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.627628