Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1921 edition. Excerpt: ... drudgery, but their brains are not resting. If they play golf two or three times a week, they do it not merely because they enjoy the game but because they know they must keep physically fit if they are to solve the problems of their business easily, or discover ways of making their organization more efficient, or find ways of opening up larger markets. Altho the entrepreneur is thinking primarily of his own profit, nevertheless his thinking and planning inevitably lead to lower costs of production, to lower prices of commodities, to the increase of wealth and to higher wages for labor. If we should take away unusual profits from business men, we should deprive them of the very incentive which now makes industrial progress as certain as the rising and setting of the sun. The Bolshevists have tried the experiment in Russia, and we all know the result. The reader will find if he consults the statistics of different countries, that wages are highest in those countries where the profits of business are largest, and lowest in countries where business is not prosperous. 14. Profits and prices.--The preceding discussion must have already prepared the reader to accept the truth of the statement that profit is not a factor of the cost of production and is not a price determinant. Here we are speaking of net profit, which does not include the wage of management, that part of the gross profit which the entrepreneur might have earned had he been working for someone else. The cost of producing goods is made up of interest and wages. The rent of land and the net profits of business men do not enter into costs. The landlord gets a share of the world's new wealth because he owns land of more than ordinary fertility. The business man gets a profit...
