456 proceedings of section g. 



Wants of Man. 



Wants of man determine the requisite extent and proportion 

 of active productive labour services and of man's productive 

 instrumental auxiliaries. 



Services would never become a marketable commodity of 

 exchange were it not for wants. Kinds of services, therefore, 

 must be exactly proportionate to kinds of wants. The great wants 

 — food, clothing, and shelter — are, by far, the greatest factors in 

 the determination of the aggregate numbers that must be employed 

 if the essential wants of the people are to be satisfied. The same 

 three great wants also determine the necessary amount and pro- 

 portions of man's auxiliary tools, instruments, and trained and 

 captured physical forces, constantly engaged in the great work of 

 production, modification, transport, and distribution of the 

 requisite necessaries and wants of life. 



It is not absolutely necessary, however, that the manufac- 

 turing, agricultural, and other industries of any one country 

 should preserve the world's strict average proportions to each 

 other, so long as it is free to make the necessary exchanges with 

 other countries for disposing, or making good, their respective 

 local surpluses and deficiencies. Nevertheless, countries confined 

 to the production of their own wants, or what is the same, the 

 world as a whole, must necessarily preserve the strict average pro- 

 portion and quantity of labour and auxiliary machinery in the 

 production of those three great wants which are the mainsprings 

 of all human activities, both mental and physical. 



Limitations of the Claims of Capital. 



It matters not how gresPt or just the claims of economic capital 

 may be, it is inevitable from the very nature of things that all 

 rewards for the various services engaged in the production of the 

 wants of man (" consumable wealth ") are limited and determined, 

 in the aggregate, by the amount of social consumable wealth — 

 material and immaterial — that may be actually produced in any 

 one year, or at any one period of time. 



Any increase in the effective productive forces of any one year 

 increases the purchasing power of the consumer. 



Obversely, any influence (such as wars, failure of seasonal 

 yields of stocks and crops, or cessation or arrest of important indus- 

 tries by strikes) which diminishes the annual supply of consumable 

 wealth, has the immediate effect of increasing the " cost of living," 

 and in a coi'responding measure, of lessening the purchasing power 

 of consumers. In this place it may be of advantage to take into 

 consideration the important question : — 



When and how does the germ of economic price or exchange 

 value arise 1 



