  The Questions.—These questions are not intended to be used merely as Other questions are more of the nature of those in Problems in Political Economy, by W. G. Sumner (published by Holt & Co., New York, 1884), which are intended to be reasoned out in the light of principles given in the class-room. Many teachers and students have found much help in that little book, which in turn acknowledges large obligations to earlier lists of questions. The changed point of view in economic theory has, however, made most of the older problems of this nature unusable except after reformulation. Fertile in suggestions of both of the kinds of questions mentioned are two books by H. J. Davenport, Outlines of Economic Theory and Outlines of Elementary Economics (The Macmillan Co., New York, 1896 and 1897), though some of the questions imply theoretical views differing from those of this book. Excellent lists of questions with references to reading have been prepared by W. G. L. Taylor, in his Exercises in Economics (The University Publishing Co., Lincoln, Neb., 1900). The list of problems of this kind can easily be extended to meet the special conditions of each community. THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES.--The few references and critical notes given are intended as a help to teachers and advanced students desirous of following some of the more recent contributions to controverted points in economic theory. No attempt has been made to furnish a list of books for the beginner or the regular reader. Among accessible books containing helpful lists of that kind may be mentioned: Outlines of Economics, by R. T. Ely (published by Macmillan, New York, 2d ed., 1900). Contains both questions and bibliographies. Introduction to the Study of Economics, by C. J. Bullock (published by Silver, Burdett & Co., 2d ed., 1900). The references to the literature are given by pages or sections at the end of each chapter, and at the back is a list (about twenty pages) of the most useful texts, documents, and materials. Financial History of the United States, by D. R. Dewey (published by Longmans, Green & Co., 1903). Contains excellent references on public finances, tariff, banking, and taxation of the United States. Introduction to Economics, by H. R. Seager (published by Holt & Co., New York, 1903). Each of the first twenty-six chapters is followed by fresh and well-selected references varying from one line to nearly a page in length. A good general bibliographical note is given on pp. 61-2. Chapter 1. The Nature and Purpose of Political Economy1. Has political economy anything to do with woman suffrage, the liquor problem, a republican vs. a monarchical form of government, the silver question? 2. Is political economy a study of things or of men? 3. Shall a piece of coal be studied in geology, botany, physics, chemistry, or economics? 4. Do you expect to acquire wealth more easily as a result of the study of political economy? 5. Of what practical use do you think political economy is? 6. Is political economy necessary to the understanding of the business world, or vice versa? 7. How wide a knowledge would a complete understanding of industrial society require? 8. Did the discovery of America make the study of political economy more important? Chapter 2. The Economic Motives1. If you found $10 to-day on the street, what would you do with it? 2. What would be the chief differences between your use of it now and at the age of five or the age of twelve? 3. Name Crusoe's wants in the order of their importance. 4. Is it well to be contented with your lot? Is it well to be discontented? 5. Why does a horse like hay and a man prefer meat? 6. Are the wants of a savage more easily satisfied than those of civilized men? Why? 7. How many motives led you to come to college? 8. If you ever worked for wages, or a salary, was that the only motive? What else? 9. James Bryce says that the incomes of American university professors are much less than those of men of corresponding ability in law and medicine. If true, why? 10. If you could, would you do nothing always? Why? 11. Which would you prefer, to clerk in a store at $1.50 a day, or to lay masonry at $2? Why? 12. Do men work better under threat or when their pride is appealed to? 13. Is pride as powerful a motive as greed, in economic action? 14. Do you know any persons that work from a sense of duty alone? 15. Are charity workers usually well paid? Why? Chapter 3. Wealth and Welfare1. What is it to be economical of money? 2. Why did Crusoe work at all? 3. When he began to work at one thing, why did he ever stop to work at another? 4. What is the difference in utility between the water in a solid mountain reservoir and the same water when it is flooding the valley? 5. Does it change the utility of a load of powder to touch a match to it? 6. Is water useful? Is dynamite? 7. Is the last bait worth more when the fish are biting well? 8. Are the following wealth: food, tobacco, medicine, whisky, good looks, good health, a wooden leg? 9. Is a book full of useful information, wealth? Is a head full of useful knowledge, wealth? 10. Is a ship at the bottom of the ocean, or gold in the mine, wealth? 11. Is well-being in proportion to wealth? Why? 12. Are services, music, a theatrical performance, a gambler's pack of cards, wealth?
Chapter 4. The Nature of Demand1. Give illustrations of the difference between desire and demand. 2. Do people actually expend their incomes so as to get the maximum utility judged by a standard they would admit to be morally sound? 3. What causes a demand for an additional supply of food? Of books? 4. If you never eat corn-bread, will the failure of the corn-crop affect your grocery bill? 5. Give examples you have seen of a higher price of one thing causing an increasing use of another. 6. Do you buy what you most desire? 7. Give examples of cases where supply is fixed, and demand varies. 8. Give examples of demand shifting from one product to another.
