price far out of proportion to the diminution in the supply; in the other (b), no one being inclined to increase his usual consumption, the competition of sellers, in their eagerness to find a market for the superfluous portion of the supply, is equally powerful to depress it.”
Chapter II. Influence Of The Progress Of Industry And Population On Rents, Profits, And Wages.
§ 1. Characteristic features of industrial Progress.
Continuing the inquiry into the nature of the economical changes taking place in a society which is in a state of industrial progress, we shall next consider what is the effect of that progress on the distribution of the produce among the various classes who share in it. We may confine our attention to the system of distribution which is the most complex, and which virtually includes all others—that in which the produce of manufactures is shared between two classes, laborers and capitalists, and the produce of agriculture among three, laborers, capitalists, and landlords.
The characteristic features of what is commonly meant by industrial