Unto This Last and Other Essays on Political Economy Part 12

But what can be done for them? Who can clothe--who teach--who restrain their mult.i.tudes? What end can there be for them at last, but to consume one another?

I hope for another end, though not, indeed, from any of the three remedies for over-population commonly suggested by economists.

These three are, in brief--Colonization; Bringing in of waste lands; or Discouragement of Marriage.

The first and second of these expedients merely evade or delay the question. It will, indeed, be long before the world has been all colonized, and its deserts all brought under cultivation. But the radical question is not how much habitable land is in the world, but how many human beings ought to be maintained on a given s.p.a.ce of habitable land.

Observe, I say, _ought_ to be, not how many _can_ be. Ricardo, with his usual inaccuracy, defines what he calls the "natural rate of wages" as "that which will maintain the labourer." Maintain him! yes; but how?--the question was instantly thus asked of me by a working girl, to whom I read the pa.s.sage. I will amplify her question for her.

"Maintain him, how?" As, first, to what length of life? Out of a given number of fed persons how many are to be old--how many young; that is to say, will you arrange their maintenance so as to kill them early--say at thirty or thirty-five on the average, including deaths of weakly or ill-fed children?--or so as to enable them to live out a natural life? You will feed a greater number, in the first case,[64]

by rapidity of succession; probably a happier number in the second: which does Mr. Ricardo mean to be their natural state, and to which state belongs the natural rate of wages?

[64] The quant.i.ty of life is the same in both cases; but it is differently allotted.

Again: A piece of land which will only support ten idle, ignorant, and improvident persons, will support thirty or forty intelligent and industrious ones. Which of these is their natural state, and to which of them belongs the natural rate of wages?

Again: If a piece of land support forty persons in industrious ignorance; and if, tired of this ignorance, they set apart ten of their number to study the properties of cones, and the sizes of stars; the labour of these ten, being withdrawn from the ground, must either tend to the increase of food in some transitional manner, or the persons set apart for sidereal and conic purposes must starve, or some one else starve instead of them. What is, therefore, the natural rate of wages of the scientific persons, and how does this rate relate to, or measure, their reverted or transitional productiveness?

Again: If the ground maintains, at first, forty labourers in a peaceable and pious state of mind, but they become in a few years so quarrelsome and impious that they have to set apart five, to meditate upon and settle their disputes; ten, armed to the teeth with costly instruments, to enforce the decisions; and five to remind everybody in an eloquent manner of the existence of a G.o.d;--what will be the result upon the general power of production, and what is the "natural rate of wages" of the meditative, muscular, and oracular labourers?

Leaving these questions to be discussed, or waived, at their pleasure, by Mr. Ricardo's followers, I proceed to state the main facts bearing on that probable future of the labouring cla.s.ses which has been partially glanced at by Mr. Mill. That chapter and the preceding one differ from the common writing of political economists in admitting some value in the aspect of nature, and expressing regret at the probability of the destruction of natural scenery. But we may spare our anxieties, on this head. Men can neither drink steam, nor eat stone. The maximum of population on a given s.p.a.ce of land implies also the relative maximum of edible vegetable, whether for men or cattle; it implies a maximum of pure air; and of pure water. Therefore: a maximum of wood, to trans.m.u.te the air, and of sloping ground, protected by herbage from the extreme heat of the sun, to feed the streams. All England may, if it so chooses, become one manufacturing town; and Englishmen, sacrificing themselves to the good of general humanity, may live diminished lives in the midst of noise, of darkness, and of deadly exhalation. But the world cannot become a factory, nor a mine. No amount of ingenuity will ever make iron digestible by the million, nor subst.i.tute hydrogen for wine. Neither the avarice nor the rage of men will ever feed them, and however the apple of Sodom and the grape of Gomorrah may spread their table for a time with dainties of ashes, and nectar of asps,--so long as men live by bread, the far away valleys must laugh as they are covered with the gold of G.o.d, and the shouts of His happy mult.i.tudes ring round the winepress and the well.