Chapter 5. Exchange in a Market1. Are merchants producers of wealth, or are their profits merely subtracted from the wealth already produced? 2. Is the railroad productive? Why? 3. Give examples within your observation of improved productive processes increasing exchange; of the reverse. 4. Why is exchange profitable if it is fair? 5. Would doubling all commodities affect their exchange value? 6. Is part of a stock of goods ever worth more than the whole? Examples. 7. Do you ever take account of a difference of five cents in deciding whether to purchase? 8. Is barter more or less frequent now in America than formerly? In the world? 9. Is there any causal relationship between commerce and manufactures? If so, in what way? 10. In a time of high excitement gold was sold for more at one side of the room than at the other side; how account for this? 11. Give examples of, and reasons for, two prices in the same market. 12. What effect on prices should be expected from an invention that makes possible the carrying of fresh meat from South America to England? 13. Describe the method of selling any product you know about. What is the market in which it is sold?
Chapter 6. Psychic Income1. Is it possible to compare the value of the portrait-painter's service with that of the gardener? 2. To call the teacher's work unproductive, and the ditch-digger's work productive was once usual, but is so no longer; give reasons for either view. 3. It is usual to call the use of a house for business purposes a productive use, but its use as a residence an unproductive one. What reasons are there for and against this? 4. Give a list of material agents that are yielding non-material uses. 5. Give examples of personal services that are most immediately expressed as gratifications.
Chapter 7. Wealth and its Indirect Uses1. Give reasons for attributing exchange value to the waves of the ocean; to a waterfall, a water-wheel, a loom, a piece of cloth, a dress made of the cloth. 2. Show the connection between these things. 3. How can the use of a flock of sheep be of value to one who must return them all to the owner? 4. Why should the use of a machine that never can be a direct cause of gratification, have a value that men will pay for? 5. Give examples of wealth never becoming a direct cause of gratification, yet whose possession is greatly valued.
Chapter 8. The Renting Contract1. What things beside land are rented? 2. What is the form of contract used in the renting of farms, business buildings, and residences, in the community where you live? 3. Does the rent of pianos, type-writers, or masquerade-suits depend on the value of the thing rented? Is the rental a moderate return on the investment? 4. What are the difficulties in determining tenants' improvements?
Chapter 9. The Law of Diminishing Returns1. Is it possible to do twice the amount of business in any store-room by doubling the stock and the force of clerks? 2. Is it possible to expand a university indefinitely by increasing the force of teachers and the equipment, without enlarging the buildings? 3. Why do men cultivate two acres instead of one? Where land is plentiful, why do not men cultivate two acres instead of one? 4. Are there any things, not free goods, that could be indefinitely increased without increasing difficulty? 5. English farmers raise thirty-five bushels of wheat per acre, Americans perhaps fifteen; why this difference? 6. Why did people go to Dakota and Iowa when there was still room in New England? 7. Why put up a twenty-story building? Why not build a fifty-story one?
Chapter 10. The Theory of Rent1. Is competition severe in the renting of land in your community? 2. Give examples you have seen of a rise of rent; the cause. Of a fall of rent; the cause. 3. Does the existence of the land of California have any effect on rents in New York city? On agricultural rents in New York state? 4. If all the land on an island were equally fertile and equally convenient of access, would any of it pay a rent? 5. If you owned the Golden Gate, or the harbor of New York, could you rent it? 6. How does the hire of a team of horses resemble the rent of land? 7. How do livery charges in a college town in commencement week illustrate the subject of rent? 8. Show how a change of circumstances may raise the rent of machinery.
Chapter 11. Repair, Depreciation, and Destruction of Wealth1. What is the difficulty in the definition: Rent is the payment for the original and indestructible powers of the soil? 2. If the value of improvements on land is all counted, is there anything over? Examples. 3. What is stumpage? Does it differ from rent? 4. What do you know about the methods of renting mines? 5. What methods are adopted to keep up the efficiency of factories?
Chapter 12. Increase of Rent-bearers and of Rents1. What are the most obvious ways of increasing the productiveness of land? 2. How does a new railroad affect the value of the land it passes through? 3. How would the rent of a rocky island be affected if it became a summer resort? 4. Mention any cases you may have seen where a greater value was imparted to land by a newly discovered use. 5. A tunnel was made to drain a mine; the stock doubled in price. Was it really the stock, the old mine, or the new hole in the mountain-side that had increased in value? 6. Criticize the statement that, in an economic sense, land is a "fixed stock for all time."
