A Quote by Alfred Marshall

Consumption may be regarded as negative production.

Alfred Marshall

Quote Topics

Consumption May Negative Production Regarded

Quote Author

Alfred Marshall
English - Economist
July 26, 1842 - July 13, 1924

I shall argue that it is the capital stock from which we derive satisfaction, not from the additions to it (production) or the subtractions from it (consumption): that consumption, far from being a desideratum, is a deplorable property of the capital stock which necessitates the equally deplorable activity of production: and that the objective of economic policy should not be to maximize consumption or production, but rather to minimize it, i.e. to enable us to maintain our capital stock with as little consumption or production as possible.

Kenneth E. Boulding

Consumption is also immediately production, just as in nature the consumption of the elements and chemical substances is the production of the plant.

Karl Marx

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. The maxim is so perfectly self-evident that it would be absurd to attempt to prove it. But in the mercantile system the interest of the consumer is almost constantly sacrificed to that of the producer; and it seems to consider production, and not consumption, as the ultimate end and object of all industry and commerce.

Adam Smith

The effect of the post-Enlightenment project for human society is that all human activity is absorbed into labor. It becomes an unending cycle of production for the sake of consumption. The modern concept of "built-in obsolescence" makes this clear. The cycle of production and consumption has to be kept going, and the work of the artist or craftsman who aims to create something enduring becomes marginal to the economic order.

Lesslie Newbigin

We've wanted to produce more in the 19th century and the 20th century in order to give man the possibility for more dignified human life; but actually what has happened is that production and consumption have become means - have ceased to be means and have become ends, and we are production crazy and consumption crazy.

Erich Fromm

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.

Adam Smith

Developed and benefited from the unsustainable patterns of production and consumption which have produced our present dilemma. It is clear that current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class-involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and convenience foods, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning, and suburban housing-are not sustainable. A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmentally damaging consumption patterns.

Maurice Strong

Apart from their work and production, households perform other important economic functions. Most CONSUMPTION occurs within the household. ... In developed capitalist economies, private consumption spending accounts for half or more of GDP.

Jim Stanford

In the kingdom of consumption the citizen is king. A democratic monarchy: equality before consumption, fraternity in consumption, and freedom through consumption.

Raoul Vaneigem

The situation the Earth is in today has been created by unmindful production and unmindful consumption. We consume to forget our worries and our anxieties. Tranquilising ourselves with over-consumption is not the way.

Thich Nhat Hanh

In the 1970s, New York was known as a place of great artistic production. Slowly, my city went from a place of production to a place of consumption.

Elizabeth Diller

When you affect consumption, production falls, and when production falls, employment falls and when unemployment rises, it affects poverty.

Alberto Fernandez

Being vegan or vegetarian isn't just about compassion for animals. Most of the destruction of the planet is the result of all the clear-cutting, groundwater contamination, grain production, fuel consumption, greenhouse gas, viral proliferation - the direct result of livestock production.

William McNamara

By the immediate preservation of eggs for home consumption through the use of water glass or lime water, larger supplies of fresh eggs may be made available for marketing later in the season, when production is less and prices higher.