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he industrial pyramid manifestly rests on the land. The
primary and fundamental occupations, which create a
demand for all others, are evidently those that extract
wealth from nature; and hence, if from one exchange
point to another and from one occupation to another we
trace this check to production, which shows itself in
decreased purchasing power, we must ultimately find it
in some obstacle that checks labour in expending itself
on land. And that obstacle, it is clear, is the speculative
advance in rent, or the value of land, which produces the
same effects as (in fact, it is) a lock-out of labour and
capital by landowners.
his check to production, beginning at the basis of
interlaced industry, propagates itself from exchange
point to exchange point, cessation of supply becoming
failure of demand, until, so to speak, the whole machine is thrown out of gear, and the spectacle is
everywhere presented of labour going to waste while labourers suffer from want. Though custom has
dulled us to it, it is a strange and unnatural thing that men who wish to labour, in order to satisfy
their wants, cannot find the opportunity.
e talk about the supply of labour and the demand for labour, but evidently these are only relative
terms. The supply of labour is everywhere the same - two hands always come into the world with one
mouth; and the demand for labour must always exist as long as men want things which labour alone
can procure.
e talk about the "want of work," but evidently it is not work that is short while want continues; the
supply of labour cannot be too great, nor the demand for labour too small, when people suffer for the
lack of things that labour produces. The real trouble must be that supply is somehow prevented from
satisfying demand, that somewhere there is an obstacle which prevents labour from producing the
things that labourers want.
— from Progress and Poverty, 1879
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