Chapter 13. Money as a Tool in Exchange1. Why do you value money? Do you value it more than the things it buys? 2. What functions does money perform in society? 3. Could a country better do without money, horses, or roads? 4. If money is a tool, what does it make? 5. What is the difficulty in deciding whether to call the following money: gold ingots, gold coin, silver dollars, copper cents, greenbacks, bank-checks, chalk-marks to keep account? 6. Are men wealthy in proportion to the money they have? Are countries? 7. Would a nation be poorer if, like Sparta, it prohibited all money? Chapter 14. The Money Economy and the Concept of Capital1. Are national bonds or promissory notes, wealth? 2. Is it money or things that the borrower wants? 3. If you were starting a factory on credit, would you rent the machines or buy them with borrowed money? Why? 4. When a man says he has a certain capital invested in his business, does he mean to include the value of the land and buildings? 5. What is the meaning of the phrase, "a capitalistic age"?
Chapter 15. The Capitalization of all Forms of Rent1. What relation is there between the rate of interest and the price of land bearing a given rental? 2. If a $100 share of railroad stock sells at par when interest on loans is at 5%, what will be its price when interest rises to 6%? When interest falls to 4%? 3. If a business is very successful and its dividends double, what will be the effect on the selling price of its stock?
Chapter 16. Interest on Money Loans1. Some money-lenders in cities get 10% a day from fruit-vendors for the advance of small sums of money, and the losses are very slight. Pawnbroking pays frequently 25 to 100% per year. In these cases what affects the rate of interest? 2. Through what agency does the Western farmer borrow Eastern capital? 3. How do Englishmen invest in American railroads? 4. In what ways can a lender collect a high rate of interest without appearing to do so? 5. What would be the effect upon the rate of interest in a new state if it passed a law preventing the collection of loans by outside lenders? 6. Why has interest been about 10% in the West, 7% in the Central States, 5% in New York, 4% in Germany? 7. What is the money market? Who are the buyers and sellers, and what do they buy and sell? 8. In a panic, interest rises on short loans and prices fall, while it is almost impossible to borrow money; does this show that the amount of money determines the interest rate? 9. When gold is leaving England, the bank raises the rate of discount (interest); does this show that the quantity of money determines the rate of interest? Chapter 17. The Theory of Time-value1. Give examples of a high cost for the use of wealth without the borrowing of money. 2. Give some examples of the neglect of repairs through lack of resources, and show how it involved time-value. 3. What would be some of the first effects on production if interest on money loans fell to one half its present rate? 4. Which is the more important for the rate of interest, the amount of money in the banks or the amount of goods in the country? 5. How would the rate of interest be affected if the amount of money were doubled at once?
Chapter 18. Relatively Fixed and Relatively Increasable Forms of Capital1. Why not raise seals in California and fruit in Alaska? 2. Has the rainfall any relation to the density of population? 3. Has the isothermal line any relation to the number of millionaires? 4. What physical reasons account for the greatness of ancient Egypt, of Venice, of Holland, of England, of the United States? 5. Is all land useful? Is all land wealth? 6 Is there a different term for land that is wealth and land that is not? 7. Are there different economic terms for hewn and unhewn blocks of stone? What makes the difference?
Chapter 19. Saving and Production as Affected by the Rate of Interest1. The savings of the people of the United States are nearly a billion dollars a year. What and where are they? 2. What are the main social conditions necessary to saving? 3. What influence has commercial morality on saving? 4. Do savings-banks and insurance companies stimulate saving, or do they exist because of a disposition to save? 5. What influence has the formation of joint-stock companies on saving? 6. Will you save more or less if the rate of interest falls? 7. Distinguish between hoarding and saving. 8. A woman cut the wool from a sheep's back, spun and wove it by old hand-methods, and within twenty-four hours wore the dress made of it. Is more or less time needed in production with the best machinery and processes? 9. Ricardo said that on account of the cheapness of food in America there was less temptation to employ machines than in England, where food was high. What is the fact about this temptation in America?
