History Of The Prices Of The Chief Wants Of Life. (Continued.)
A. In the case of a great many raw materials, we repeatedly find the
following to be the course of development. In the lower stages of
civilization, they grow of themselves, and in such quantities that a small
amount of labor, and that only the labor of occupation, more than suffices
to satisfy the small demand for them. Here, naturally enough, the price of
raw materials is very low. After this, it rises with every advance made in
civilization, for two reasons: first, because the demand becomes greater
and greater; and then, because the naturally free sources of production,
called into requisition by other wants, now flow less and less
abundantly.(793) This rise in price continues until the point is reached
at which it becomes customary, instead of the mere occupation of the free
gifts of nature, to bring forth the commodities in question by the more
laborious process of production proper. From this time forward, the usual
seeking of prices for a level requires that our commodity should, like all
others which suppose an equal sacrifice of the means of production, claim
an equal value in exchange. If from any peculiar causes, the production of
this commodity is not at all possible, or if it is capable of no great
extension, its price, which would under the circumstances, be limited only
by the purchasing power of the buyer, might attain the utmost extreme
reached in prices under the spur of vanity or of the mere love of the
commodity itself. The latter is true especially in the case of
venison;(794) the former, in the case of the tame cattle,(795) fresh-water
fish,(796) and wood.(797)(798)