Jean-Baptiste Say: Productivity

Jean-Baptiste Say was French economist and businessman. Explore interesting quotes on productivity.
Jean-Baptiste Say: 144   quotes 0   likes

“Which leads us to a conclusion that may at first appear paradoxical, namely, that it is production which opens a demand for products.”

Jean-Baptiste Say

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book I, On Production, Chapter XV, p. 133 (See also: Say's Law)
Context: A man who applies his labour to the investing of objects with value by the creation of utility of some sort, can not expect such a value to be appreciated and paid for, unless where other men have the means of purchasing it. Now, of what do these means consist? Of other values of other products, likewise the fruits of industry, capital, and land. Which leads us to a conclusion that may at first appear paradoxical, namely, that it is production which opens a demand for products.

Appearance

“Labour, upon whichever of those operations it be bestowed, is productive, because it concurs in the creation of a product. Thus the labour of the philosopher, whether experimental or literary, is productive; the labour of the adventurer or master-manufacturer is productive, although he perform no actual manual work; the labour of every operative workman is productive, from the common day-labourer in agriculture, to the pilot that governs the motion of a ship.”

Jean-Baptiste Say

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book I, On Production, Chapter VII, p. 85

“All travellers agree that protestant are both richer and more populous than catholic countries; and the reason is, because the habits of the former are more conducive to production.”

Jean-Baptiste Say

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book II, On Distribution, Chapter XI, Section I, p. 381 (See also: Max Weber)

Travel , Country

“The encouragement of mere consumption is no benefit to commerce; for the difficulty lies in supplying the means, not in stimulating the desire of consumption; and we have seen that production alone, furnishes those means. Thus, it is the aim of good government to stimulate production, of bad government to encourage consumption.”

Jean-Baptiste Say

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book I, On Production, Chapter XV, p. 138

“When a tree, a natural product, is felled, is society put into possession of no greater produce than that of the mere labour of the woodman?”

Jean-Baptiste Say

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book I, On Production, Chapter IV, p. 76

Nature , Tree

“The occupation of the stock-jobber yields no new or useful product; consequently having no product of his own to give in exchange, he has no revenue to subsist upon, but what he contrives to make out of the unskilfulness or ill-fortune of gamesters like himself.”

Jean-Baptiste Say

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book III, On Consumption, Chapter IX, p. 481 (See also: Karl Marx, Capital, Volume III, Chapter XXVII, p. 440)

“The most effectual encouragement to population is, the activity of industry, and the consequent multiplication of the national products.”

Jean-Baptiste Say

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book II, On Distribution, Chapter XI, Section I, p. 375 (See also: Thomas Malthus)

“regulation is useful and proper, when aimed at the prevention of fraud or contrivance, manifestly injurious to other kinds of production, or to the public safety, and not at prescribing the nature of the products and the methods of fabrication.”

Jean-Baptiste Say

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book I, On Production, Chapter XVII, Section II, p. 181

Fraud , Nature

“Capital can seldom be made productive, without undergoing several changes both of form and of place, the risk of which is always more or less alarming to persons unaccustomed to the operations of industry; whereas, on the contrary, landed property produces without any change of either quality or position.”

Jean-Baptiste Say

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book II, On Distribution, Chapter IX, Section I, p. 363

Change , Personality

“Capital must work, as it were, in concert with industry; and this concurrence is what I call the productive agency of capital.”

Jean-Baptiste Say

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book I, On Production, Chapter III, p. 73

“The celebrated Adam Smith was the first to point out the immense increase of production, and the superior perfection of products referable to this division of labour.”

Jean-Baptiste Say

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book I, On Production, Chapter VIII, p. 91

Perfection

“One product is always ultimately bought with another, even when paid for in the first instance with money.”

Jean-Baptiste Say

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book II, On Distribution, Chapter IV, 306

Money

“capital cannot be more beneficially employed, then in strengthening and aiding the productive powers of nature.”

Jean-Baptiste Say

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book II, On Distribution, Chapter VIII, Section III, p. 357

Nature