Essay IV.
Ad Valorem
We saw that just payment of labour consisted in a sum of money which would approximately obtain
equivalent labour at a future time: we have now to examine the means of obtaining such equivalence. Which
question involves the definition of Value, Wealth, Price, and Produce.
None of these terms are yet defined so as to be understood by the public. But the last, Produce, which
one might have thought the clearest of all, is, in use, the most ambiguous; and the examination of the kind
of ambiguity attendant on its present employment will best open the way to our work.
In his chapter on Capital1, Mr J.S. Mill instances, as a capitalist, a hardware manufacturer, who, having
intended to spend a certain portion of the proceeds of his business in buying plate and jewels, changes his
mind, and, ’pays it as wages to additional workpeople.” The effect is stated by Mr Mill to be, that “more
food is appropriated to the consumption of productive labourers.”
Now I do not ask, though, had I written this paragraph, it would surely have been asked of me, What is
to become of the silversmiths? If they are truly unproductive persons, we will acquiesce in their extinction.
And though in another part of the same passage, the hardware merchant is supposed also to dispense with
a number of servants, whose “food is thus set free for productive purposes,” I do not inquire what will be
the effect, painful or otherwise, upon the servants, of this emancipation of their food. But I very seriously
inquire why ironware is produce, and silverware is not? That the merchant consumes the one, and sells the
other, certainly does not constitute the difference, unless it can be shown (which, indeed, I perceive it to be
becoming daily more and more the aim of tradesmen to show) that commodities are made to be sold, and
not to be consumed. The merchant is an agent of conveyance to the consumer in one case, and is himself
the consumer in the other2: but the labourers are in either case equally productive, since they have produced
goods to the same value, if the hardware and the plate are both goods.
And what distinction separates them? It is indeed possible that in the “comparative estimate of the
moralist,” with which Mr Mill says political economy has nothing to do (III. i. 2), a steel fork might appear
a more substantial production than a silver one: we may grant also that knives, no less than forks, are good
produce; and scythes and ploughshares serviceable articles. But, how of bayonets? Supposing the hardware
1Book I. chap. iv. s. 1. To save space, my future references to Mr Mill’s work will be by numerals only, as in this instance, I. iv.
I. Ed. in 2 vols. 8vo. Parker, 1848.
2If Mr Mill had wished to show the difference in result between consumption and sale, he should have represented the hardware
merchant as consuming his own goods instead of selling them; similarly, the silver merchant as consuming his own goods instead of
welling them. Had he done this, he would have made his position clearer, though less tenable; and perhaps this was the position he
really intended to take, tacitly involving his theory, elsewhere stated, and shown in the sequel of this paper to be false, that demand
for commodities is not demand for labour. But by the most diligent scrutiny of the paragraph now under examination, I cannot
determine whether it is a fallacy pure and simple, or the half of one fallacy supported by the whole of a greater one; so that I treat it
here on the kinder assumption that it is one fallacy only.
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merchant to effect large sales of these, by help of the “setting free” of the food of his servants and his
silversmith, — is he still employing productive labourers, or, in Mr Mill’s words, labourers who increase
“the stock of permanent means of enjoyment” (I. iii. 4)? Or if, instead of bayonets, he supply bombs, will
not the absolute and final “enjoyment” of even these energetically productive articles (each of which costs
ten pounds3) be dependent on a proper choice of time and place for their enfantement; choice, that is to say,
depending on those philosophical considerations with which political economy has nothing to do4?
I should have regretted the need of pointing out inconsistency in any portion of Mr Mill’s work, had
not the value of his work proceeded from its inconsistencies. He deserves honour among economists by
inadvertently disclaiming the principles which he states, and tacitly introducing the moral considerations
with which he declares his science has no connection. Many of his chapters are, therefore, true and valuable;
and the only conclusions of his which I have to dispute are those which follow from his premises.
Thus, the idea which lies at the root of the passage we have just been examining, namely, that labour
applied to produce luxuries will not support so many persons as labour applied to produce useful articles,
is entirely true; but the instance given fails — and in four directions of failure at once-because Mr Mill has
not defined the real meaning of usefulness. The definition which he has given-” capacity to satisfy a desire,
or serve a purpose” (III. i. 2) — applies equally to the iron and silver. while the true definition which he
has not given, but which nevertheless underlies the false verbal definition in his mind, and comes out once
or twice by accident (as in the words “any support to life or strength” in I. iii. 5) —applies to some articles
of iron, but not to others, and to some articles of silver, but not to others. It applies to ploughs, but not to
bayonets; and to forks, but not to filigree5.
The eliciting of the true definitions will give us the reply to our first question, “What is value?” respecting
which, however, we must first hear the popular statements.
“The word ’value,’ when used without adjunct, always means, in political economy, value in exchange”
(Mill, III. i. 2). So that, if two ships cannot exchange their rudders, their rudders are, in politico-economic
language, of no value to either.
But “the subject of political economy is wealth.” — (Preliminary remarks, page 1)
And wealth “consists of all useful and agreeable objects which possess exchangeable value.” — (Preliminary
remarks, page 10.)
It appears, then, according to Mr Mill, that usefulness and agreeableness underlie the exchange value,
and must be ascertained to exist in the thing, before we can esteem it an object of wealth.
Now, the economical usefulness of a thing depends not merely on its own nature, but on the number of
people who can and will use it. A horse is useless, and therefore unsaleable, if no one can ride, — a sword,
if no one can strike, and meat, if no one can eat. Thus every material utility depends on its relative human
capacity.
Similarly: The agreeableness of a thing depends not merely on its own likeableness, but on the number
of people who can be got to like it. The relative agreeableness, and therefore saleableness, of “a pot of the
smallest ale,” and of “Adonis painted by a running brook,” depends virtually on the opinion of Demos, in
the shape of Christopher Sly. That is to say, the agreeableness of a thing depends on its relatively human
disposition6. Therefore, political economy, being a science of wealth, must be a science respecting human
3I take Mr Helps’ estimate in his essay on War.
4Also when the wrought silver vases of Spain were dashed to fragments by our custom-house officers, because bullion might
be imported free of duty, but not brains, was the axe that broke them productive? — the artist who wrought them unproductive?
Or again. If the woodman’s axe is productive, is the executioner’s? as also, if the hemp of a cable be productive, does not the
productiveness of hemp in a halter depend on its moral more than on its material application?
5Filigree: that is to say, generally, ornament dependent on complexity, not on art.
6These statements sound crude in their brevity; but will be found of the utmost importance when they are developed. Thus, in
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capacities and dispositions. But moral considerations have nothing to do with political economy (III. i. 2).
Therefore, moral considerations have nothing to do with human capacities and dispositions.
I do not wholly like the look of this conclusion from Mr Mill’s statements: — let us try Mr Ricardo’s.
“Utility is not the measure of exchangeable value, though it is absolutely essential to it.” — (Chap. I.
sect. i) essential in what degree, Mr Ricardo? There may be greater and less degrees of utility. Meat, for
instance, may be so good as to be fit for any one to eat, or so bad as to be fit for no one to eat. What is the
exact degree of goodness which is “essential” to its exchangeable value, but not “the measure” of it? How
good must the meat be, in order to possess any exchangeable value; and how bad must it be — (I wish this
were a settled question in London markets) — in order to possess none?
There appears to be some hitch, I think, in the working even of Mr. Ricardo’s principles; but let him
take his own example. “Suppose that in the early stages of society the bows and arrows of the hunter were
of equal value with the implements of the fisherman. Under such circumstances the value of the deer, the
produce of the hunter’s day’s labour, would be exactly equal to the value of the fish, the product of the
fisherman’s day’s labour, The comparative value of the fish and game would be entirely regulated by the
quantity of labour realized in each.” (Ricardo, chap. iii. On Value).
Indeed! Therefore, if the fisherman catches one sprat, and the huntsman one deer, one sprat will be
equal in value to one deer but if the fisherman catches no sprat, and the huntsman two deer, no sprat will be
equal in value to two deer?
Nay but — Mr Ricardo’s supporters may say — he means, on an average, — if the average product of
a day’s work of fisher and hunter be one fish and one deer, the one fish will always be equal in value to the
one deer.
Might I inquire the species of fish? Whale? or white-bait7?
the above instance, economists have never perceived that disposition to buy is a wholly moral element in demand: that is to say,
when you give a man half-a-crown, it depends on his disposition whether he is rich or poor with it — whether he will buy disease,
ruin, and hatred, or buy health, advancement, and domestic love. And thus the agreeableness or exchange value of every offered
commodity depends on production, not merely of the commodity, but of buyers of it; therefore on the education of buyers, and on
all the moral elements by which their disposition to buy this, or that, is formed. I will illustrate and expand into final consequences
every one of these definitions in its place: at present they can only be given with extremest brevity; for in order to put the subject
at once in a connected form before the reader, I have thrown into one, the opening definitions of four chapters; namely, of that on
Value (“Ad Valorem”); on Price (“Thirty Pieces”); on Production (“Demeter”); and on Economy (“The Law of the House”).
7Perhaps it may be said, in farther support of Mr Ricardo, that he meant, “when the utility is constant or given, the price varies
as the quantity of labour.” If he meant this, he should have said it; but, had he meant it, he could have hardly missed the necessary
result, that utility would be one measure of price (which he expressly denies it to be); and that, to prove saleableness, he had to
prove a given quantity of utility, as well as a given quantity of labour: to wit, in his own instance, that the deer and fish would each
feed the same number of men, for the same number of days, with equal pleasure to their palates. The fact is, he did not know what
he meant himself. The general idea which he had derived from commercial experience, without being able to analyze it, was, that
when the demand is constant, the price varies as the quantity of labour required for production; or, — using the formula I gave
in last paper — when y is constant, x y varies as x. But demand never is, nor can be, ultimately constant, if x varies distinctly;
for, as price rises, consumers fall away; and as soon as there is a monopoly (and all scarcity is a form of monopoly; so that every
commodity is affected occasionally by some colour of monopoly), y becomes the most influential condition of the price. Thus the
price of a painting depends less on its merits than on the interest taken in it by the public; the price of singing less on the labour of
the singer than the number of persons who desire to hear him; and the price of gold less on the scarcity which affects it in common
with cerium or iridium, than on the sunlight colour and unalterable purity by which it attracts the admiration and answers the trust
of mankind.
