Section CXXXI.. History of the Prices of the Chief Wants of Life. (continued.)

History Of The Prices Of The Chief Wants Of Life. (Continued.)

A. In the case of a great many raw materials, we repeatedly find the following to be the course of development. In the lower stages of civilization, they grow of themselves, and in such quantities that a small amount of labor, and that only the labor of occupation, more than suffices to satisfy the small demand for them. Here, naturally enough, the price of raw materials is very low. After this, it rises with every advance made in civilization, for two reasons: first, because the demand becomes greater and greater; and then, because the naturally free sources of production, called into requisition by other wants, now flow less and less abundantly.(793) This rise in price continues until the point is reached at which it becomes customary, instead of the mere occupation of the free gifts of nature, to bring forth the commodities in question by the more laborious process of production proper. From this time forward, the usual seeking of prices for a level requires that our commodity should, like all others which suppose an equal sacrifice of the means of production, claim an equal value in exchange. If from any peculiar causes, the production of this commodity is not at all possible, or if it is capable of no great extension, its price, which would under the circumstances, be limited only by the purchasing power of the buyer, might attain the utmost extreme reached in prices under the spur of vanity or of the mere love of the commodity itself. The latter is true especially in the case of venison;(794) the former, in the case of the tame cattle,(795) fresh-water fish,(796) and wood.(797)(798)