If, on the other hand, producing more of a commodity results inreducing its cost, this will tend to increase the supplyoffered by seller-producers, which in turn will lower the price and permit more consumers to buy the product.In the American economy, the concept of private property embraces not only the ownership of productive resources but also certain rights, including the right to determine the price of a product or to make a free contract with another private individual.
The Aswan Dam, for example, stopped the Nile flooding but deprived Egypt of the fertile silt that floods left-all in return for a giant reservoir of disease which is now so full of silt that it barely generates electricity.New ways of organizing the workplace--all that re-engineering and downsizing--are only one contribution to the overall productivity of an economy, which is driven by many other factors such as joint investment in equipment and machinery, new technology, and investment in education and training.