It must be kept in mind, however, that I use the word “demand” in a somewhat different sense from economists usually. They
mean by it “the quantity of a thing sold.” I mean by it “the force of the buyer’s capable intention to buy.” In good English, a person’s
“demand” signifies, not what he gets, but what he asks for.
Economists also do not notice that objects are not valued by absolute bulk or weight, but by such bulk and weight as is necessary
to bring them into use. They say, for instance, that water bears no price in the market. It is true that a cupful does not, but a lake
does; just as a handful of dust does not, but an acre does. And were it possible to make even the possession of the cupful or handful
permanent, (i.e. to find a place for them,) the earth and sea would be bought up for handfuls and cupfuls.
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It would be waste of time to purpose these fallacies farther; we will seek for a true definition.
Much store has been set for centuries upon the use of our English classical education. It were to be
wished that our well-educated merchants recalled to mind always this much of their latin schooling,— that
the nominative of valorem (a word already sufficiently familiar to them) is valor; a word which, therefore,
ought to be familiar to them. Valor, from valere, to be well or strong; — strong, life (if a man), or valiant;
strong, for life (if a thing), or valuable. To be “valuable,” therefore, is to “avail towards life.” A truly valuable
or availing thing is that which leads to life with its whole strength. In proportion as it does not lead to life,
or as its strength is broken, it is less valuable; in proportion as it leads away from life, it is unvaluable or
malignant.
The value of a thing, therefore, is independent of opinion, and of quantity. Think what you will of it,
gain how much you may of it, the value of the thing itself is neither greater nor less. For ever it avails, or
avails not; no estimate can raise, no disdain repress, the power which it holds from the Maker of things and
of men.
The real science of political economy, which has yet to be distinguished from the bastard science, as
medicine from witchcraft, and astronomy from astrology, is that which teaches nations to desire and labour
for the things that lead to life: and which teaches them to scorn and destroy the things that lead to destruction.
And if, in a state of infancy, they supposed indifferent things, such as excrescences of shell-fish, and pieces
of blue and red stone, to be valuable, and spent large measures of the labour which ought to be employed for
the extension and ennobling of life, in diving or digging for them, and cutting them into various shapes,or if,
in the same state of infancy, they imagine precious and beneficent things, such as air, light, and cleanliness,
to be valueless,-or if, finally, they imagine the conditions of their own existence, by which alone they can
truly possess or use anything, such, for instance, as peace, trust, and love, to be prudently exchangeable,
when the markets offer, for gold, iron, or excresrences of shells — the great and only science of Political
Economy teaches them, in all these cases, what is vanity, and what substance; and how the service of Death,
the lord of Waste, and of eternal emptiness, differs from the service of Wisdom, the lady of Saving, and of
eternal fulness; she who has said, “I will cause those that love me to inherit SUBSTANCE; and I will FILL
their treasures.”
The “Lady of Saving,” in a profounder sense than that of the savings bank, though that is a good one:
Madonna della Salute,—Lady of Health,—which, though commonly spoken of as if separate from wealth,
is indeed a part of wealth. This word, “wealth,” it will be remembered, is the next we have to define.
“To be wealthy” says Mr Mill, “is to have a large stock of useful articles.” I accept this definition. Only
let us perfectly understand it. My opponents often lament my not giving them enough logic: I fear I must at
present use a little more than they will like: but this business of Political Economy is no light one, and we
must allow no loose terms in it.
We have, therefore, to ascertain in the above definition, first, what is the meaning of “having,” or the
nature of Possession. Then what is the meaning of “useful,” or the nature of Utility.
And first of possession. At the crossing of the transepts of Milan Cathedral has lain, for three hundred
years, the embalmed body of St. Carlo Borromeo. It holds a golden crosier, and has a cross of emeralds on
its breast. Admitting the crosier and emeralds to be useful articles, is the body to be considered as “having”
them? Do they, in the politico-economical sense of property, belong to it? If not, and if we may, therefore,
conclude generally that a dead body cannot possess property, what degree and period of animation in the
body will render possession possible?
As thus: lately in a wreck of a Californian ship, one of the passengers fastened a belt about him with
two hundred pounds of gold in it, with which he was found afterwards at the bottom. Now, as he was sinking
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— had he the gold? or had the gold him8?
And if, instead of sinking him in the sea by its weight, the gold had struck him on the forehead, and
thereby caused incurable disease—suppose palsy or insanity, —would the gold in that case have been more
a “possession” than in the first? Without pressing the inquiry up through instances of gradually increasing
vital power over the gold (which I will, however, give, if they are asked for), I presume the reader will see
that possession, or “having,” is not an absolute, but a gradated, power; and consists not only in the quantity
or nature of the thing possessed, but also (and in a greater degree) in its suitableness to the person possessing
it and in his vital power to use it.
And our definition of Wealth, expanded, becomes: “The possession of useful articles, which we can
use.” This is a very serious change. For wealth, instead of depending merely on a “have,” is thus seen to
depend on a “can.” Gladiator’s death, on a “habet”; but soldier’s victory, and State’s salvation, on a “quo
plurimum posset.” (liv. VII. 6.) And what we reasoned of only as accumulation of material, is seen to
demand also accumulation of capacity.
So much for our verb. Next for our adjective. What is the meaning of “useful”?
The inquiry is closely connected with the last. For what is capable of use in the hands of some persons,
is capable, in the hands of others, of the opposite of use, called commonly “from-use,” or “ab-use.” And
it depends on the person, much more than on the article, whether its usefulness or ab-usefulness will be
the quality developed in it. Thus, wine, which the Greeks, in their Bacchus, made rightly the type of all
passion, and which, when used, “cheereth god and man” (that is to say, strengthens both the divine life, or
reasoning power, and the earthy, or carnal power, of man); yet, when abused, becomes “Dionysos,” hurtful
especially to the divine part of man, or reason. And again, the body itself, being equally liable to use and
to abuse, and, when rightly disciplined, serviceable to the State, both for war and labour, — but when not
disciplined, or abused, valueless to the State, and capable only of continuing the private or single existence
of the individual (and that but feebly)— the Greeks called such a body an “idiotic” or “private” body, from
their word signifying a person employed in no way directly useful to the State; whence finally, our “idiot,”
meaning a person entirely occupied with his own concerns.
Hence, it follows that if a thing is to be useful, it must be not only of an availing nature, but in availing
hands. Or, in accurate terms, usefulness is value in the hands of the valiant; so that this science of wealth
being, as we have just seen, when regarded as the science of Accumulation, accumulative of capacity as well
as of material,—when regarded as the Science of Distribution, is distribution not absolute, but discriminate;
not of every thing to every man, but of the right thing to the right man. A difficult science, dependent on
more than arithmetic.
Wealth, therefore, is “THE POSSESSION OF THE VALUABLE BY THE VALIANT”; and in considering
it as a power existing in a nation, the two elements, the value of the thing, and the valour of its
possessor, must be estimated together. Whence it appears that many of the persons commonly considered
wealthy, are in reality no more wealthy than the locks of their own strong boxes are, they being inherently
and eternally incapable of wealth; and operating for the nation, in an economical point of view, either as
pools of dead water, and eddies in a stream (which, so long as the stream flows, are useless, or serve only
to drown people, but may become of importance in a state of stagnation should the stream dry); or else,
as dams in a river, of which the ultimate service depends not on the dam, but the miller; or else, as mere
accidental stays and impediments, acting not as wealth, but (for we ought to have a correspondent term) as
“illth,” causing various devastation and trouble around them in all directions; or lastly, act not at all, but are
merely animated conditions of delay, (no use being possible of anything they have until they are dead,) in
which last condition they are nevertheless often useful as delays, and “impedimenta,” if a nation is apt to
move too fast.
8Compare George Herbert, The Church Porch, Staza 28.
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This being so, the difficulty of the true science of Political Economy lies not merely in the need of
developing manly character to deal with material value, but in the fact, that while the manly character and
material value only form wealth by their conjunction, they have nevertheless a mutually destructive operation
on each other. For the manly character is apt to ignore, or even cast away, the material value: — whence
that of Pope: —
“Sure, of qualities demanding praise,
More go to ruin fortunes, than to raise.”
And on the other hand, the material value is apt to undermine the manly character; so that it must
be our work, in the issue, to examine what evidence there is of the effect of wealth on the minds of its
possessors; also, what kind of person it is who usually sets himself to obtain wealth, and succeeds in doing
so; and whether the world owes more gratitude to rich or to poor men, either for their moral influence
upon it, or for chief goods, discoveries, and practical advancements. I may, however, anticipate future
conclusions, so far as to state that in a community regulated only by laws of demand and supply, but protected
from open violence, the persons who become rich are, generally speaking, industrious, resolute, proud,
covetous, prompt, methodical, sensible, unimaginative, insensitive, and ignorant. The persons who remain
poor are the entirely foolish, the entirely wise9, the idle, the reckless, the humble, the thoughtful, the dull,
the imaginative, the sensitive, the well-informed, the improvident, the irregularly and impulsively wicked,
the clumsy knave, the open thief, and the entirely merciful, just, and godly person.
Thus far, then, of wealth. Next, we have to ascertain the nature of PRICE; that is to say, of exchange
value, and its expression by currencies.
