SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



Embedded in Doctor Kale's concept of chemurgy is 

 the principle behind mass production: the idea that 

 you can make more money by selling a hundred units 

 at a dollar than twenty-five at two dollars each. Put the 

 other way around, ten cents' profit on one hundred sales 

 is greater than twenty cents' profit on twenty-five sales, 

 as great indeed, as a profit of forty cents on twenty-five 

 sales. 



That is a very modern notion. Until the use of power 

 machinery made mass production possible, it could not 

 have occurred to anyone. Throughout the long ages 

 the formula for big profits has always been restricted 

 production and fancy prices. 



The new principle of amassing a fortune by lowering 

 your price to increase your sales was first tried on an 

 industrial scale only a century and a quarter ago by 

 James Muspratt when he was fighting to sell English 

 soapmakers chemical soda ash to replace natural pot- 

 ashes. Cheap alkali meant not only cheaper soap, but 

 also cheaper paper, glass, and textiles. Seth Thomas and 

 the other Connecticut clockmakers learned this same 

 trick two generations before Henry Ford and his com- 

 petitors proved it so sensationally by selling more and 

 more automobiles for less and less. 



But the old scarcity formula dies hard. It is the basis 

 of all Government plans for relief, price control, and full 

 employment, none of which contains any hint of the 

 truth that lower prices benefit everyone while high 



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