Chapter 20. Labor and Classes of Laborers1. Is dancing labor? Is the dancing of a dancing-master labor? If he would rather dance than eat, is it labor? 2. Enumerate some kinds of labor necessary to produce bread. 3. "Washing of clothes is unproductive labor; therefore as little of it should be done as possible." Criticize the argument. 4. Would you say that differences in ability at manual trades are due to practice or to native talent? If to both, in what proportion? 5. Do sons usually follow the father's trade? Is it more or less common than formerly for them to do so? 6. Do you know from personal observation whether a Mexican, a German, or an American, is the best workman? 7. What important personal traits are needed to make a man an efficient market-gardener? 8. Which would be of the greatest economic advantage, to increase by 50% the intelligence, the physical strength, or the integrity of the workers of this country? Chapter 21. The Supply of Labor1. Has the principle of the survival of the fittest any influence on the population of America? 2. What limits the number of wild rabbits? Of tame pigeons? Do the same influences act in the case of men? 3. What other influences affect population? 4. What relation is there between population and mountains, temperature and water-supply? 5. It has been said that the supply of labor is fixed by biologic laws. Is it therefore not subject to economic influences? 6. What application do you think the principle of diminishing returns has to the question of population? 7. What is meant by the standard of life?
Chapter 22. Conditions for Efficient Labor1. Is hunger the cause of food? 2. Is there any relation between a republican form of government and the growth of manufactures. 3. What are the necessary conditions to the building of a house: (a) natural forces; (b) changes in material things; (c) human activities; (d) social conditions? 4. Is the public school system an economic factor? Where among the four preceding heads would you classify it? 5. From an economic standpoint, can we say that robbery really reduces the wealth in existence? 6. When does an industrious man stop working on his own farm, and why? 7. With a given number of workers, what may be causes of differences in the labor-supply? 8. Would men work better if they ate more? 9. What moral agencies increase the efficiency of labor? 10. Is there a strong selfish motive for men to increase their efficiency in most industries? How effective is it? 11. What effect has republican government on the efficiency of labor? 12. Why is the variety of occupations greater or less than formerly? What is influencing the change? 13. What cases have you seen where great skill came from practice? 14. What gain is it for men to work together instead of singly? 15. With increasing division of labor is there greater or less opportunity for the payment of laborers according to the piece-wage plan? 16. Discuss the following statement: Under the piece-work system the foreman looks out for the quality and the operative for the quantity of the work; under the time-wage system the foreman looks out for the quantity and the laborer for the quality of the work. 17. What remedy has the foreman for an inefficient laborer working under the time-wage system? 18. Is time- or piece-work best adapted to the following kinds of Chapter 23. The Law of Wages1. What is the effect of free common schools on the comparative wages of skilled and of unskilled laborers? 2. What would be the effect of technical and industrial schools on the wages of artisans? 3. If a man is not content with $2 a day, why does he not do work that is paid $5 a day? 4. What is the effect on wages of differences in the danger, pleasurableness, social distinction, expense of preparation, of occupation? 5. If women are paid less than men for the same work, why are men employed at all? 6. What is the difference between these definitions: wages is the share of labor; wages is the payment by one man to another for his services? 7. If the supply of labor of any class were to be decreased 10% would wages rise in like proportion? 8. Since under the piece-work system a man is paid only for what he does, is there any reason for discharging a workman employed under this plan whose efficiency falls below the average? Chapter 24. The Relation of Labor to Value1. May a singer of songs or a mixer of drinks be called a productive laborer? 2. Are fine products high in price because wages are high, or vice versa? 3. Is common, unskilled labor "scarce" (in any reasonable sense of the word) in China? in the United States? 4. Can a manufacturer pay the same to laborers if the product will be marketed next year, as he can if it is to be marketed to-morrow? If so, how is the value of the labor adjusted to its product?
Chapter 25. The Wage System and its Results1. Why has machinery changed the relations of workman to master? 2. In what ways does labor get paid for its share, and who pays it? 3. Will a day's work of a common laborer buy more to-day than it would a half century ago? Why? 4. Are the opportunities for workmen to rise to the rank of masters as great as formerly? 5. Are wages independent of the other kinds of income? Chapter 26. Machinery and Labor1. Do you think that the amount of work is reduced by new machinery? Point out ambiguities in the question. 2. What is the difference to the workman whether he becomes more efficient or works with a better machine? 3. Is the work of any kind fixed in quantity? What would cause it to change? 4. What kinds of laborers were thrown out of employment by the invention of the type-writer? What kinds of labor found employment as a result of its invention? Was the net result a gain or a loss of employment? 