Henry Charles Carey Quotes
The larger the return to labour, the greater will be the power to accumulate capital. The larger the proportion which capital seeking to be employed bears to the labourers who are to employ it, the larger will be the wages of labour, the greater the power of the labourer to accumulate for himself, and the more perfect will be his control over the disposition of his labour and the application of its proceeds, whether to private or public purposes....
America’s first political economist
Henry Charles Carey, 1793-1879, Political Economist & Publisher The Harmony of Interests: Agricultural, Manufacturing & Commercial, 1851
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This remarkable treatise is one of the first to explain the concept of Balance of Trade.
Ironically, Fitzhugh who detested socialism, held this basic socialist principle. His solution however, was that the profits were necessary for society, and therefore slavery was the solution for Blacks AND whites.
At the time this was generally true for most businesses. However, in a modern economy, there are other ways. Increasing volume, automation, innovating products and services to get premium prices naw are standard techniques.
Fitzhugh was a Southern iconoclast whose view of Northern labor was much like that of Karl Marx but who was an enthusiastic supporter of slavery.
His answer was what Max Weber called “The Protestant Work Ethic.”
This is not a common quotation from Thoreau. The great man for whom the establishment had so much respect had a very anti-capitalist streak. His view is that the employer will generally never pay his laborers a fair wage. Instead he will pay the laborer the lowest rate for which he can obtain the laborers services. If the laborer generates added value for his wage, the employer is in a zero sum game with the laborer. If part of the added value—the profit is paid to the laborer, the employer does not have it for himself (or his stockholders). In most cases, the laborer is forced to work for his and his family’s subsistence. This theory argues that they only way the laborer will get a fair wage is if there is a labor shortage (assuming no government laws or union pressure is in the picture. Many capitalists argue that a “fair” wage is what a free man is willing to work for and a free employer is willing to pay. So economics is like politics in general with respect to fairness—there is no universally accepted definition of what is fair.
While it was true that wages did not increase beyond inflation, the enormous increase in productivity—about a doubling—was not only due to the workers but was also due to the capital investment that the companies made in computers, robots, job restructuring, advanced training, and other management initiatives. Historically, when there are substantial productivity increases, the benefit is shared between the workers and the company as both were necessary to produce the increase in productivity. But since 1980, the workers have not obtained any significant share of the productivity increase.
Executed by the English for his part in the Easter Uprising. Most revolutionaries seeking independence become so focused on their revolution that they begin to believe that independence will solve all problems. Connelly was one of the more sophisticated ones who realized that many of the economic problems of Ireland had nothing to do with independence or the lack thereof.
Henry Charles Carey was the leading 19th-century economist of the American School, and chief economic adviser to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.
