2. The term cost of production is used in several senses, the chief of which are money cost, psychic cost, and alternative cost. The ambiguity of this term is a source of much confusion. Psychic cost is the pain, fatigue, irksomeness of labor. This is not definitely measured except at rare points. When the pain of work more than offsets the value of the product, the worker who is free to determine the length of his own working-day, stops. At that point the psychic cost and the utility of the marginal unit are almost equal in intensity—the one as a positive, the other as a negative quantity. But the value of the product as a whole cannot be related to the psychic cost or sacrifice, and therefore it cannot serve as a measure of cost in every-day business. Alternative cost is any good or gratification that must be given up when any other good is chosen. One may stay at home and read a book or go on a picnic; the pleasure of reading the book will cost the pleasure of the picnic. A good dress may cost a happy vacation that must be given up for it. In this sense, each thing is a cost of every other thing that might be chosen in the place of it. Alternative cost is therefore manifold and indefinite. The thought is significant at the moment of a choice, but it is not constantly measurable for practical purposes. The money cost is the practical cost generally implied in the term cost of production. It expresses not the pain of the laborer in doing the work, not the sacrifice of the owner of the capital in saving the money, but merely the sum of money paid out by the producer. There is frequent confusion of these ideas in economic discussion, few even of the leading economists of the nineteenth century having quite escaped it.
The cost of the factors is their market price
3. The enterpriser, looking upon the cost of most of the factors as fixed, seeks to combine them as economically as possible. Whether the enterpriser is running a factory or a farm, is engaged in a retail or a wholesale store, is conducting a school, or a railroad, he has to solve much the same problem. By close attention, good judgment, skilful bargaining, he may be able to buy slightly cheaper than his competitors, and thus have an advantage over them at the outset. When he does this, it is usually by searching out a better market in which to buy, buying at a better time, and judging better than his competitors the quality of goods. If, in a given market at a given time, goods are sold to one more cheaply than to others, it is an act of generosity. Even the best buyers pay nearly the prevailing market price for agents. The most successful enterprisers are not found to be those paying lower wages or lower ground-rent than their competitors. It must not be forgotten that the main forces fixing the prices of agents are impersonal, and can be only slightly modified in most cases by a particular buyer. He looks therefore upon the cost of the elements as an ultimate fact which he can change little, if at all, and he shows his judgment chiefly in the selection of quality. Cost determines and limits the extent of his business and determines the price at which he sells.
The right proportioning of the factors
4. The right proportioning and skilful substitution of the factors is a delicate technical task for the enterpriser. Good buying and good selling must precede and follow the central part of the enterpriser's task, that is, the combining of the various factors. Each factor is applied, subject to diminishing returns, up to a point where its addition will not secure the value attributed to it in its cost. The enterpriser is constantly studying the question whether the application of another unit of any one factor at the price will add to the value of the product as much or more than the cost. This calculation is made for every one of the minor factors entering into the business, and for the business as a whole. The proper proportion varies at different prices, or costs. If wages rise, "it pays" to get machinery; if wages fall, it pays to let the machinery deteriorate and to do more by hand-labor. Likewise there is constant substitution of the various materials. The right proportions change constantly with inventions. A model factory is so proportioned that the buildings hold the right number of machines, with the right amount of space for the workmen, and the right amount of power. If there is more of a single factor than the ideal proportion, it is an unnecessary cost. Even the model factory begins to be out of date almost as soon as the walls are dry, and the latest method is to build as nearly as possible on the unit system, so that new parts may be added without the loss of harmony and proportion.
Pressure of price toward cost at certain points
The enterpriser in contact with costs
5. The enterpriser's costs determine the lowest price at which he can continue to sell, but if successful he may have a wide margin of profits. New factories are constantly arising with new and better adjustments. In industries of competing products, also, the processes are changing. Hence there is always a pressure of competition on some enterprisers who constantly complain that they must sell below the cost of production. The organizers of a trust always declare, some no doubt truly, that they have been selling below the cost of production. Business men say that competition is destructive, and it certainly does destroy the less favorably situated enterprises. Each enterpriser's price is the highest he can get in the market for his product; it may far exceed his costs; it may even fall below them, but only temporarily, for if sales continue to encroach on capital, the sheriff soon closes the doors. Successful competitors are constantly pressing upon the marginal enterpriser, fixing a price that leaves themselves a profit, but is below his cost. Even the most successful enterpriser comes into contact with cost, and seems to be compelled by it. He reaches out for trade, and sells some (not all) goods at a price which leaves him no profit. He enlarges his factory and ships goods farther, paying the freight, which means a lower price at the factory. The expanding business, therefore, comes at length to the point where it cannot go farther at the prevailing prices. Hence the business man's view of the costs is that they determine value. It is true in the sense that the supply of a particular product in any market is at last limited by cost of marginal producers or of marginal portions of supply. But it is not true of all the units of product that costs determine, or equal, market price. There is a margin above costs to the successful enterpriser on a large portion of his output. The margin may be narrow or wide, according to the business. The margin is "profit," or the gain of the enterpriser.
§ II. COST OF PRODUCTION FROM THE ECONOMIST'S STANDPOINT
Money cost not the ultimate explanation of value