5. Answer the same questions with regard to the invention of railroads, mowing-, binding-, and threshing-machines; or the new roller-process of flour milling. 6. Can you describe from your own experience any example of readjustment of labor due to introduction of new machinery? Chapter 27. Trade-unions1. Does it make any difference in the permanence of an increase of wages brought about by a strike, whether the employer is one of the more successful or one of the less successful in that business? 2. Is there any similarity between the methods of trade-unions and the etiquette of the medical and the legal professions? 3. If you were an officer of a trade-union, would you begin a strike when trade was good or when it was poor? 4. If you can do more work in two hours than in one, can you do more continuously in sixteen consecutive hours than in eight? 5. What determines the maximum study-time for the earnest student? 6. If as much is produced in a general eight-hour day, who benefits? 7. If production is reduced one fourth by shorter hours, is "work made" to that degree for the unemployed? 8. If all day-laborers should agree to work with one hand tied behind them, would their wages go up or down? Would it be good or bad for the whole class of laborers? Chapter 28. Production and the Combination of the Factors1. What is production? Does the economic idea of production conflict with the physical principle that matter cannot be created? 2. Is it production to buy fifty cents' worth of yarn and knit a pair of socks worth twenty-five cents if you enjoy doing it? If you do not enjoy it? 3. Give examples of factors of production. 4. What factors of production must be combined by a savage to produce a canoe? 5. Outline the combination of factors that has produced New York bread made from Minnesota wheat. 6. What is the largest manufacturing establishment in your home town? Would a number of smaller establishments of the same sort and with the same aggregate capacity succeed as well? Why? 7. Have you observed the growth of any local industry from a small beginning to large proportions? If so, how do you account for it? 8. Would you prefer to begin your business career with a large company or with a small merchant? Why? 9. Through what historic stages has production passed? 10. Give examples of the industrial advantages of America as compared with Europe. Chapter 29. Business Organization and the Enterpriser's Function1. What is the relative importance of organization in sawing wood, building houses, running a small store, or a large factory? 2. Which wins the battle: the general, the soldiers, or the armament? 3. What determines whether a crop is poor or good: the ground, the weather, or the farmer? 4. Why do some businesses give increasing returns as they grow? 5. One has said: "The natural differences in powers and aptitudes are certainly not greater than are natural differences in stature." Is this sound in an economic sense? 6. Who runs the business in a large store owned by a large family? Who has the risk? 7. Who is the enterpriser in a stock company where there is a 8. Who is the employer in a coÖperative cooper-shop whose superintendent is elected by the workmen? 9. Has "a good chance in life" much to do with success? 10. What are the chief elements of business success? 11. Is modern business competition a competition of men only? Chapter 30. Cost of Production1. What is the cost of a good you have made entirely with your own labor? 2. What is the difference to the employer between rent, interest, and wages as items of cost? 3. Is there anything in common between "cost, the onerous exertion necessary to get goods," and cost as the money expenses of production? 4. Why does a merchant engage in one business rather than in another? 5. When prices fall, what determines which factories shall close, and which workmen shall be discharged? 6. Does the value of a product conform to the capital that has been put into it.
Chapter 31. The Law of Profits1. Business being poor, one employer is making good profits; how different will be the wages he pays from those paid by the unsuccessful employer? 2. How many of the men you know at the head of large businesses started life poor? 3. Was the rise in fortune due most often to chance, inheritance of wealth, or exceptional ability and power of work? 4. How should the income of an inventor be classified, as wages or profits? 5. Are the profits of the employer deducted from wages? Are the high wages of skilled labor deducted from the wages of unskilled? Chapter 32. Profit-sharing, Producers' and Consumers' CoÖperation1. Describe any case of profit-sharing you may have seen in operation. 2. Is advertising of any social service or is its sole purpose to divert trade from one merchant to another? 3. In what ways are retail stores wasteful in their expenditures? Can this be avoided? 4. If you have seen a coÖperative store in operation tell what was its success. 5. Are you willing to pay more for goods in order to have a choice of stores? Chapter 33. Monopoly Profits1. How is the blacksmith free to compete with the physician and how not? In what sense have we assumed that competition exists? 2. Is there competition between the owner of good land and the owner of poor land? 3. Has the owner of a poor gold-mine a monopoly? Has the owner of a rich mine a monopoly? 4. Does the ownership of land give a monopoly? The ownership of a horse? 5. In what sense is a street-railway a monopoly? What is the value of its franchise? 6. Why does the public consent to grant patents or public franchises? 7. If one company controlled all the petroleum in the world, what would it consider in fixing the selling price? 8. Why will railroads issue commutation tickets?
