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

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

E. The products of industry become cheaper and cheaper as economic culture advances; whereas, for instance, in England, towards the end of the middle ages, a single shirt was considered of importance enough to be made not unfrequently an object of testamentary bequest.(811) And, indeed, the price of industrial products sinks lower the more important the part played in their production by capital and the division of labor is as compared with the part played by the raw material.(812) On this account, in recent times, fine cloths have grown, relatively speaking, much cheaper than coarse ones.(813) Lead, which during the middle ages in England was much cheaper than iron, because of the difficulty of mining the latter, has become much dearer in our days.(814) Conversely, where raw material plays the most important part in manufactures, the price of the manufactured article may increase with an advance in civilization. Hence, articles made of wood are procured at the cheapest rates in mountainous countries, where the division of labor is not carried very far, but where the raw material is cheap.(815)

F. But the price of commodities decreases, especially in the higher stages of civilization, to the extent that it is dependent on commerce.(816) Here capital and human labor almost exclusively are effective, and the modern improvements of communication, legal security and competition are especially striking.(817)

G. Since personal services are, as a rule, performed and received only by individuals, the principle in accordance with which labor in general becomes cheaper in the higher stages of civilization, does not apply to them to any great extent.(818) Yet we may claim that advancing civilization has pretty universally a twofold influence on the price paid for personal services. In the first place, freedom of competition, with the more accurate and equitable determination of price which it produces (in contradistinction to servitude, privilege and custom) always tends to obtain the upper hand; and further, by the growing combination of labor and of use (§§ 56, ff. 207), a better and better and more clearly defined gradation between ordinary services and those of a higher order is effected. When the latter cannot be increased at pleasure, the price paid for them may, as the wealth of consumers increases, become, from motives of vanity or of custom (Gebrauchsgründen), almost unlimited. The dancing maid, to whom Herod (Mark, 6, 23) promised even the half of his kingdom, is both in a politico-economical and in a moral sense a warning example to over-refined nations.(819)