2. In the economic order, monopoly contributes to the increase of
comfort, in the first place by adding to the general wealth
through the perfecting of methods, and then by
CAPITALIZING,--that is, by consolidating the conquests of labor
obtained by division, machinery, and competition. From this
effect of monopoly has resulted the economic fiction by which the
capitalist is considered a producer and capital an agent of
production; then, as a consequence of this fiction, the theory of
NET PRODUCT and GROSS PRODUCT.
On this point we have a few considerations to present. First let
us quote J. B. Say:
The value produced is the GROSS product: after the costs of
production have been deducted, this value is the NET product.
Considering a nation as a whole, it has no net product; for, as
products have no value beyond the costs of production, when these
costs are cut off, the entire value of the product is cut off.
National production, annual production, should always therefore
be understood as gross production.
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