Note first, of exchange, there can be no profit in it. It is only in labour there can be profit — that is to
say, a “making in advance,” or “making in favour of” (from proficio). In exchange, there is only advantage,
i.e., a bringing of vantage or power to the exchanging persons. Thus, one man, by sowing and reaping, turns
one measure of corn into two measures. That is Profit. Another, by digging and forging, turns one spade into
two spades. That is Profit. But the man who has two measures of corn wants sometimes to dig; and the man
who has two spades wants sometimes to eat:They exchange the gained grain for the gained tool; and both are
the better for the exchange; but though there is much advantage in the transaction, there is no profit. Nothing
is constructed or produced. Only that which had been before constructed is given to the person by whom it
can be used. If labour is necessary to effect the exchange, that labour is in reality involved in the production,
and, like all other labour, bears profit. Whatever number of men are concerned in the manufacture, or in the
conveyance, have share in the profit; but neither the manufacture nor the conveyance are the exchange, and
in the exchange itself there is no profit.
There may, however, be acquisition, which is a very different thing. If, in the exchange, one man is able
to give what cost him little labour for what has cost the other much, he “acquires” a certain quantity of the
produce of the other’s labour. And precisely what he acquires, the other loses. In mercantile language, the
person who thus acquires is commonly said to have “made a profit”; and I believe that many of our merchants
are seriously under the impression that it is possible for everybody, somehow, to make a profit in this manner.
Whereas, by the unfortunate constitution of the world we live in, the laws both of matter and motion have
quite rigorously forbidden universal acquisition of this kind. Profit, or material gain, is attainable only by
construction or by discovery; not by exchange. Whenever material gain follows exchange, for every plus
there is a precisely equal minus.
Unhappily for the progress of the science of Political Economy, the plus quantities, or, — if I may be
allowed to coin an awkward plural — the pluses, make a very positive and venerable appearance in the
world, so that every one is eager to learn the science which produces results so magnificent; whereas the
9“O Zeus dipou penetai” — Arist. Plut. 582. It would but weaken the grad words to lean on the preceding ones: — “Oti tou
Platon parecho Beltionas, andpas, kai tin gnomen, kai ten idean.”
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minuses have, on the other hand, a tendency to retire into back streets, and other places of shade,—or even
to get themselves wholly and finally put out of sight in graves: which renders the algebra of this science
peculiar, and difficultly legible; a large number of its negative signs being written by the account-keeper in a
kind of red ink, which starvation thins, and makes strangely pale, or even quite invisible ink, for the present.
The Science of Exchange, or, as I hear it has been proposed to call it, of “Catallactics,” considered as
one of gain, is, therefore, simply nugatory; but considered as one of acquisition, it is a very curious science,
differing in its data and basis from every other science known. Thus: — if I can exchange a needle with a
savage for a diamond, my power of doing so depends either on the savage’s ignorance of social arrangements
in Europe, or on his want of power to take advantage of them, by selling the diamond to any one else for
more needles. If, farther, I make the bargain as completely advantageous to myself as possible, by giving to
the savage a needle with no eye in it (reaching, thus a sufficiently satisfactory type of the perfect operation
of catallactic science), the advantage to me in the entire transaction depends wholly upon the ignorance,
powerlessness, or heedlessness of the person dealt with. Do away with these, and catallactic advantage
becomes impossible. So far, therefore, as the science of exchange relates to the advantage of one of the
exchanging persons only, it is founded on the ignorance or incapacity of the opposite person. Where these
vanish, it also vanishes. It is therefore a science founded on nescience, and an art founded on artlessness.
But all other sciences and arts, except this, have for their object the doing away with their opposite nescience
and artlessness. This science, alone of sciences, must, by all available means, promulgate and prolong its
opposite nescience; otherwise the science itself is impossible. It is, therefore, peculiarly and alone the
science of darkness; probably a bastard science — not by any means a divina scientia, but one begotten
of another father, that father who, advising his children to turn stones into bread, is himself employed in
turning bread into stones, and who, if you ask a fish of him (fish not being producible on his estate), can but
give you a serpent.
The general law, then, respecting just or economical exchange, is simply this: — There must be advantage
on both sides (or if only advantage on one, at least no disadvantage on the other) to the persons
exchanging; and just payment for his time, intelligence, and labour, to any intermediate person effecting
the transaction (commonly called a merchant); and whatever advantage there is on either side, and whatever
pay is given to the intermediate person, should be thoroughly known to all concerned. All attempt at
concealment implies some practice of the opposite, or undivine science, founded on nescience. Whence
another saying of the Jew merchant’s — “As a nail between the stone joints, so doth sin stick fast between
buying and selling.” Which peculiar riveting of stone and timber, in men’s dealings with each other, is again
set forth in the house which was to be destroyed — timber and stones together — when Zechariah’s roll
(more probably “curved sword”) flew over it: “the curse that goeth forth over all the earth upon every one
that stealeth and holdeth himself guiltless,” instantly followed by the vision of the Great Measure; — the
measure “of the injustice of them in all the earth” (auti i adikia auton en pase te ge), with the weight of
lead for its lid, and the woman, the spirit of wickedness, within it; — that is to say, Wickedness hidden by
Dulness, and formalized, outwardly, into ponderously established cruelty. “It shall be set upon its own base
in the land of Babel.”10
I have hitherto carefully restricted myself, in speaking of exchange, to the use of the term “advantage”;
but that term includes two ideas; the advantage, namely, of getting what we need, and that of getting what
we wish for. Three-fourths of the demands existing in the world are romantic; founded on visions, idealisms,
hopes, and affections; and the regulation of the purse is, in its essence, regulation of the imagination and the
heart. Hence, the right discussion of the nature of price is a very high metaphysical and psychical problem;
sometimes to be solved only in a passionate manner, as by David in his counting the price of the water of
the well by the gate of Bethlehem; but its first conditions are the following: — The price of anything is the
quantity of labour given by the person desiring it, in order to obtain possession of it. This price depends on
1023. Zech. v. ii.
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four variable quantities. A. The quantity of wish the purchaser has for the thing; opposed to a, the quantity of
wish the seller has to keep it. B. The quantity of labour the purchaser can afford, to obtain the thing opposed
to B, the quantity of labour the seller can afford, to keep it. These quantities are operative only in excess;
i.e. the quantity of wish (A) means the quantity of wish for this thing, above wish for other things; and the
quantity of work (B) means the quantity which can be spared to get this thing from the quantity needed to
get other things.
Phenomena of price, therefore, are intensely complex, curious, and interesting—too complex, however,
to be examined yet; every one of them, when traced far enough, showing itself at last as a part of the bargain
of the Poor of the Flock (or “flock of slaughter”), “If ye think good, give ME my price, and if not, forbear”
Zech. xi. 12; but as the price of everything is to be calculated finally in labour, it is necessary to define the
nature of that standard.
Labour is the contest of the life of man with an opposite;—the term “life” including his intellect, soul,
and physical power, contending with question, difficulty, trial, or material force.
Labour is of a higher or lower order, as it includes more or fewer of the elements of life: and labour
of good quality, in any kind, includes always as much intellect and feeling as will fully and harmoniously
regulate the physical force.
In speaking of the value and price of labour, it is necessary always to understand labour of a given rank
and quality, as we should speak of gold or silver of a given standard. Bad (that is, heartless, inexperienced,
or senseless) labour cannot be valued; it is like gold of uncertain alloy, or flawed iron11.
The quality and kind of labour being given, its value, like that of all other valuable things, is invariable.
But the quantity of it which must be given for other things is variable: and in estimating this variation, the
price of other things must always be counted by the quantity of labour; not the price of labour by the quantity
of other things.
Thus, if we want to plant an apple sapling in rocky ground, it may take two hours’ work; in soft ground,
perhaps only half an hour. Grant the soil equally good for the tree in each case. Then the value of the sapling
planted by two hours’ work is nowise greater than that of the sapling planted in half an hour. One will bear
no more fruit than the other. Also, one half-hour of work is as valuable as another half-hour; nevertheless
the one sapling has cost four such pieces of work, the other only one. Now the proper statement of this fact
is, not that the labour on the hard ground is cheaper than on the soft; but that the tree is dearer. The exchange
value may, or may not, afterwards depend on this fact. If other people have plenty of soft ground to plant in,
they will take no cognizance of our two hours’ labour, in the price they will offer for the plant on the rock.
And if, through want of sufficient botanical science, we have planted an upas tree instead of an apple, the
exchange-value will be a negative quantity; still less proportionate to the labour expended.
What is commonly called cheapness of labour, signifies, therefore, in reality, that many obstacles have
to be overcome by it; so that much labour is required to produce a small result. But this should never be
spoken of as cheapness of labour, but as dearness of the object wrought for. It would be just as rational to
say that walking was cheap, because we had ten miles to walk home to our dinner, as that labour was cheap,
because we had to work ten hours to earn it.
The last word which we have to define is “Production.”
11Labour which is entirely good of its kind, that is to say, effective, or efficient, the Greeks called “weighable,” or axios, translated
usually “worthy,” and because thus substantial and true, they called its price time, the “honourable estimate” of it (honorarium): this
word being founded on their conception of true labour as a divine thing, to be honoured with the kind of honour given to the gods;
whereas the price of false labour, or of that which led away from life, was to be, not honour, but vengeance; for which they reserved
another word, attributing the exaction of such price to a peculiar goddess, called Tisiphone, the “requiter (or quittance-taker) of
death”; a person versed in the highest branches of arithmetic, and punctual in her habits; with whom accounts current have been
opened also in modern days.