Nor need our more sentimental economists fear the too wide spread of the formalities of a mechanical agriculture. The presence of a wise population implies the search for felicity as well as for food; nor can any population reach its maximum but through that wisdom which "rejoices" in the habitable parts of the earth. The desert has its appointed place and work; the eternal engine, whose beam is the earth's axle, whose beat is its year, and whose breath is its ocean, will still divide imperiously to their desert kingdoms, bound with unfurrowable rock, and swept by unarrested sand, their powers of frost and fire: but the zones and lands between, habitable, will be loveliest in habitation. The desire of the heart is also the light of the eyes. No scene is continually and untiringly loved, but one rich by joyful human labour; smooth in field; fair in garden; full in orchard; trim, sweet, and frequent in homestead; ringing with voices of vivid existence. No air is sweet that is silent; it is only sweet when full of low currents of under sound--triplets of birds, and murmur and chirp of insects, and deep-toned words of men, and wayward trebles of childhood. As the art of life is learned, it will be found at last that all lovely things are also necessary:--the wild flower by the wayside, as well as the tended corn; and the wild birds and creatures of the forest, as well as the tended cattle; because man doth not live by bread only, but also by the desert manna; by every wondrous word and unknowable work of G.o.d. Happy, in that he knew them not, nor did his fathers know; and that round about him reaches yet into the infinite, the amazement of his existence.

Note, finally, that all effectual advancement towards this true felicity of the human race must be by individual, not public effort.

Certain general measures may aid, certain revised laws guide, such advancement; but the measure and law which have first to be determined are those of each man's home. We continually hear it recommended by sagacious people to complaining neighbours (usually less well placed in the world than themselves), that they should "remain content in the station in which Providence has placed them." There are perhaps some circ.u.mstances of life in which Providence has no intention that people _should_ be content. Nevertheless, the maxim is on the whole a good one; but it is peculiarly for home use. That your neighbour should, or should not, remain content with _his_ position, is not your business; but it is very much your business to remain content with your own.

What is chiefly needed in England at the present day is to show the quant.i.ty of pleasure that may be obtained by a consistent, well-administered competence, modest, confessed, and laborious. We need examples of people who, leaving Heaven to decide whether they are to rise in the world, decide for themselves that they will be happy in it, and have resolved to seek--not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity; making the first of possessions, self-possession; and honouring themselves in the harmless pride and calm pursuits of peace.

Of which lowly peace it is written that "justice and peace have kissed each other;" and that the fruit of justice is "sown in peace of them that make peace"; not "peace-makers" in the common understanding--reconcilers of quarrels; (though that function also follows on the greater one;) but peace-Creators; Givers of Calm. Which you cannot give, unless you first gain; nor is this gain one which will follow a.s.suredly on any course of business, commonly so called.

No form of gain is less probable, business being (as is shown in the language of all nations--[Greek: polein] from [Greek: pelo], [Greek: prasis] from [Greek: perao], venire, vendre, and venal, from venio, etc.) essentially restless--and probably contentious;--having a raven-like mind to the motion to and fro, as to the carrion food; whereas the olive-feeding and bearing birds look for rest for their feet: thus it is said of Wisdom that she "hath builded her house, and hewn out her seven pillars;" and even when, though apt to wait long at the doorposts, she has to leave her house and go abroad, her paths are peace also.

For us, at all events, her work must begin at the entry of the doors: all true economy is "Law of the house." Strive to make that law strict, simple, generous: waste nothing, and grudge nothing. Care in nowise to make more of money, but care to make much of it; remembering always the great, palpable, inevitable fact--the rule and root of all economy--that what one person has, another cannot have; and that every atom of substance, of whatever kind, used or consumed, is so much human life spent; which, if it issue in the saving present life, or gaining more, is well spent, but if not, is either so much life prevented, or so much slain. In all buying, consider, first, what condition of existence you cause in the producers of what you buy; secondly, whether the sum you have paid is just to the producer, and in due proportion lodged in his hands;[65] thirdly, to how much clear use, for food, knowledge, or joy, this that you have bought can be put; and fourthly, to whom and in what way it can be most speedily and serviceably distributed: in all dealings whatsoever insisting on entire openness and stern fulfilment; and in all doings, on perfection and loveliness of accomplishment; especially on fineness and purity of all marketable commodity: watching at the same time for all ways of gaining, or teaching, powers of simple pleasure; and of showing "hoson en asphodelph geg honeiar"--the sum of enjoyment depending not on the quant.i.ty of things tasted, but on the vivacity and patience of taste.

[65] The proper offices of middlemen, namely, overseers (or authoritative workmen), conveyancers (merchants, sailors, retail dealers, etc.), and order-takers (persons employed to receive directions from the consumer), must, of course, be examined before I can enter farther into the question of just payment of the first producer. But I have not spoken of them in these introductory papers, because the evils attendant on the abuse of such intermediate functions result not from any alleged principle of modern political economy, but from private carelessness or iniquity.