Chapter 34. Growth of Trusts and Combinations1. What advantages are there to manufacturers in combination? What to the public? 2. What relation has improved transportation and other means of communication to trusts? 3. Name as many economic monopolies as you can. 4. What large trusts have recently been formed? 5. Does the public consider the growth of trusts to be good or bad? What do students of the question think of it? Chapter 35. Effect of Trusts on Prices1. Can the large factory always outsell the small one? Why? 2. Why are trusts or selling agreements formed? 3. Describe any agreement of which you know, made between merchants or manufacturers for the purpose of regulating prices. Did prices go up or down as a result? 4. Would it be a good thing for society if a trust made great economies in production, crowded out its smaller competitors, and maintained prices just where they were before, dividing among its shareholders the amounts saved? 5. How would the effects on society be different if prices were reduced by better organization and the prevention of waste? 6. Is it good public policy to allow a trust to undersell its smaller competitor in one district while it keeps up its prices elsewhere? Chapter 36. Gambling, Speculation, and Promoters' Profits1. Do you think that store-keepers fix the price of the produce they buy of the farmers? If so, to what extent? 2. Can brokers fix the price of grain on the market? How, and to what extent? 3. What is speculation? Give examples you have seen. 4. Were they, on the whole, good for the community? 5. Give other examples showing the difference between a gambling-house and an insurance company? 6. Is the immorality of betting based on economic grounds? 7. Ought lotteries to be permitted by law? 8. Ought speculation in mines to be permitted by law? 9. Ought the profits of the farmer from a sudden rise in the value of wheat be confiscated to the public?
Chapter 37. Crises and Industrial Depressions1. What is a financial crisis? An industrial depression? 2. Define the expressions "over-production" and "under-consumption." 3. In a period of depression is there less money than usual in the country? In the banks? 4. If there were twice as much money in the world, would panics take place? 5. Before a financial crisis how are prices, high or low? After a panic? 6. What economic changes occurred in your own community in the panic of 1893-4, or in the years 1903-4? 7. Do people save more in good times or hard times? Chapter 38. Private Property and Inheritance1. If the law permits certain classes to be fleeced without redress, is wealth thereby reduced? 2. What are vested rights? Do they ever stand in the way of progress? Examples. 3. Is it right that the lucky inventor of a popular toy should make $100 a day from it? 4. Is it right that an inventor should by patent laws be able to keep the profits of his business high? 5. Do you know of any father who created more wealth because he could bequeath it to his son? 6. Does the son work as hard when he inherits his father's wealth? 7. What is the effect of private property on saving? 8. If capital is needed in production why is the question of justice raised when its use is paid for? Chapter 39. Income and Social Service1. What is it to earn a living? How many people do it? 2. When is a man poor? 3. Would it be a good thing if the boot-black got a dollar a shine? 4. Does luck have greater influence on business success in an old country or a new one? 5. Ditto in agriculture, mining, commerce, or manufactures? 6. A rare coin and a piece of land sold for the same price one year, and the next year both sold for double the amount. Was there an unearned increment in both cases, and of the same kind? 7. If rewards were equal, what would determine the choice of work?
Chapter 40. Waste and Luxury1. Can we determine what luxury is, or give the notion definiteness? 2. Do you feel a sense of injustice when you read of a millionaire's ball if you are not a millionaire? 3. Can you excuse the sense of injustice felt by the hungry man when he sees you wear patent-leather shoes and kid gloves? 4. Under private property, can men complain of the use made by others of their wealth on the ground merely that it was unwise? 5. Is luxury necessary to give employment to labor? 6. Is the spendthrift the best friend of labor? 7. Ought legislation attempt to prevent luxury, or can public opinion affect it? 8. Is smoking high-priced cigars economically justifiable, assuming that the smoker is wealthy and does not injure his health thereby? 9. Wines, balls, pensions are said to be good because they put money into circulation. Criticize. 10. What is the difference between the consumption of wealth and its destruction? 11. In what ways can a piece of iron be consumed, economically speaking? 12. Was the great Chicago fire, which led to the rebuilding of the city, a good thing economically? Chapter 41. Reaction of Consumption on Production1. What are complementary goods? Give some illustrations. 2. Can people live on the future, consuming in advance of production? How is it with the nation in time of war? 3. Does economic theory throw any light on the ethics of miserliness? 4. It is said that the demand of the day-laborer for cheap white shirts has reduced the wages of the women who make them. Criticize. 5. What effect on wealth would a change of climate have, whereby the consumption of coal would be decreased? 6. If manna fell from heaven daily in a climate where clothing and shelter were unnecessary, what effect on wealth would result? Chapter 42. Distribution of the Social Income1. What different ideas does the expression "distribution of wealth" suggest to you? 2. What different methods of obtaining an income have you noted among the men you know? 3. How can a yard of cloth be said to be distributed to the labor and capital producing it? 4. If two men of equal skill go fishing together, how would they find a rule for dividing the catch? 5. If one is more skilful or stronger, or owns the boat and the tackle, how would it affect the division? Would any rule be attainable? 