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I have hitherto spoken of all labour as profitable; because it is impossible to consider under one head
the quality or value of labour, and its aim. But labour of the best quality may be various in aim. It may be
either constructive (“gathering” from con and struo), as agriculture; nugatory, as jewel-cutting; or destructive
(“scattering,” from de and struo), as war. It is not, however, always easy to prove labour, apparently nugatory,
to be actually so12; generally, the formula holds good: “he that gathereth not, scattereth”; thus, the jeweller’s
art is probably very harmful in its ministering to a clumsy and inelegant pride. So that, finally, I believe
nearly all labour may be shortly divided into positive and negative labour: positive, that which produces life;
negative, that which produces death; the most directly negative labour being murder, and the most directly
positive, the bearing and rearing of children; so that in the precise degree in which murder is hateful, on the
negative side of idleness, in the exact degree child-rearing is admirable, on the positive side of idleness. For
which reason, and because of the honour that there is in rearing children13, while the wife is said to be as
the vine (for cheering), the children are as the olive branch, for praise: nor for praise only, but for peace
(because large families can only be reared in times of peace): though since, in their spreading and voyaging
in various directions, they distribute strength, they are, to the home strength, as arrives in the hand of the
giant —striking here, and there far away.
Labour being thus various in its result, the prosperity of any nation is in exact proportion to the quantity
of labour which it spends in obtaining and employing means of life. Observe, — I say, obtaining and
employing; that is to say, not merely wisely producing, but wisely distributing and consuming. Economists
usually speak as if there were no good in consumption absolute14. So far from this being so, consumption
absolute is the end, crown, and perfection of production; and wise consumption is a far more difficult art
than wise production. Twenty people can gain money for one who can use it; and the vital question, for
individual and for nation, is, never “how much do they make?” but “to what purpose do they spend?”
The reader may, perhaps, have been surprised at the slight reference I have hitherto made to “capital,”
and its functions. It is here the place to define them.
Capital signifies “head, or source, or root material” — it is material by which some derivative or secondary
good is produced. It is only capital proper (caput vivum, not caput mortuum) when it is thus producing
something different from itself. It is a root, which does not enter into vital function till it produces
something else than a root: namely, fruit. That fruit will in time again produce roots; and so all living capital
issues in reproduction of capital; but capital which produces nothing but capital is only root producing root;
bulb issuing in bulb, never in tulip; seed issuing in seed, never in bread. The Political Economy of Europe
has hitherto devoted itself wholly to the multiplication, or (less even) the aggregation, of bulbs. It never
saw, nor conceived, such a thing as a tulip. Nay, boiled bulbs they might have been—glass bulbs—Prince
Rupert’s drops, consummated in powder (well, if it were glass-powder and not gunpowder), for any end or
meaning the economists had in defining the laws of aggregation. We will try and get a clearer notion of
them.
The best and simplest general type of capital is a well-made ploughshare. Now, if that ploughshare
did nothing but beget other ploughshares, in a polypous manner, — however the great cluster of polypous
12The most accurately nugatory labour is, perhaps, that of which not enough is given to answer a purpose effectually, and which,
therefore, has all to be done over again. Also, labour which fails of effect through non-co-operation. The cure of a little village
near Bellinzona, to whom I had expressed wonder that the peasants allowed the Ticino to flood their fields, told me that they would
not join to build an effectual embankment high up the valley, because everybody said “that would help his neighbours as much as
himself.” So every proprietor built a bit of low embankment about his own field; and the Ticino, as soon as it had a mind, swept
away and swallowed all up together.
13Observe, I say, rearing,” not “begetting.” The praise is in the seventh season, not in sporitos, nor in phutalia, but in opora. It is
strange that men always praise enthusiastically any person who, by a momentary exertion, saves a life; but praise very hesitatingly
a person who, by exertion and self-denial prolonged through years, creates one. We give the crown “ob civem servatum”; — why
not “ob civem natum?” Born, I mean, to the full, in soul as well as body. England has oak enough, I think, for both chaplets.
14When Mr Mill speaks of productive consumption, he only means consumption which results in increase of capital, or material
wealth. See I. iii. 4, and I. iii. 5.
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plough might glitter in the sun, it would have lost its function of capital. It becomes true capital only by
another kind of splendour, — when it is seen “splendescere sulco,” to grow bright in the furrow; rather
with diminution of its substance, than addition, by the noble friction. And the true home question, to every
capitalist and to every nation, is not, “how many ploughs have you?” but, “where are your furrows?” not
— “how quickly will this capital reproduce itself?” — but, “what will it do during reproduction?” What
substance will it furnish, good for life? what work construct, protective of life? if none, its own reproduction
is useless — if worse than none, (for capital may destroy life as well as support it), its own reproduction is
worse than useless; it is merely an advance from Tisiphone, on mortgage— not a profit by any means.
Not a profit, as the ancients truly saw, and showed in the type of Ixion; — for capital is the head, or
fountain head of wealth — the “well-head” of wealth, as the clouds are the well-heads of rain; but when
clouds are without water, and only beget clouds, they issue in wrath at last, instead of rain, and in lightning
instead of harvest; whence Ixion is said first to have invited his guests to a banquet, and then made them
fall into a pit, (as also Demas’ silver mine,) after which, to show the rage of riches passing from lust of
pleasure to lust of power, yet power not truly understood, Ixion is said to have desired Juno, and instead,
embracing a cloud (or phantasm), to have begotten the Centaurs; the power of mere wealth being, in itself,
as the embrace of a shadow, — comfortless, (so also “Ephraim feedeth on wind and followth after the east
wind;” or “that which is not”—Prov. xxiii. 5; and again Dante’s Geryon, the type of avaricious fraud, as he
flies, gathers the air up with retractile claws,—“l’aer a se raccolse”15) but in its offspring, a mingling of the
brutal with the human nature; human in sagacity—using both intellect and arrow; but brutal in its body and
hoof, for consuming, and trampling down. For which sin Ixion is at last bound upon a wheel — fiery and
toothed, and rolling perpetually in the air: — the type of human labour when selfish and fruitless (kept far
into the Middle Ages in their wheels of fortune); the wheel which has in it no breath or spirit, but is whirled
by chance only; whereas of all true work the Ezekiel vision is true, that the Spirit of the living creature is in
the wheels, and where the angels go, the wheels go by them; but move no otherwise.
This being the real nature of capital, it follows that there are two kinds of true production, always going
on in an active State: one of seed, and one of food; or production for the Ground, and for the Mouth; both
of which are by covetous persons thought to be production only for the granary; whereas the function of
the granary is but intermediate and conservative, fulfilled in distribution; else it ends in nothing but mildew,
and nourishment of rats and worms. And since production for the Ground is only useful with future hope
of harvest, all essential production is for the Mouth; and is finally measured by the mouth; hence, as I said
above, consumption is the crown of production; and the wealth of a nation is only to be estimated by what it
consumes.
The want of any clear sight of this fact is the capital error, issuing in rich interest and revenue of error
among the political economists. Their minds are continually set on money-gain, not on mouth-gain; and
they fall into every sort of net and snare, dazzled by the coin-glitter as birds by the fowler’s glass; or rather
(for there is not much else like birds in them) they are like children trying to jump on the heads of their own
shadows; the money-gain being only the shadow of the true gain, which is humanity.
The final object of political economy, therefore, is to get good method of consumption, and great quantity
of consumption: in other words, to use everything, and to use it nobly. whether it be substance, service,
or service perfecting substance. The most curious error in Mr Mill’s entire work, (provided for him
15So also in the vision of the women bearing the ephah, before quoted, “the wind was in their wings,” not wings “of a stork,” as
in our version; but “miivi,” of a kite, in the Vulgate, or perhaps more accurately still in the Septuagint, “hoopoe,” a bird connected
typically with the power of riches by many traditions, of which that of its petition for a crest of gold is perhaps the most interesting.
The “Birds” of Aristophanes, in which its part is principal, are full of them; note especially the “fortification of the air with baked
bricks, like Babylon,” I. 550; and, again, compare the Plutus of Dante, who (to show the influence of riches in destroying the
reason) is the only one of the powers of the Inferno who cannot speak intelligibly and also the cowardliest; he is not merely quelled
or restrained, but literally “collapses” at a word; the sudden and helpless operation of mercantile panic being all told in the brief
metaphor, “as the sails, swollen with the wind, fall, when the mast breaks.”
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originally by Ricardo,) is his endeavour to distinguish between direct and indirect service, and consequent
assertion that a demand for commodities is not demand for labour (I. v. 9, et seq.). He distinguishes between
labourers employed to lay out pleasure grounds, and to manufacture velvet; declaring that it makes material
difference to the labouring classes in which of these two ways a capitalist spends his money; because the
employment of the gardeners is a demand for labour, but the purchase of velvet is not16. Error colossal, as
well as strange. It will, indeed, make a difference to the labourer whether we bid him swing his scythe in
the spring winds, or drive the loom in pestilential air. but, so far as his pocket is concerned, it makes, to him
absolutely no difference whether we order him to make green velvet, with seed and a scythe, or red velvet,
with silk and scissors. Neither does it anywise concern him whether, when the velvet is made, we consume
it by walking on it, or wearing it, so long as our consumption of it is wholly selfish. But if our consumption
is to be in anywise unselfish, not only our mode of consuming the articles we require interests him, but also
the kind of article we require with a view to consumption. As thus (returning for a moment to Mr Mill’s
great hardware theory17): it matters, so far as the labourer’s immediate profit is concerned, not an iron filing
whether I employ him in growing a peach, or forging a bombshell; but my probable mode of consumption
of those articles matters seriously. Admit that it is to be in both cases “unselfish,” and the difference, to him,
is final, whether when his child is ill, I walk into his cottage and give it the peach, or drop the shell down his
chimney, and blow his roof off.
