Small and Big Business

Steindl, Josef

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Document type:: Works

Collection:: Josef Steindl Collection

Title:: Small and Big Business: Introduction [2nd revision]

Author:: Steindl, Josef

Scope:: Typoskript, 21 Blätter, mit Hilfe von Tipp-Ex korrigierte Version

Year of publication:: 1978

Source material date:: [04.1978]

Language:: English

Note:: Das Typoskript stellt die 2. revidierte bzw. korrigierte Fassung der 1972 neu verfassten Einleitung zu "Small and Big Business" (1945) dar. Vermutlich zwecks der spanischen Ausgabe des Buches verfasst.

Topic:: Firm and market structure

JEL Classification:: D24 [Production, Cost, Capital, Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity, Capacity] D43 [Market Structure, Pricing, and Design: Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection] L11 [Production, Pricing, and Market Structure, Size Distribution of Firms]

Shelfmark:: S/M.3.11

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.48671/nls.js.AC14446394

8 That technical progress and scale are closely related is prima facie plausible. Technical progress proceeds by 1) division of labour (leading ultimately to the conveyor belt) 2) replacement of human energy by energy from other sources (which involves machinery for energy transformation and application) 3) continuous processes 4) self regulation (automation, computers). These technical changes all tend to increase scale, while at the same time they also increase capital per man. Some time ago economists used to think that economic progress involves a substitution of capital for labour, more capital being used per unit of output. Empirical studies (Kuznets, Goldsmith etc.) have shown that there is no consistent long 6) term trend in this direction. Technical progress has proceeded by making things cheaper in terms of labour and in terms of capital at the same time. There are also considerable doubts about the concept of a "given technique", consisting of "alternative methods" of production of a final good. Production methods do not fall from the sky. What in fact really "exists" are only those techniques which have been developed, which have been tried out (i.e. where there are proto-types, or experimental production runs). In a given country or region there will be 6) S. Kuznets: Capital in the American Economy. Princeton 1961, p. 199, 209, 214.

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