6. If socialism reduced the total product, would it still be desirable because of the better distribution? 7. What classes of thinkers are most inclined to take up socialism? (Classes considered socially, industrially, as to race, as to economic and historical training.) Chapter 43. Survey of the Theory of Value1. Mention any cases you can think of where merely changing the place of things added to their value; or changing their form; or where the mere lapse of time added to the value of the thing. 2. What effect on wages and interest does the bringing in of foreign capital have? 3. If, through greater efficiency of labor, wealth increases, which share benefits? 4. What would be the effect on wages, interest, and land rent of a sudden addition of rich land to the country? 5. What would be the effect on interest, land rent, and wages of a great increase of national saving? 6. What concern have the poor in the abundance of capital? The rich in the abundance of labor? 7. Walker says that the laborer gets what is left after the other shares are deducted according to their law; wages are the residual claimant. Are the other shares independent of wages? 8. Can wage-earners be shut out from all advantages in the land of the country? 9. Are high wages and high interest seen to go together? Give such examples as you think of. 10. Do improvements in agriculture increase or decrease the rent of land? Chapter 44. Free Competition and State Action1. What is economic freedom? How different from political freedom? 2. Does the presence of a policeman increase or diminish competition among men? 3. Are most positive laws intended to hinder competition or make it freer? 4. In what ways does competition reduce the total product? 5. Is custom a better regulator of economic action than competition? 6. Criticize the doctrine of economic harmony, giving examples. Chapter 45. Use, Coinage, and Value of Money1. If gold were to become as plentiful as iron, would it be worth more or less than iron? 2. Some say Providence has indicated gold and silver as the materials for money. How has this been done? 3. Why does nearly all the gold produced in California leave the state? What keeps any of it there? 4. Who makes coins? Would jewelers make better ones? 5. When gold comes out of the mine is the gain to the community greater or less than when the same value of grain is harvested? 6. Does gold cost the day-laborer as much in California as in New York? 7. What are the principal things besides money uses that cause a demand for gold and silver? 8. The mint price of an ounce of gold, .900 fine, is alike at San Francisco and Philadelphia, $18.604. Why is gold ever shipped from California to New York? 9. Give examples of things that increase the demand for money. 10. Note any habits of friends that result in their carrying more or less money than others of the same income. 11. What determines the amount of money needed by different persons, towns, states, and nations? 12. When goods are exchanged for money or money for goods, what is the gain? 13. On an isolated island would it make any difference as to the value of money if there were but one gold-mine or several competing ones, supposing that the output were the same? Chapter 46. Token Coinage and Government Paper Money1. Define legal-tender as applied to money. What is meant by fiat money? 2. Show the difference between convertible and inconvertible money. 3. The government of the island of Guernsey having no money, issued paper-notes to pay for the building of a market. They circulated and were gradually taken up as the market earned its cost, during ten years. When they were all redeemed and burned, the Chapter 47. The Standard of Deferred Payments1. If every piece of money should miraculously be doubled in a night, whose interests would be affected? 2. Is the fact of one man's gain and another man's loss by chance of any economic or political importance? 3. What gives rise to the belief sometimes held that money is an invariable standard of value? 4. Is there anything in the nature of mining that keeps the ratio of the supply of gold and silver nearly uniform? 5. Is the value of gold and silver due to the action of government? 6. Does the principle of the substitution of goods have any bearing on the value of metals under bimetallism? 7. Note carefully, and indicate the different meanings of bimetallism; of demonetization. 8. What is the extent of the influence one nation can have on the ratio of the two precious metals? 9. If money wages are higher and general prices are lower, how is the laborer affected? Is this due to the appreciation of money? 10. Can you get a kind of money that will make the things that are sold, dearer, and the things that are bought, cheaper? 11. What are the main reasons given for the ratio of 16 to 1? Chapter 48. Banking and Credit1. What does a bank do for a community? 2. What are the sources of income to a bank? 3. Can a bank that issues its own notes afford to lend cheaper than the ordinary capitalist? 4. What is discount and deposit? 5. Do all banks issue notes? Why? 6. What is the function of a clearing-house? 7. If there are twenty banks in a town and no clearing-house, how many collections would have to be made by all the banks daily assuming that each day depositors of each bank receive checks on the other nineteen banks? 8. Does a clearing-house enable the banks that belong to it to get along with a smaller cash reserve? 9. What element of security is furnished by clearing-houses during panics? Chapter 49. Taxation in its Relation to Value1. Does taxation ever infringe on the right of private property? 2. What is it a citizen gets in return for his taxes? 3. Is there any relation between the taxes paid and the benefits secured from government? 4. A recent newspaper item says: "This is the year real estate is assessed. Turn the cow loose in the front yard, tear down the fence, make things look generally dilapidated, for it will be money in your pocket." What does this indicate regarding taxation? 