and Capital Accumulation 139 CONTENTS xiii 3. The Dependence of the Division of Labor on Exchange and Money 141 4. The Dependence of the Division of Labor on Economic Competition 144 5. The Dependence of the Division of Labor on the Freedom of Economic Inequality 145 Egalitarianism and the Abolition of Cost: The Example of Socialized Medicine 148 Government Intervention, Democracy, and the Destruction of the Individual’s Causal Role 150 Summary 150 PART B. ELEMENTS OF PRICE THEORY: DEMAND, SUPPLY, AND COST OF PRODUCTION 1. The Meaning of Demand and Supply 152 2. The Law of Demand 155 The Concept of Elasticity of Demand 158 Seeming Exceptions to the Law of Demand 161 The Derivation of Supply Curves 162 Limitations of Geometrical Analysis 165 Confusions Between Supply and Cost 167 The Circularity of Contemporary Economics’ Concept of Demand 169 Notes 169 CHAPTER 6. THE DEPENDENCE OF THE DIVISION OF LABOR ON CAPITALISM II: THE PRICE SYSTEM AND ECONOMIC COORDINATION PART A. UNIFORMITY PRINCIPLES 1. The Uniformity-of-Profit Principle and Its Applications 172 Keeping the Various Branches of Industry in Proper Balance 173 The Power of the Consumers to Determine the Relative Size of the Various Industries 174 The Impetus to Continuous Economic Progress 176 Profits and the Repeal of Price Controls 180 The Effect of Business Tax Exemptions and Their Elimination 183 Additional Bases for the Uniformity-of-Profit Principle 183 Permanent Inequalities in the Rate of Profit 185 2. The Tendency Toward a Uniform Price for the Same Good Throughout the World 187 Why the Arab Oil Embargo Would Not Have Been a Threat to a Free Economy 188 Tariffs, Transportation Costs, and the Case for Unilateral Free Trade 190 xiv CAPITALISM 3. The Tendency Toward Uniform Prices Over Time: The Function of Commodity Speculation 191 Rebuttal of the Charge That the Oil Shortages of the 1970s Were “Manufactured” by the Oil Companies 192 4. The Tendency Toward Uniform Wage Rates for Workers of the Same Degree of Ability 194 Equal Pay for Equal Work: Capitalism Versus Racism 196 5.