And if, on due and honest thought over these things, it seems that the kind of existence to which men are now summoned by every plea of pity and claim of right, may, for some time at least, not be a luxurious one:--consider whether, even, supposing it guiltless, luxury would be desired by any of us, if we saw clearly at our sides the suffering which accompanies it in the world. Luxury is indeed possible in the future--innocent and exquisite: luxury for all, and by the help of all; but luxury at present can only be enjoyed by the ignorant; the cruelest man living could not sit at his feast, unless he sat blindfold. Raise the veil boldly; face the light; and if, as yet, the light of the eye can only be through tears, and the light of the body through sackcloth, go thou forth weeping, bearing precious seed, until the time come, and the kingdom, when Christ's gift of bread, and bequest of peace shall be Unto this last as unto thee; and when, for earth's severed mult.i.tudes of the wicked and the weary, there shall be holier reconciliation than that of the narrow home, and calm economy, where the Wicked cease--not from trouble, but from troubling--and the Weary are at rest.

ESSAYS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY:

CONTRIBUTED TO "FRASER'S MAGAZINE" IN 1862 AND 1863, BEING A SEQUEL TO PAPERS WHICH APPEARED IN THE "CORNHILL MAGAZINE," UNDER THE t.i.tLE OF "UNTO THIS LAST."

I.

MAINTENANCE OF LIFE; WEALTH, MONEY, AND RICHES.

As domestic economy regulates the acts and habits of a household, political economy regulates those of a society or State, with reference to its maintenance.

Political economy is neither an art nor a science,[66] but a system of conduct and legislature, founded on the sciences, directing the arts, and impossible, except under certain conditions of moral culture.

By the "maintenance" of a State is to be understood the support of its population in healthy and happy life; and the increase of their numbers, so far as that increase is consistent with their happiness.

It is not the object of political economy to increase the numbers of a nation at the cost of common health or comfort; nor to increase indefinitely the comfort of individuals, by sacrifice of surrounding lives, or possibilities of life.

[66] The science which in modern days had been called Political Economy is in reality nothing more than the investigation of the phenomena of commercial operations. It has no connexion with political economy, as understood and treated of by the great thinkers of past ages; and as long as it is allowed to pa.s.s under the same name, every word written by those thinkers--and chiefly the words of Plato, Xenophon, Cicero, and Bacon--must be either misunderstood or misapplied. The reader must not, therefore, be surprised at the care and insistence with which I have retained the literal and earliest sense of all important terms used in these papers; for a word is usually well made at the time it is first wanted; its youngest meaning has in it the full strength of its youth; subsequent senses are commonly warped or weakened; and as a misused word always is liable to involve an obscured thought, and all careful thinkers, either on this or any other subject, are sure to have used their words accurately, the first condition, in order to be able to avail ourselves of their sayings at all, is a firm definition of terms.

The a.s.sumption which lies at the root of nearly all erroneous reasoning on political economy--namely, that its object is to acc.u.mulate money or exchangeable property--may be shown in few words to be without foundation. For no economist would admit national economy to be legitimate which proposed to itself only the building of a pyramid of gold. He would declare the gold to be wasted, were it to remain in the monumental form, and would say it ought to be employed.

But to what end? Either it must be used only to gain more gold, and build a larger pyramid, or to some purpose other than the gaining of gold. And this other purpose, however at first apprehended, will be found to resolve itself finally into the service of man--that is to say, the extension, defence, or comfort of his life. The golden pyramid may perhaps be providently built, perhaps improvidently; but, at all events, the wisdom or folly of the acc.u.mulation can only be determined by our having first clearly stated the aim of all economy, namely, the extension of life.

If the acc.u.mulation of money, or of exchangeable property, were a certain means of extending existence, it would be useless, in discussing economical questions, to fix our attention upon the more distant object--life--instead of the immediate one--money. But it is not so. Money may sometimes be acc.u.mulated at the cost of life, or by limitations of it; that is to say, either by hastening the deaths of men, or preventing their births. It is therefore necessary to keep clearly in view the ultimate object of economy, and to determine the expediency of minor operations with reference to that ulterior end. It has been just stated that the object of political economy is the continuance not only of life, but of healthy and happy life. But all true happiness is both a consequence and cause of life; it is a sign of its vigour, and means of its continuance. All true suffering is in like manner a consequence and cause of death. I shall therefore, in future, use the word "Life" singly: but let it be understood to include in its signification the happiness and power of the entire human nature, body and soul.

