The Principles of Economics Part 54

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 WELFARE

1. 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 s.h.i.+p 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?

NOTE.--The theory of marginal utility broadly outlined in chapters 3-5 has been worked out in detail by the group of writers called the Austrian economists. The mechanism, or the technique, of marginal utility and exchange as they conceive of it, is essentially what this text seeks to explain. Our application and development of the conception of marginal utility differs from theirs, however, in ways that will appear as the text advances.

For more detailed discussion of many points in chapter 3, see Smart, _Introduction to the Theory of Value_, pp. 9-17; Wieser, _Natural Value_, pp. 3-16; Bohm-Bawerk, _Positive Theory of Capital_, pp. 129-153.

CHAPTER 4. THE NATURE OF DEMAND

1. Give ill.u.s.trations 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 s.h.i.+fting from one product to another.

NOTE.--For a more detailed discussion see works cited: Smart, 18-33; Bohm-Bawerk, 159-169; Wieser, 16-36.

CHAPTER 5. EXCHANGE IN A MARKET

1. 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 relations.h.i.+p between commerce and manufactures?