The worst of it, for the peasant, is, that the capitalist’s consumption of the peach is apt to be selfish,
and of the shell, distributive18; but, in all cases, this is the broad and general fact, that on due catallactic
commercial principles, somebody’s roof must go off in fulfilment of the bomb’s destiny. You may grow for
your neighbour, at your liking, grapes or grape-shot; he will also, catallactically, grow grapes or grape-shot
for you, and you will each reap what you have sown.
It is, therefore, the manner and issue of consumption which are the real tests of production. Production
does not consist in things laboriously made, but in things serviceably consumable; and the question for the
nation is not how much labour it employs, but how much life it produces. For as consumption is the end and
aim of production, so life is the end and aim of consumption.
I left this question to the reader’s thought two months ago, choosing rather that he should work it out
for himself than have it sharply stated to him. But now, the ground being sufficiently broken (and the details
into which the several questions, here opened, must lead us, being too complex for discussion in the pages of
16The value of raw material, which has, indeed, to be deducted from the price of the labour, is not contemplated in the passages
referred to, Mr. Mill having fallen into the mistake solely by pursuing the collateral results of the payment of wages to middlemen.
He says” The consumer does not, with his own funds, pay the weaver for his day’s work. “Pardon me; the consumer of the velvet
pays the weaver with his own funds as much as he pays the gardener. He pays, probably, an intermediate ship-owner, velvet
merchant, and shopman; pays carriage money, shop rent, damage money, time money, and care money; all these are above and
beside the velvet price, (just as the wages of a head gardener would be above the grass price). but the velvet is as much produced by
the consumer’s capital, though he does not pay for it till six months after production, as the grass is produced by his capital, though
he does not pay the man who mowed and rolled it on Monday, till Saturday afternoon. I do not know if Mr. Mill’s conclusion, —
“the capital cannot be dispensed with, the purchasers can “ (p. 98), has yet been reduced to practice in the City on any large scale.
17Which, observe, is the precise opposite of the one under examination. The hardware theory required us to discharge our
gardeners and engage manufacturers; the velvet theory requires us to discharge our manufacturers and engage gardeners.
18It is one very awful form of the operation of wealth in Europe that it is entirely capitalists’ wealth which supports unjust wars.
Just wars do not need so much money to support them; for most of the men who wage such, wage them gratis; but for an unjust
war, men’s bodies and souls have both to be bought; and the best tools of war for them besides; which makes such war costly to the
maximum; not to speak of the cost of base fear, and angry suspicion, between nations which have not grace nor honesty enough in
all their multitudes to buy an hour’s peace of mind with: as, at present, France and England, purchasing of each other ten millions
sterling worth of consternation annually, (a remarkably light crop, half thorns and half aspen leaves,—sown, reaped, and granaried
by the “science” of the modern political economist, teaching covetousness instead of truth.) And all unjust war being supportable, if
not by pillage of the enemy, only by loans from capitalists, these loans are repaid by subsequent taxation of the people, who appear
to have no will in the matter, the capitalists’ will being the primary root of the war; but its real root is the covetousness of the whole
nation, rendering it incapable of faith, frankness, or justice, and bringing about, therefore, in due time, his own separate loss and
punishment to each person.
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a periodical, so that I must pursue them elsewhere), I desire, in closing the series of introductory papers, to
leave this one great fact clearly stated. THERE IS NO WEALTH BUT LIFE. Life, including all its powers
of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble
and happy human beings; that man is richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the
utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives
of others.
A strange political economy; the only one, nevertheless, that ever was or can be: all political economy
founded on self-interest19 being but the fulfilment of that which once brought schism into the Policy of
angels, and ruin into the Economy of Heaven.
“The greatest number of human beings noble and happy.” But is the nobleness consistent with the
number? Yes, not only consistent with it, but essential to it. The maximum of life can only be reached by
the maximum of virtue. In this respect the law of human population differs wholly from that of animal life.
The multiplication of animals is checked only by want of food, and by the hostility of races; the population
of the gnat is restrained by the hunger of the swallow, and that of the swallow by the scarcity of gnats. Man,
considered as an animal, is indeed limited by the same laws: hunger, or plague, or war, are the necessary
and only restraints upon his increase,—effectual restraints hitherto,—his principal study having been how
most swiftly to destroy himself, or ravage his dwelling-places, and his highest skill directed to give range to
the famine, seed to the plague, and sway to the sword. But, considered as other than an animal, his increase
is not limited by these laws. It is limited only by the limits of his courage and his love. Both of these have
their bounds; and ought to have; his race has its bounds also; but these have not yet been reached, nor will
be reached for ages.
In all the ranges of human thought I know none so melancholy as the speculations of political
economists on the population question. It is proposed to better the condition of the labourer by giving
him higher wages. “Nay,” says the economist, — “if you raise his wages, he will either people down to
the same point of misery at which you found him, or drink your wages away.” He will. I know it. Who
gave him this will? Suppose it were your own son of whom you spoke, declaring to me that you dared not
take him into your firm, nor even give him his just labourer’s wages, because if you did he would die of
drunkenness, and leave half a score of children to the parish. “Who gave your son these dispositions?” —
I should enquire. Has he them by inheritance or by education? By one or other they must come; and as in
him, so also in the poor. Either these poor are of a race essentially different from ours, and unredeemable
(which, however, often implied, I have heard none yet openly say), or else by such care as we have ourselves
received, we may make them continent and sober as ourselves-wise and dispassionate as we are models
arduous of imitation. “But,” it is answered, “they cannot receive education.” Why not? That is precisely the
point at issue. Charitable persons suppose the worst fault of the rich is to refuse the people meat; and the
people cry for their meat, kept back by fraud, to the Lord of Multitudes20. Alas! it is not meat of which the
19“In all reasoning about prices, the proviso must be understood, ’supposing all parties to take care of their own interest.”’ —
Mill, III. i. 5.
20James v. 4. Observe, in these statements I am not talking up, nor countenancing one whit, the common socialist idea of division
of property; division of property is its destruction; and with it the destruction of all hope, all industry, and all justice: it is simply
chaos a chaos towards which the believers in modern political economy are fast tending, and from which I am striving to save
them. The rich man does not keep back meat from the poor by retaining his riches; but by basely using them. Riches are a form of
strength; and a strong man does not injure others by keeping his strength, but by using it injuriously. The socialist, seeing a strong
man oppress a weak one, cries out. — “Break the strong man’s arms.” but I say, “Teach him to use them to better purpose.” The
fortitude and intelligence which acquire riches are intended, by the Giver of both, not to scatter, nor to give away, but to employ
those riches in the service of mankind; in other words, in the redemption of the erring and aid of the weak — that is to say, there
is first to be the work to gain money; then the Sabbath of use for it — the Sabbath, whose law is, not to lose life, but to save. It is
continually the fault or the folly of the poor that they are poor, as it is usually a child’s fault if it falls into a pond, and a cripple’s
weakness that slips at a crossing; nevertheless, most passers — by would pull the child out, or help up the cripple. Put it at the
worst, that all the poor of the world are but disobedient children, or careless cripples, and that all rich people are wise and strong,
and you will see at once that neither is the socialist right in desiring to make everybody poor, powerless, and foolish as he is himself,
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refusal is cruelest, or to which the claim is validest. The life is more than the meat. The rich not only refuse
food to the poor; they refuse wisdom; they refuse virtue; they refuse salvation. Ye sheep without shepherd,
it is not the pasture that has been shut from you, but the Presence. Meat! perhaps your right to that may
be pleadable; but other rights have to be pleaded first. Claim your crumbs from the table, if you will; but
claim them as children, not as dogs; claim your right to be fed, but claim more loudly your right to be holy,
perfect, and pure.
Strange words to be used of working people: “What! holy; without any long robes nor anointing oils;
these rough-jacketed, rough-worded persons; set to nameless and dishonoured service? Perfect! — these,
with dim eyes and cramped limbs, and slowly wakening minds? Pure — these, with sensual desire and
grovelling thought; foul of body, and coarse of soul?” It may be so; nevertheless, such as they are, they are
the holiest, perfectest, purest persons the earth can at present show. They may be what you have said; but if
so, they yet are holier than we, who have left them thus.
But what can be done for them? Who can clothe — who teach — who restrain their multitudes? What
end can there he 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 space 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 passage. 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 case21, 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?
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 God; what will be the result upon the general power
nor the rich man right in leaving the children in the mire.
21The quantity of life is the same in both cases; but it is differently allotted.
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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 classes 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 space 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 transmute 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 substitute 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 God, and the shouts
of His happy multitudes ring round the wine-press 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 by every wondrous word and
unknowable work of God. 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 circumstances 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 quantity 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 them selves 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 piece.
Of which lowly peace it is written that “justice” and peace have kissed each other;” and that the fruit of
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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 assuredly 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 — polein from pelo, prasis from 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 door-posts, 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
hands22; 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 oson en asphodelps
geg oneiar — the sum of enjoyment depending not on the quantity of things tasted, but on the vivacity and
patience of taste.
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 multitudes 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.
22The proper offices of middle-men, 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.
51
Ad Valorem
We saw that just payment of labour consisted in a sum of money which would approximately obtain
equivalent labour at a future time: we have now to examine the means of obtaining such equivalence. Which
question involves the definition of Value, Wealth, Price, and Produce.
None of these terms are yet defined so as to be understood by the public. But the last, Produce, which
one might have thought the clearest of all, is, in use, the most ambiguous; and the examination of the kind
of ambiguity attendant on its present employment will best open the way to our work.
In his chapter on Capital1, Mr J.S. Mill instances, as a capitalist, a hardware manufacturer, who, having
intended to spend a certain portion of the proceeds of his business in buying plate and jewels, changes his
mind, and, ’pays it as wages to additional workpeople.” The effect is stated by Mr Mill to be, that “more
food is appropriated to the consumption of productive labourers.”