That human nature, as its Creator made it, and maintains it wherever His laws are observed, is entirely harmonious. No physical error can be more profound, no moral error more dangerous than that involved in the monkish doctrine of the opposition of body to soul. No soul can be perfect in an imperfect body; no body perfect without perfect soul.

Every right action and true thought sets the seal of its beauty on person and face; every wrong action and foul thought its seal of distortion; and the various aspects of humanity might be read as plainly as a printed history, were it not that the impressions are so complex that it must always in some cases--and, in the present state of our knowledge, in all cases--be impossible to decipher them completely. Nevertheless, the face of a consistently just, and of a consistently unjust person, may always be rightly discerned at a glance; and if the qualities are continued by descent through a generation or two, there arises a complete distinction of race. Both moral and physical qualities are communicated by descent, far more than they can be developed by education (though both may be destroyed for want of education), and there is as yet no ascertained limit to the n.o.bleness of person and mind which the human creature may attain, by persevering observance of the laws of G.o.d respecting its birth and training. We must therefore yet farther define the aim of political economy to be "the multiplication of human life at the highest standard." It might at first seem questionable whether we should endeavour to maintain a small number of persons of the highest type of beauty and intelligence, or a larger number of an inferior cla.s.s. But I shall be able to show in the sequel, that the way to maintain the largest number is first to aim at the highest standard. Determine the n.o.blest type of man, and aim simply at maintaining the largest possible number of persons of that cla.s.s, and it will be found that the largest possible number of every healthy subordinate cla.s.s must necessarily be produced also.

The perfect type of manhood, as just stated, involves the perfections (whatever we may hereafter determine these to be) of his body, affections, and intelligence. The material things, therefore, which it is the object of political economy to produce and use (or acc.u.mulate for use), are things which serve either to sustain and comfort the body, or exercise rightly the affections and form the intelligence.[67] Whatever truly serves either of these purposes is "useful" to man, wholesome, healthful, helpful, or holy. By seeking such things, man prolongs and increases his life upon the earth.

[67] It may be observed, in antic.i.p.ation of some of our future results, that while some conditions of the affections are aimed at by the economist as final, others are necessary to him as his own instruments: as he obtains them in greater or less degree his own farther work becomes more or less possible. Such, for instance, are the fortifying virtues, which the wisest men of all time have, with more or less distinctness, arranged under the general heads of Prudence, or Discretion (the spirit which discerns and adopts rightly); Justice (the spirit which rules and divides rightly); Fort.i.tude (the spirit which persists and endures rightly); and Temperance (the spirit which stops and refuses rightly); or in shorter terms still, the virtues which teach how to consist, a.s.sist, persist, and desist. These outermost virtues are not only the means of protecting and prolonging life itself, but they are the chief guards or sources of the material means of life, and are the visible governing powers and princes of economy. Thus (reserving detailed statements for the sequel) precisely according to the number of just men in a nation, is their power of avoiding either intestine or foreign war. All disputes may be peaceably settled, if a sufficient number of persons have been trained to submit to the principles of justice. The necessity for war is in direct ratio to the number of unjust persons who are incapable of determining a quarrel but by violence. Whether the injustice take the form of the desire of dominion, or of refusal to submit to it, or of l.u.s.t of territory, or l.u.s.t of money, or of mere irregular pa.s.sion and wanton will, the result is economically the same;--loss of the quant.i.ty of power and life consumed in repressing the injustice, as well as of that requiring to be repressed, added to the material and moral destruction caused by the fact of war. The early civil wars of England, and the existing war in America, are curious examples--these under monarchical, this under republican inst.i.tutions--of the results of the want of education of large ma.s.ses of nations in principles of justice. This latter war, especially, may perhaps at least serve for some visible, or if that be impossible (for the Greeks told us that Plutus was blind, as Dante that he was speechless), some feelable proof that true political economy is an ethical, and by no means a commercial business. The Americans imagined themselves to know somewhat of money-making; bowed low before their Dollar, expecting Divine help from it; more than potent--even omnipotent. Yet all the while this apparently tangible, was indeed an imaginary Deity;--and had they shown the substance of him to any true economist, or even true mineralogist, they would have been told, long years ago,--"Alas, gentlemen, this that you are gaining is not gold,--not a particle of it. It is yellow, and glittering, and like enough to the real metal,--but see--it is brittle, cat-gold, 'iron firestone.'

