From Considerations upon the East-India Trade

Henry Martyn

Chapter 7 in Readings in the Economics of the Division of Labor:The Classical Tradition, 2005, pp 67-70 from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

Abstract: AbstractArts, and mills, and engines, which save the labor of hands are ways of doing things with less labor, and consequently with labor of less price, though the wages of men employed to do them should not be abated. The East-India Trade procures things with less and cheaper labor than would be necessary to make the like in England; it is therefore very likely to be the cause of the invention of arts, and mills, and engines, to save the labor of hands in other manufactures. Such things are successively invented to do a great deal of work with little labor of hands; they are the effects of necessity and emulation; every man must be still inventing himself, or be still advancing to farther perfection upon the invention of other men; if my neighbour by doing much with little labor, can sell cheap, I must contrive to sell as cheap as he. So that every art, trade, or engine, doing work with labor of fewer hands, and consequently cheaper, begets in others a kind of necessity and emulation, either of using the fame art, trade, or engine, or of inventing something like it, that every man may be upon the square, that no man may be able to undersell his neighbour. And thus the East-India Trade by procuring things with less, and consequently cheaper labor, is a very likely way of forcing men upon the invention of arts and engines, by which other things may be also done with less and cheaper labor, and therefore may abate the price of manufactures, though the wages of men should not be abated…

Keywords: Division of Labor; Specialization; Extent of the Market; Knowledge; Political Economy; History of Economic Thought; Increasing Returns; Equilibrium; Price System; Coordination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C1 C7 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
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