Now I do not ask, though, had I written this paragraph, it would surely have been asked of me, What is
to become of the silversmiths? If they are truly unproductive persons, we will acquiesce in their extinction.
And though in another part of the same passage, the hardware merchant is supposed also to dispense with
a number of servants, whose “food is thus set free for productive purposes,” I do not inquire what will be
the effect, painful or otherwise, upon the servants, of this emancipation of their food. But I very seriously
inquire why ironware is produce, and silverware is not? That the merchant consumes the one, and sells the
other, certainly does not constitute the difference, unless it can be shown (which, indeed, I perceive it to be
becoming daily more and more the aim of tradesmen to show) that commodities are made to be sold, and
not to be consumed. The merchant is an agent of conveyance to the consumer in one case, and is himself
the consumer in the other2: but the labourers are in either case equally productive, since they have produced
goods to the same value, if the hardware and the plate are both goods.
And what distinction separates them? It is indeed possible that in the “comparative estimate of the
moralist,” with which Mr Mill says political economy has nothing to do (III. i. 2), a steel fork might appear
a more substantial production than a silver one: we may grant also that knives, no less than forks, are good
produce; and scythes and ploughshares serviceable articles. But, how of bayonets? Supposing the hardware
1Book I. chap. iv. s. 1. To save space, my future references to Mr Mill’s work will be by numerals only, as in this instance, I. iv.
I. Ed. in 2 vols. 8vo. Parker, 1848.
2If Mr Mill had wished to show the difference in result between consumption and sale, he should have represented the hardware
merchant as consuming his own goods instead of selling them; similarly, the silver merchant as consuming his own goods instead of
welling them. Had he done this, he would have made his position clearer, though less tenable; and perhaps this was the position he
really intended to take, tacitly involving his theory, elsewhere stated, and shown in the sequel of this paper to be false, that demand
for commodities is not demand for labour. But by the most diligent scrutiny of the paragraph now under examination, I cannot
determine whether it is a fallacy pure and simple, or the half of one fallacy supported by the whole of a greater one; so that I treat it
here on the kinder assumption that it is one fallacy only.
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merchant to effect large sales of these, by help of the “setting free” of the food of his servants and his
silversmith, — is he still employing productive labourers, or, in Mr Mill’s words, labourers who increase
“the stock of permanent means of enjoyment” (I. iii. 4)? Or if, instead of bayonets, he supply bombs, will
not the absolute and final “enjoyment” of even these energetically productive articles (each of which costs
ten pounds3) be dependent on a proper choice of time and place for their enfantement; choice, that is to say,
depending on those philosophical considerations with which political economy has nothing to do4?
I should have regretted the need of pointing out inconsistency in any portion of Mr Mill’s work, had
not the value of his work proceeded from its inconsistencies. He deserves honour among economists by
inadvertently disclaiming the principles which he states, and tacitly introducing the moral considerations
with which he declares his science has no connection. Many of his chapters are, therefore, true and valuable;
and the only conclusions of his which I have to dispute are those which follow from his premises.
Thus, the idea which lies at the root of the passage we have just been examining, namely, that labour
applied to produce luxuries will not support so many persons as labour applied to produce useful articles,
is entirely true; but the instance given fails — and in four directions of failure at once-because Mr Mill has
not defined the real meaning of usefulness. The definition which he has given-” capacity to satisfy a desire,
or serve a purpose” (III. i. 2) — applies equally to the iron and silver. while the true definition which he
has not given, but which nevertheless underlies the false verbal definition in his mind, and comes out once
or twice by accident (as in the words “any support to life or strength” in I. iii. 5) —applies to some articles
of iron, but not to others, and to some articles of silver, but not to others. It applies to ploughs, but not to
bayonets; and to forks, but not to filigree5.
The eliciting of the true definitions will give us the reply to our first question, “What is value?” respecting
which, however, we must first hear the popular statements.
“The word ’value,’ when used without adjunct, always means, in political economy, value in exchange”
(Mill, III. i. 2). So that, if two ships cannot exchange their rudders, their rudders are, in politico-economic
language, of no value to either.
But “the subject of political economy is wealth.” — (Preliminary remarks, page 1)
And wealth “consists of all useful and agreeable objects which possess exchangeable value.” — (Preliminary
remarks, page 10.)
It appears, then, according to Mr Mill, that usefulness and agreeableness underlie the exchange value,
and must be ascertained to exist in the thing, before we can esteem it an object of wealth.
Now, the economical usefulness of a thing depends not merely on its own nature, but on the number of
people who can and will use it. A horse is useless, and therefore unsaleable, if no one can ride, — a sword,
if no one can strike, and meat, if no one can eat. Thus every material utility depends on its relative human
capacity.
Similarly: The agreeableness of a thing depends not merely on its own likeableness, but on the number
of people who can be got to like it. The relative agreeableness, and therefore saleableness, of “a pot of the
smallest ale,” and of “Adonis painted by a running brook,” depends virtually on the opinion of Demos, in
the shape of Christopher Sly. That is to say, the agreeableness of a thing depends on its relatively human
disposition6. Therefore, political economy, being a science of wealth, must be a science respecting human
3I take Mr Helps’ estimate in his essay on War.
4Also when the wrought silver vases of Spain were dashed to fragments by our custom-house officers, because bullion might
be imported free of duty, but not brains, was the axe that broke them productive? — the artist who wrought them unproductive?
Or again. If the woodman’s axe is productive, is the executioner’s? as also, if the hemp of a cable be productive, does not the
productiveness of hemp in a halter depend on its moral more than on its material application?
5Filigree: that is to say, generally, ornament dependent on complexity, not on art.
6These statements sound crude in their brevity; but will be found of the utmost importance when they are developed. Thus, in
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capacities and dispositions. But moral considerations have nothing to do with political economy (III. i. 2).
Therefore, moral considerations have nothing to do with human capacities and dispositions.
I do not wholly like the look of this conclusion from Mr Mill’s statements: — let us try Mr Ricardo’s.
“Utility is not the measure of exchangeable value, though it is absolutely essential to it.” — (Chap. I.
sect. i) essential in what degree, Mr Ricardo? There may be greater and less degrees of utility. Meat, for
instance, may be so good as to be fit for any one to eat, or so bad as to be fit for no one to eat. What is the
exact degree of goodness which is “essential” to its exchangeable value, but not “the measure” of it? How
good must the meat be, in order to possess any exchangeable value; and how bad must it be — (I wish this
were a settled question in London markets) — in order to possess none?
There appears to be some hitch, I think, in the working even of Mr. Ricardo’s principles; but let him
take his own example. “Suppose that in the early stages of society the bows and arrows of the hunter were
of equal value with the implements of the fisherman. Under such circumstances the value of the deer, the
produce of the hunter’s day’s labour, would be exactly equal to the value of the fish, the product of the
fisherman’s day’s labour, The comparative value of the fish and game would be entirely regulated by the
quantity of labour realized in each.” (Ricardo, chap. iii. On Value).
Indeed! Therefore, if the fisherman catches one sprat, and the huntsman one deer, one sprat will be
equal in value to one deer but if the fisherman catches no sprat, and the huntsman two deer, no sprat will be
equal in value to two deer?
Nay but — Mr Ricardo’s supporters may say — he means, on an average, — if the average product of
a day’s work of fisher and hunter be one fish and one deer, the one fish will always be equal in value to the
one deer.
Might I inquire the species of fish? Whale? or white-bait7?
the above instance, economists have never perceived that disposition to buy is a wholly moral element in demand: that is to say,
when you give a man half-a-crown, it depends on his disposition whether he is rich or poor with it — whether he will buy disease,
ruin, and hatred, or buy health, advancement, and domestic love. And thus the agreeableness or exchange value of every offered
commodity depends on production, not merely of the commodity, but of buyers of it; therefore on the education of buyers, and on
all the moral elements by which their disposition to buy this, or that, is formed. I will illustrate and expand into final consequences
every one of these definitions in its place: at present they can only be given with extremest brevity; for in order to put the subject
at once in a connected form before the reader, I have thrown into one, the opening definitions of four chapters; namely, of that on
Value (“Ad Valorem”); on Price (“Thirty Pieces”); on Production (“Demeter”); and on Economy (“The Law of the House”).
7Perhaps it may be said, in farther support of Mr Ricardo, that he meant, “when the utility is constant or given, the price varies
as the quantity of labour.” If he meant this, he should have said it; but, had he meant it, he could have hardly missed the necessary
result, that utility would be one measure of price (which he expressly denies it to be); and that, to prove saleableness, he had to
prove a given quantity of utility, as well as a given quantity of labour: to wit, in his own instance, that the deer and fish would each
feed the same number of men, for the same number of days, with equal pleasure to their palates. The fact is, he did not know what
he meant himself. The general idea which he had derived from commercial experience, without being able to analyze it, was, that
when the demand is constant, the price varies as the quantity of labour required for production; or, — using the formula I gave
in last paper — when y is constant, x y varies as x. But demand never is, nor can be, ultimately constant, if x varies distinctly;
for, as price rises, consumers fall away; and as soon as there is a monopoly (and all scarcity is a form of monopoly; so that every
commodity is affected occasionally by some colour of monopoly), y becomes the most influential condition of the price. Thus the
price of a painting depends less on its merits than on the interest taken in it by the public; the price of singing less on the labour of
the singer than the number of persons who desire to hear him; and the price of gold less on the scarcity which affects it in common
with cerium or iridium, than on the sunlight colour and unalterable purity by which it attracts the admiration and answers the trust
of mankind.
It must be kept in mind, however, that I use the word “demand” in a somewhat different sense from economists usually. They
mean by it “the quantity of a thing sold.” I mean by it “the force of the buyer’s capable intention to buy.” In good English, a person’s
“demand” signifies, not what he gets, but what he asks for.
