a general over-production of wealth; a supply of commodities in the aggregate surpassing the demand; and a consequent depressed condition of all classes of producers.
The doctrine appears to me to involve so much inconsistency in its very conception that I feel considerable difficulty in giving any statement of it which shall be at once clear and satisfactory to its supporters. They agree in maintaining that there may be, and sometimes is, an excess of productions in general beyond the demand for them; that when this happens, purchasers can not be found at prices which will repay the cost of production with a profit; that there ensues a general depression of prices or values (they are seldom [pg 366] accurate in discriminating between the two), so that producers, the more they produce, find themselves the poorer instead of richer; and Dr. Chalmers accordingly inculcates on capitalists the practice of a moral restraint in reference to the pursuit of gain, while Sismondi deprecates machinery and the various inventions