The
gains of the imitators diminish in proportion as the invention becomes
older; and in the same proportion imitation becomes less meritorious.
Soon the new object of industry attains its normal condition; in other
words, the remuneration of printers is no longer an exception to the
general rules of remuneration, and, like that of copyists formerly, it
is only regulated _by the general rate of profits_. Here then the
producer, as such, holds only the old position. The discovery,
however, has been made; the saving of time, labor, effort, for a fixed
result, for a certain number of volumes, is realized. But in what is
this manifested? In the cheap price of books. For the good of whom?
For the good of the consumer--of society--of humanity. Printers,
having no longer any peculiar merit, receive no longer a peculiar
remuneration. As men--as consumers--they no doubt participate in the
advantages which the invention confers upon the community; but that is
all. As printers, as producers, they are placed upon the ordinary
footing of all other producers.
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