Economists also do not notice that objects are not valued by absolute bulk or weight, but by such bulk and weight as is necessary
to bring them into use. They say, for instance, that water bears no price in the market. It is true that a cupful does not, but a lake
does; just as a handful of dust does not, but an acre does. And were it possible to make even the possession of the cupful or handful
permanent, (i.e. to find a place for them,) the earth and sea would be bought up for handfuls and cupfuls.
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It would be waste of time to purpose these fallacies farther; we will seek for a true definition.
Much store has been set for centuries upon the use of our English classical education. It were to be
wished that our well-educated merchants recalled to mind always this much of their latin schooling,— that
the nominative of valorem (a word already sufficiently familiar to them) is valor; a word which, therefore,
ought to be familiar to them. Valor, from valere, to be well or strong; — strong, life (if a man), or valiant;
strong, for life (if a thing), or valuable. To be “valuable,” therefore, is to “avail towards life.” A truly valuable
or availing thing is that which leads to life with its whole strength. In proportion as it does not lead to life,
or as its strength is broken, it is less valuable; in proportion as it leads away from life, it is unvaluable or
malignant.
The value of a thing, therefore, is independent of opinion, and of quantity. Think what you will of it,
gain how much you may of it, the value of the thing itself is neither greater nor less. For ever it avails, or
avails not; no estimate can raise, no disdain repress, the power which it holds from the Maker of things and
of men.
The real science of political economy, which has yet to be distinguished from the bastard science, as
medicine from witchcraft, and astronomy from astrology, is that which teaches nations to desire and labour
for the things that lead to life: and which teaches them to scorn and destroy the things that lead to destruction.
And if, in a state of infancy, they supposed indifferent things, such as excrescences of shell-fish, and pieces
of blue and red stone, to be valuable, and spent large measures of the labour which ought to be employed for
the extension and ennobling of life, in diving or digging for them, and cutting them into various shapes,or if,
in the same state of infancy, they imagine precious and beneficent things, such as air, light, and cleanliness,
to be valueless,-or if, finally, they imagine the conditions of their own existence, by which alone they can
truly possess or use anything, such, for instance, as peace, trust, and love, to be prudently exchangeable,
when the markets offer, for gold, iron, or excresrences of shells — the great and only science of Political
Economy teaches them, in all these cases, what is vanity, and what substance; and how the service of Death,
the lord of Waste, and of eternal emptiness, differs from the service of Wisdom, the lady of Saving, and of
eternal fulness; she who has said, “I will cause those that love me to inherit SUBSTANCE; and I will FILL
their treasures.”
The “Lady of Saving,” in a profounder sense than that of the savings bank, though that is a good one:
Madonna della Salute,—Lady of Health,—which, though commonly spoken of as if separate from wealth,
is indeed a part of wealth. This word, “wealth,” it will be remembered, is the next we have to define.
“To be wealthy” says Mr Mill, “is to have a large stock of useful articles.” I accept this definition. Only
let us perfectly understand it. My opponents often lament my not giving them enough logic: I fear I must at
present use a little more than they will like: but this business of Political Economy is no light one, and we
must allow no loose terms in it.
We have, therefore, to ascertain in the above definition, first, what is the meaning of “having,” or the
nature of Possession. Then what is the meaning of “useful,” or the nature of Utility.
And first of possession. At the crossing of the transepts of Milan Cathedral has lain, for three hundred
years, the embalmed body of St. Carlo Borromeo. It holds a golden crosier, and has a cross of emeralds on
its breast. Admitting the crosier and emeralds to be useful articles, is the body to be considered as “having”
them? Do they, in the politico-economical sense of property, belong to it? If not, and if we may, therefore,
conclude generally that a dead body cannot possess property, what degree and period of animation in the
body will render possession possible?
As thus: lately in a wreck of a Californian ship, one of the passengers fastened a belt about him with
two hundred pounds of gold in it, with which he was found afterwards at the bottom. Now, as he was sinking
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— had he the gold? or had the gold him8?
And if, instead of sinking him in the sea by its weight, the gold had struck him on the forehead, and
thereby caused incurable disease—suppose palsy or insanity, —would the gold in that case have been more
a “possession” than in the first? Without pressing the inquiry up through instances of gradually increasing
vital power over the gold (which I will, however, give, if they are asked for), I presume the reader will see
that possession, or “having,” is not an absolute, but a gradated, power; and consists not only in the quantity
or nature of the thing possessed, but also (and in a greater degree) in its suitableness to the person possessing
it and in his vital power to use it.
And our definition of Wealth, expanded, becomes: “The possession of useful articles, which we can
use.” This is a very serious change. For wealth, instead of depending merely on a “have,” is thus seen to
depend on a “can.” Gladiator’s death, on a “habet”; but soldier’s victory, and State’s salvation, on a “quo
plurimum posset.” (liv. VII. 6.) And what we reasoned of only as accumulation of material, is seen to
demand also accumulation of capacity.
So much for our verb. Next for our adjective. What is the meaning of “useful”?
The inquiry is closely connected with the last. For what is capable of use in the hands of some persons,
is capable, in the hands of others, of the opposite of use, called commonly “from-use,” or “ab-use.” And
it depends on the person, much more than on the article, whether its usefulness or ab-usefulness will be
the quality developed in it. Thus, wine, which the Greeks, in their Bacchus, made rightly the type of all
passion, and which, when used, “cheereth god and man” (that is to say, strengthens both the divine life, or
reasoning power, and the earthy, or carnal power, of man); yet, when abused, becomes “Dionysos,” hurtful
especially to the divine part of man, or reason. And again, the body itself, being equally liable to use and
to abuse, and, when rightly disciplined, serviceable to the State, both for war and labour, — but when not
disciplined, or abused, valueless to the State, and capable only of continuing the private or single existence
of the individual (and that but feebly)— the Greeks called such a body an “idiotic” or “private” body, from
their word signifying a person employed in no way directly useful to the State; whence finally, our “idiot,”
meaning a person entirely occupied with his own concerns.
Hence, it follows that if a thing is to be useful, it must be not only of an availing nature, but in availing
hands. Or, in accurate terms, usefulness is value in the hands of the valiant; so that this science of wealth
being, as we have just seen, when regarded as the science of Accumulation, accumulative of capacity as well
as of material,—when regarded as the Science of Distribution, is distribution not absolute, but discriminate;
not of every thing to every man, but of the right thing to the right man. A difficult science, dependent on
more than arithmetic.
Wealth, therefore, is “THE POSSESSION OF THE VALUABLE BY THE VALIANT”; and in considering
it as a power existing in a nation, the two elements, the value of the thing, and the valour of its
possessor, must be estimated together. Whence it appears that many of the persons commonly considered
wealthy, are in reality no more wealthy than the locks of their own strong boxes are, they being inherently
and eternally incapable of wealth; and operating for the nation, in an economical point of view, either as
pools of dead water, and eddies in a stream (which, so long as the stream flows, are useless, or serve only
to drown people, but may become of importance in a state of stagnation should the stream dry); or else,
as dams in a river, of which the ultimate service depends not on the dam, but the miller; or else, as mere
accidental stays and impediments, acting not as wealth, but (for we ought to have a correspondent term) as
“illth,” causing various devastation and trouble around them in all directions; or lastly, act not at all, but are
merely animated conditions of delay, (no use being possible of anything they have until they are dead,) in
which last condition they are nevertheless often useful as delays, and “impedimenta,” if a nation is apt to
move too fast.
8Compare George Herbert, The Church Porch, Staza 28.
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This being so, the difficulty of the true science of Political Economy lies not merely in the need of
developing manly character to deal with material value, but in the fact, that while the manly character and
material value only form wealth by their conjunction, they have nevertheless a mutually destructive operation
on each other. For the manly character is apt to ignore, or even cast away, the material value: — whence
that of Pope: —
“Sure, of qualities demanding praise,
More go to ruin fortunes, than to raise.”
And on the other hand, the material value is apt to undermine the manly character; so that it must
be our work, in the issue, to examine what evidence there is of the effect of wealth on the minds of its
possessors; also, what kind of person it is who usually sets himself to obtain wealth, and succeeds in doing
so; and whether the world owes more gratitude to rich or to poor men, either for their moral influence
upon it, or for chief goods, discoveries, and practical advancements. I may, however, anticipate future
conclusions, so far as to state that in a community regulated only by laws of demand and supply, but protected
from open violence, the persons who become rich are, generally speaking, industrious, resolute, proud,
covetous, prompt, methodical, sensible, unimaginative, insensitive, and ignorant. The persons who remain
poor are the entirely foolish, the entirely wise9, the idle, the reckless, the humble, the thoughtful, the dull,
the imaginative, the sensitive, the well-informed, the improvident, the irregularly and impulsively wicked,
the clumsy knave, the open thief, and the entirely merciful, just, and godly person.
Thus far, then, of wealth. Next, we have to ascertain the nature of PRICE; that is to say, of exchange
value, and its expression by currencies.
Note first, of exchange, there can be no profit in it. It is only in labour there can be profit — that is to
say, a “making in advance,” or “making in favour of” (from proficio). In exchange, there is only advantage,
i.e., a bringing of vantage or power to the exchanging persons. Thus, one man, by sowing and reaping, turns
one measure of corn into two measures. That is Profit. Another, by digging and forging, turns one spade into
two spades. That is Profit. But the man who has two measures of corn wants sometimes to dig; and the man
who has two spades wants sometimes to eat:They exchange the gained grain for the gained tool; and both are
the better for the exchange; but though there is much advantage in the transaction, there is no profit. Nothing
is constructed or produced. Only that which had been before constructed is given to the person by whom it
can be used. If labour is necessary to effect the exchange, that labour is in reality involved in the production,
and, like all other labour, bears profit. Whatever number of men are concerned in the manufacture, or in the
conveyance, have share in the profit; but neither the manufacture nor the conveyance are the exchange, and
in the exchange itself there is no profit.
