Essentials of economic theory, as applied to modern problems of industry and public policy . as theamount of labor growslarger, rendering theproduct of the last unitthe smallest of the tenth andlast unit is working,each one of the nineearlier units is, of itself, producing no more than does the final one, thoughit formerly produced more because of the largerquota of capital with which it was formerly Test of Final Productivity. — There are now atwork ten units of capital and ten of labor, and wecannot go through the process of building up the work-ing force from the begin
Essentials of economic theory, as applied to modern problems of industry and public policy . as theamount of labor growslarger, rendering theproduct of the last unitthe smallest of the tenth andlast unit is working,each one of the nineearlier units is, of itself, producing no more than does the final one, thoughit formerly produced more because of the largerquota of capital with which it was formerly Test of Final Productivity. — There are now atwork ten units of capital and ten of labor, and wecannot go through the process of building up the work-ing force from the beginning. How, then, do wemeasure the true product of a single unit of labor?By withdrawing that unit, letting the industry go onby the aid of all the capital and one unit of labor theless. Whatever one of the ten units of labor we takeaway we leave only nine working. If the forms ofthe capital change so as to allow the nine units to useit advantageously, the product will not be reducedto nine tenths of its former size, but it will still bereduced; and the amount of the diminution measures. 140 ESSENTIALS OF ECONOMIC THEORY the amount of product that can be attributed to oneunit of bare labor. Or we may add a certain num-ber of workmen to a social force already at work,making no change in the amount of the capital, —though changing its forms, — and see how muchadditional product we get. That also is a test offinal productivity. It gives the same measurementas does the experiment of taking away the littledetachment of men and seeing how much the productshrinks. By either process we measure an amountthat is attributable altogether to bare labor and notto capital. The whole area BCD in the diagram is an amountof product that is attributable to capital and not tolabor. It represents the total surplus produced bylabor and capital over the amount that can be tracedto the labor alone. The product of all the capitaland all the labor minus ten times the product of asingle unit of labo
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidesse, booksubjecteconomics
