Section CXXX.. History of the Prices of the Chief Wants of Life.

History Of The Prices Of The Chief Wants Of Life.

The higher civilization advances, the dearer all those commodities in the production of which the factor nature with value in exchange predominates are apt to become; and the cheaper, on the other hand, all those in which labor and capital play the principal productive part.(790) This is accounted for, not only by the almost unlimited capacity of labor and capital to be increased, while the natural forces which have value in exchange are susceptible of increase to so small an extent; but also, and especially, because new additions of labor and capital are wont to cause relatively smaller results in the production of raw material, and relatively larger ones in industry and commerce. (§ 33, ff).(791)

Hence, from the relations the prices of the different classes of commodities bear to one another, we may draw important conclusions as to the degree of civilization which a country has attained. The above law also affords an explanation of the fact, that a young nation, which has made no great strides in the way of development, and in which, of course, the production of raw material preponderates, draw their commercial and manufactured necessaries, by way of preference, from precisely the most highly civilized foreign nations. The latter are in a condition, and accustomed, to give the largest quantity and the best quality of manufactured articles for a required quantity of raw material; and, of course, vice versa. Hence, in this intercourse of nations, the most urgent want, and the completest and easiest possibility of satisfying it, meet.(792) Only very highly civilized mother-countries can hold fast to colonial possessions in our day.