The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - a Study of Machine Production: With an Excerpt From Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism by v. I. Lenin by John Atkinson Hobson & V. I. Lenin

Author:John Atkinson Hobson & V. I. Lenin [Hobson, John Atkinson & Lenin, V. I.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Communism; Post-Communism & Socialism, Philosophy, Public Policy, Capitalism, Political Ideologies, Political Science, Political, Economic Policy
ISBN: 9781528788977
Google: LJu2DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Read Books Ltd
Published: 2019-10-11T09:06:55+00:00

f (the current rate of consumption) determines the quantity of real productive power of capital that can be effectively employed at each point, a, b, c, d, e. The condition of the arts of industry, including the rates of wages and other conditions of the labour market, determines how many forms of capital (mills, warehouses, ironworks, raw material, etc.) at any given time are socially requisite to embody this capital. But though fhas an economic power to force into existence the requisite minimum of these forms of capital, it has no power to prevent the pressure of individual interests from exceeding that minimum and planting at a, b, c, d, emore forms of capital than are required.

Secondly, over-production or a general glut is only an external phase or symptom of the real malady. The disease is under-consumption or over-saving. These two imply one another. The real income of a community in any given year is divisible into two parts, that which is produced and consumed, that which is produced and not consumed—i.e., is saved. Any disturbance in the due economic proportion of these two parts means an excess of the one and a defect of the other. All under-consumption therefore implies a correspondent over-saving. This over-saving is embodied in an excess of machinery and goods over the quantity economically required to assist in maintaining current consumption. It must, however, be remembered that this over-saving is not measured by the quantity of new mills, machinery, etc., put into industry. When the mechanism of industry is once thoroughly congested, over-saving may still continue, but will be represented by a progressive under-use of existing forms of capital, that unemployment of forms of capital and labour which makes trade depression.

An increased quantity of saving is requisite to provide for an expected increase of consumption arising from a growth of population or from any other cause. Such increased saving is of course not over-saving. The proportion, as well as the absolute amount of the community's income which is saved, may at any time be legitimately increased, provided that at some not distant time an increased proportion of the then current income be consumed. If in a progressive community the proportion of "saving" to consumption, in order to maintain the current standard of living with the economic minimum of "forms" of capital, be as 2 to 10, the proportion of saving in any given year may be raised to 3 to 9, in order to provide for a future condition in which saving shall fall to 1 to 11. Such increased "saving" will not be over-saving; the forms of capital in which it is embodied will not compete with previously existing forms so as to bring down market prices. The efforts which take the form of permanent improvements of the soil, the erection of fine buildings, docks, railways, etc., for future use, may provide the opportunity to a community of increasing the proportion of its savings for a number of years. But such savings must be followed by an increased future consumption without a correspondent saving attached to it.

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