Chapter CV: Section CIV

Influence Of Purchaser’s Solvability On Prices.

The purchaser, besides the value in use of the goods he desires to buy, considers his own solvability (_Zahlungsfähigkeit_ = ability to pay). It is only solvent demand which can influence prices.(624) For instance, among a people made up almost entirely of proletarians, there will be a great many cases of starvation and death after a bad harvest, but the price of corn will undergo only a slight increase.(625) But where the greater number of inhabitants own property, and where the wealthy come to the help of the poorer classes by means of poor-rates and acts of benevolence, it is scarcely possible to assign limits to the increase of the price of corn. By a necessary connection, when indispensable articles grow dear, the demand for articles that can be dispensed with generally decreases, and _vice versa_.(626) Every merchant, engaged in an extensive business, is interested in knowing in advance the results of the corn crop. The higher the price of a commodity rises, the narrower, of course, grows the circle of those who can pay for it.(627)(628)