5. The parts of an estate divided into fifteen equal shares by expert real estate agents were soon after assessed variously from $900 to $2850 for purposes of taxation. What does this indicate? (From Sumner's Problems.) 6. In what ways may we understand the proposition that taxation should be proportioned to ability? 7. Can taxation be used to secure some of the profits of large corporations? Chapter 50. The General Theory of International Trade1. Is it bad policy to let the people of Palo Alto spend money in San Francisco for things that could be produced at home? 2. Pensions are defended as putting money in circulation. Is this like any tariff arguments you have heard? 3. Is it bad policy for California to buy New England manufactures? 4. If there were no legal bar to a tariff between the states, would a tariff probably be imposed? If so, would it be a wise measure? 5. A nation with n dollars in circulation has to pay a war indemnity of n dollars to another country having the same circulation, how much money will each then have, and what will be the effect on prices, foreign trade, rate of exchange? (From Davenport.) 6. If large shipments of wheat are made to England, will bills of exchange on London be higher or lower in New York? 7. What effect on exchange has the holding of American bonds abroad? Chapter 51. The Protective Tariff1. If all trade is exchange do not the members of a trust reduce their income when they raise the price of their products by artificial agreement? 2. Is there any likeness between trade-unions and tariffs? Between tariffs and factory legislation? 3. Can it be of advantage to trade freely with one nation if general free trade is bad? 4. Who gained when Hawaiian sugar (before annexation) was admitted free of duty, while other sugar was taxed? 5. If it would pay us to admit goods free, may we be justified in taxing them to force concessions from the other country? 6. What have you read this year about reciprocity? Chapter 52. Other Protective Social and Labor Legislation1. Is granting patents an interference with trade similar to tariffs? 2. What reasons are given in justification of laws closing barbershops on Sundays? 3. Can a person owning a lot on a residence street of a city erect a glue-factory on it? 4. What have you noted as to the benefits or hardships of restricting child labor in factories? 5. Are men less able to bargain for the loan of money than for other things? 6. Can law fix the rate of interest at any point desired? If so, then why not at zero; if not, then why fix any maximum rate of interest? 7. Are interest rates changing in America? 8. In what ways is the rate of interest affected by the rise or fall of the value of money? Chapter 53. Public Ownership of Industry1. What are municipal franchises? Where are they? 2. What kinds of municipal industries have you seen in operation? How successful were they? 3. What are the main arguments for and against the city ownership and control of gas and waterworks? 4. What troubles arise from city politics? 5. Name the industries that are owned and controlled by towns and cities of which you have a personal knowledge. 6. Which of them are most satisfactory in your judgment? Which the least so? 7. What is the public sentiment in your home community as to the ownership of industries by the town or city? 8. What forms of state activity favor survival of unfit men and bad traits of character? What forms help the fittest to survive?
Chapter 54. Railroads and Industry1. Why is transportation a greater problem in the United States than in Europe? 2. Show in what way natural waterways have determined the location of leading cities in America. 3. Give examples of cities whose growth has been caused by railroads. 4. What interests favor and what oppose the building of an isthmian canal? 5. Mention in order of economic importance four things that would happen if all American railroads were suddenly to be destroyed. 6. What cases have you seen where the railways impose unjustly on the public? 7. Give instances you have seen or heard of where two shippers paid different rates for the same service. 8. Why should preachers get half-fare rates? 9. If your neighbor rides on a pass and you pay your fare, are you helping to pay for his ride? 10. Do you know any large cities that are more favorable shipping-points than neighboring towns? Give reasons. Chapter 55. The Public Nature of Railroads1. What legal rights do the builders of a railroad have that are not enjoyed by all citizens? 2. Can you see any clear distinction between the public nature of a railroad and of a horse and carriage? 3. What harm can there be in the acceptance of passes by judges, legislators, and other public officials? 4. Ought the law prohibit the sale of tickets by "scalpers"? 5. Who has the greater political power, the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, or the governor of that state? Chapter 56. Public Policy as to Control of Industry1. What effect would it have if the state should make laborers work for unsuccessful employers at lower wages than for successful ones? 2. Or should reduce rents for the less capable merchants and manufacturers? 3. Is there any rule for determining the limits of state interference? 4. Why does the question of the control of the railways in the interest of the public present especial difficulties in America? Chapter 57. Future Trend of Values1. Make a list of the things discussed in this course that tend toward improving the average condition of men. 2. Make a list of those that tend toward worse conditions for the mass of men. 3. State what kinds of material agents will probably increase in value relative to other kinds, giving reasons. 4. State what to your mind are three important economic problems whose answer is most uncertain, giving reasons. 5. If you had the power, what single public measure that you believe would be practicable and effective would you put on the statute books, in order to make a juster division of the social income? Give reasons.
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