Many chances to try ability
This variety of organization affords opportunity for a two-fold test: that of the ability of men and of the merits, in varying circumstances, of the different forms of organization. Methods of organization are constantly tested by their results. Men having money to invest are asking whether they would be better off to go into business by themselves, or to join with a partner, or to buy stock in some large corporation. Each of these forms of organization has its peculiar advantages. A stock company can better enlist large amounts of capital, while the individual employer is generally more free from dictation and can adapt his business more quickly to changing conditions. At the same time this variety of organization offers better opportunities for managing ability to show its metal. On the watch towers of industry are many observers sweeping the horizon for the appearance of men of business talent. Some characters develop better under direction; others prove that nowhere does native ability count for more, and mere book-schooling for less, than in business administration. There is some ground for the belief that a college education does not increase executive capacity in business. Such ability often seems to be a freak of nature and a product of practical experience, rather than the result of college training.
CHAPTER 30
COST OF PRODUCTION
§ 1. COST OF PRODUCTION FROM THE ENTERPRISER'S POINT OF VIEW
The enterpriser's cost
1. The task of the enterpriser is to get together the essential factors to secure valuable products. The enterpriser must first decide what product he will endeavor to secure, and the kind, the place, the time, the quantity, and the quality. He must then select in the right proportion the materials, labor, plant, and machinery necessary for that product. He must purchase these factors in the market at the lowest price he can, unite them and sell the product to recover the expenses in the selling price. A thousand items enter into the cost and perhaps a single product emerges. What the business man thus pays out, expressed in money form, are the costs that are here to be considered.
Several meanings of cost