Out of this, heap it as high as you will, you will get so much steel and brimstone--nothing else; and in a year or two, when (had you known a little of right economy) you might have had quiet roof-trees over your heads, and a fair account at your banker's, you shall instead have to sleep a-field, under red tapestries, costliest, yet comfortless; and at your banker's find deficit at compound interest." But the mere dread or distrust resulting from the want of inner virtues of Faith and Charity among nations, is often no less costly than war itself. The fear which France and England have of each other costs each nation about fifteen millions sterling annually, besides various paralyses of commerce; that sum being spent in the manufacture of means of destruction instead of means of production. There is no more reason in the nature of things that France and England should be hostile to each other than that England and Scotland should be, or Lancashire and Yorkshire; and the reciprocal terrors of the opposite sides of the English Channel are neither more necessary, more economical, nor more virtuous than the old riding and reiving on opposite flanks of the Cheviots, or than England's own weaving for herself of crowns of thorn from the stems of her Red and White Roses.

On the other hand, whatever does not serve either of these purposes,--much more whatever counteracts them,--is in like manner useless to man, unwholesome, unhelpful, or unholy; and by seeking such things man shortens and diminishes his life upon the earth. And neither with respect to things useful or useless can man's estimate of them alter their nature. Certain substances being good for his food, and others noxious to him, what he thinks or wishes respecting them can neither change their nature, nor prevent their power. If he eats corn, he will live; if nightshade, he will die. If he produce or make good and beautiful things, they will "recreate" him (note the solemnity and weight of the word); if bad and ugly things, they will "corrupt" or break in pieces--that is, in the exact degree of their power, kill him. For every hour of labour, however enthusiastic or well intended, which he spends for that which is not bread, so much possibility of life is lost to him. His fancies, likings, beliefs, however brilliant, eager, or obstinate, are of no avail if they are set on a false object. Of all that he has laboured for, the eternal law of heaven and earth measures out to him for reward, to the utmost atom, that part which he ought to have laboured for, and withdraws from him (or enforces on him, it may be) inexorably that part which he ought not to have laboured for. The dust and chaff are all, to the last speck, winnowed away, and on his summer threshing-floor stands his heap of corn; little or much, not according to his labour, but to his discretion. No "commercial arrangements," no painting of surfaces nor alloying of substances, will avail him a pennyweight. Nature asks of him calmly and inevitably, What have you found, or formed--the right thing or the wrong? By the right thing you shall live; by the wrong you shall die.

To thoughtless persons it seems otherwise. The world looks to them as if they could cozen it out of some ways and means of life. But they cannot cozen IT; they can only cozen their neighbours. The world is not to be cheated of a grain; not so much as a breath of its air can be drawn surrept.i.tiously. For every piece of wise work done, so much life is granted; for every piece of foolish work, nothing; for every piece of wicked work, so much death. This is as sure as the courses of day and night. But when the means of life are once produced, men, by their various struggles and industries of acc.u.mulation or exchange, may variously gather, waste, restrain, or distribute them; necessitating, in proportion to the waste or restraint, accurately so much more death. The rate and range of additional death is measured by the rate and range of waste, and is inevitable;--the only question (determined mostly by fraud in peace, and force in war) is, Who is to die, and how?

Such being the everlasting law of human existence, the essential work of the political economist is to determine what are in reality useful and life-giving things, and by what degrees and kinds of labour they are attainable and distributable. This investigation divides itself under three great heads--first, of Wealth; secondly, of Money; and thirdly, of Riches.

These terms are often used as synonymous, but they signify entirely different things. "Wealth," consists of things in themselves valuable; "Money," of doc.u.mentary claims to the possession of such things; and "Riches" is a relative term, expressing the magnitude of the possessions of one person or society as compared with those of other persons or societies.

The study of Wealth is a province of natural science:--it deals with the essential properties of things.

The study of Money is a province of commercial science:--it deals with conditions of engagement and exchange.

The study of Riches is a province of moral science:--it deals with the due relations of men to each other in regard of material possessions; and with the just laws of their a.s.sociation for purposes of labour.

I shall in this paper shortly sketch out the range of subjects which will come before us as we follow these three branches of inquiry.

SECTION I.--WEALTH.

Wealth, it has been said, consists of things essentially valuable. We now, therefore, need a definition of "value."

Value signifies the strength or "availing" of anything towards the sustaining of life, and is always twofold; that is to say, primarily, INTRINSIC, and, secondarily, EFFECTUAL.

The reader must, by antic.i.p.ation, be warned against confusing value with cost, or with price. Value is the life-giving power of anything; cost, the quant.i.ty of labour required to produce it; price, the quant.i.ty of labour which its possessor will take in exchange for it.

Cost and price are commercial conditions, to be studied under the head of Money.