There may, however, be acquisition, which is a very different thing. If, in the exchange, one man is able
to give what cost him little labour for what has cost the other much, he “acquires” a certain quantity of the
produce of the other’s labour. And precisely what he acquires, the other loses. In mercantile language, the
person who thus acquires is commonly said to have “made a profit”; and I believe that many of our merchants
are seriously under the impression that it is possible for everybody, somehow, to make a profit in this manner.
Whereas, by the unfortunate constitution of the world we live in, the laws both of matter and motion have
quite rigorously forbidden universal acquisition of this kind. Profit, or material gain, is attainable only by
construction or by discovery; not by exchange. Whenever material gain follows exchange, for every plus
there is a precisely equal minus.
Unhappily for the progress of the science of Political Economy, the plus quantities, or, — if I may be
allowed to coin an awkward plural — the pluses, make a very positive and venerable appearance in the
world, so that every one is eager to learn the science which produces results so magnificent; whereas the
9“O Zeus dipou penetai” — Arist. Plut. 582. It would but weaken the grad words to lean on the preceding ones: — “Oti tou
Platon parecho Beltionas, andpas, kai tin gnomen, kai ten idean.”
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minuses have, on the other hand, a tendency to retire into back streets, and other places of shade,—or even
to get themselves wholly and finally put out of sight in graves: which renders the algebra of this science
peculiar, and difficultly legible; a large number of its negative signs being written by the account-keeper in a
kind of red ink, which starvation thins, and makes strangely pale, or even quite invisible ink, for the present.
The Science of Exchange, or, as I hear it has been proposed to call it, of “Catallactics,” considered as
one of gain, is, therefore, simply nugatory; but considered as one of acquisition, it is a very curious science,
differing in its data and basis from every other science known. Thus: — if I can exchange a needle with a
savage for a diamond, my power of doing so depends either on the savage’s ignorance of social arrangements
in Europe, or on his want of power to take advantage of them, by selling the diamond to any one else for
more needles. If, farther, I make the bargain as completely advantageous to myself as possible, by giving to
the savage a needle with no eye in it (reaching, thus a sufficiently satisfactory type of the perfect operation
of catallactic science), the advantage to me in the entire transaction depends wholly upon the ignorance,
powerlessness, or heedlessness of the person dealt with. Do away with these, and catallactic advantage
becomes impossible. So far, therefore, as the science of exchange relates to the advantage of one of the
exchanging persons only, it is founded on the ignorance or incapacity of the opposite person. Where these
vanish, it also vanishes. It is therefore a science founded on nescience, and an art founded on artlessness.
But all other sciences and arts, except this, have for their object the doing away with their opposite nescience
and artlessness. This science, alone of sciences, must, by all available means, promulgate and prolong its
opposite nescience; otherwise the science itself is impossible. It is, therefore, peculiarly and alone the
science of darkness; probably a bastard science — not by any means a divina scientia, but one begotten
of another father, that father who, advising his children to turn stones into bread, is himself employed in
turning bread into stones, and who, if you ask a fish of him (fish not being producible on his estate), can but
give you a serpent.
The general law, then, respecting just or economical exchange, is simply this: — There must be advantage
on both sides (or if only advantage on one, at least no disadvantage on the other) to the persons
exchanging; and just payment for his time, intelligence, and labour, to any intermediate person effecting
the transaction (commonly called a merchant); and whatever advantage there is on either side, and whatever
pay is given to the intermediate person, should be thoroughly known to all concerned. All attempt at
concealment implies some practice of the opposite, or undivine science, founded on nescience. Whence
another saying of the Jew merchant’s — “As a nail between the stone joints, so doth sin stick fast between
buying and selling.” Which peculiar riveting of stone and timber, in men’s dealings with each other, is again
set forth in the house which was to be destroyed — timber and stones together — when Zechariah’s roll
(more probably “curved sword”) flew over it: “the curse that goeth forth over all the earth upon every one
that stealeth and holdeth himself guiltless,” instantly followed by the vision of the Great Measure; — the
measure “of the injustice of them in all the earth” (auti i adikia auton en pase te ge), with the weight of
lead for its lid, and the woman, the spirit of wickedness, within it; — that is to say, Wickedness hidden by
Dulness, and formalized, outwardly, into ponderously established cruelty. “It shall be set upon its own base
in the land of Babel.”10
I have hitherto carefully restricted myself, in speaking of exchange, to the use of the term “advantage”;
but that term includes two ideas; the advantage, namely, of getting what we need, and that of getting what
we wish for. Three-fourths of the demands existing in the world are romantic; founded on visions, idealisms,
hopes, and affections; and the regulation of the purse is, in its essence, regulation of the imagination and the
heart. Hence, the right discussion of the nature of price is a very high metaphysical and psychical problem;
sometimes to be solved only in a passionate manner, as by David in his counting the price of the water of
the well by the gate of Bethlehem; but its first conditions are the following: — The price of anything is the
quantity of labour given by the person desiring it, in order to obtain possession of it. This price depends on
1023. Zech. v. ii.
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four variable quantities. A. The quantity of wish the purchaser has for the thing; opposed to a, the quantity of
wish the seller has to keep it. B. The quantity of labour the purchaser can afford, to obtain the thing opposed
to B, the quantity of labour the seller can afford, to keep it. These quantities are operative only in excess;
i.e. the quantity of wish (A) means the quantity of wish for this thing, above wish for other things; and the
quantity of work (B) means the quantity which can be spared to get this thing from the quantity needed to
get other things.
Phenomena of price, therefore, are intensely complex, curious, and interesting—too complex, however,
to be examined yet; every one of them, when traced far enough, showing itself at last as a part of the bargain
of the Poor of the Flock (or “flock of slaughter”), “If ye think good, give ME my price, and if not, forbear”
Zech. xi. 12; but as the price of everything is to be calculated finally in labour, it is necessary to define the
nature of that standard.
Labour is the contest of the life of man with an opposite;—the term “life” including his intellect, soul,
and physical power, contending with question, difficulty, trial, or material force.
Labour is of a higher or lower order, as it includes more or fewer of the elements of life: and labour
of good quality, in any kind, includes always as much intellect and feeling as will fully and harmoniously
regulate the physical force.
In speaking of the value and price of labour, it is necessary always to understand labour of a given rank
and quality, as we should speak of gold or silver of a given standard. Bad (that is, heartless, inexperienced,
or senseless) labour cannot be valued; it is like gold of uncertain alloy, or flawed iron11.
The quality and kind of labour being given, its value, like that of all other valuable things, is invariable.
But the quantity of it which must be given for other things is variable: and in estimating this variation, the
price of other things must always be counted by the quantity of labour; not the price of labour by the quantity
of other things.
Thus, if we want to plant an apple sapling in rocky ground, it may take two hours’ work; in soft ground,
perhaps only half an hour. Grant the soil equally good for the tree in each case. Then the value of the sapling
planted by two hours’ work is nowise greater than that of the sapling planted in half an hour. One will bear
no more fruit than the other. Also, one half-hour of work is as valuable as another half-hour; nevertheless
the one sapling has cost four such pieces of work, the other only one. Now the proper statement of this fact
is, not that the labour on the hard ground is cheaper than on the soft; but that the tree is dearer. The exchange
value may, or may not, afterwards depend on this fact. If other people have plenty of soft ground to plant in,
they will take no cognizance of our two hours’ labour, in the price they will offer for the plant on the rock.
And if, through want of sufficient botanical science, we have planted an upas tree instead of an apple, the
exchange-value will be a negative quantity; still less proportionate to the labour expended.
What is commonly called cheapness of labour, signifies, therefore, in reality, that many obstacles have
to be overcome by it; so that much labour is required to produce a small result. But this should never be
spoken of as cheapness of labour, but as dearness of the object wrought for. It would be just as rational to
say that walking was cheap, because we had ten miles to walk home to our dinner, as that labour was cheap,
because we had to work ten hours to earn it.
The last word which we have to define is “Production.”
11Labour which is entirely good of its kind, that is to say, effective, or efficient, the Greeks called “weighable,” or axios, translated
usually “worthy,” and because thus substantial and true, they called its price time, the “honourable estimate” of it (honorarium): this
word being founded on their conception of true labour as a divine thing, to be honoured with the kind of honour given to the gods;
whereas the price of false labour, or of that which led away from life, was to be, not honour, but vengeance; for which they reserved
another word, attributing the exaction of such price to a peculiar goddess, called Tisiphone, the “requiter (or quittance-taker) of
death”; a person versed in the highest branches of arithmetic, and punctual in her habits; with whom accounts current have been
opened also in modern days.
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I have hitherto spoken of all labour as profitable; because it is impossible to consider under one head
the quality or value of labour, and its aim. But labour of the best quality may be various in aim. It may be
either constructive (“gathering” from con and struo), as agriculture; nugatory, as jewel-cutting; or destructive
(“scattering,” from de and struo), as war. It is not, however, always easy to prove labour, apparently nugatory,
to be actually so12; generally, the formula holds good: “he that gathereth not, scattereth”; thus, the jeweller’s
art is probably very harmful in its ministering to a clumsy and inelegant pride. So that, finally, I believe
nearly all labour may be shortly divided into positive and negative labour: positive, that which produces life;
negative, that which produces death; the most directly negative labour being murder, and the most directly
positive, the bearing and rearing of children; so that in the precise degree in which murder is hateful, on the
negative side of idleness, in the exact degree child-rearing is admirable, on the positive side of idleness. For
which reason, and because of the honour that there is in rearing children13, while the wife is said to be as
the vine (for cheering), the children are as the olive branch, for praise: nor for praise only, but for peace
(because large families can only be reared in times of peace): though since, in their spreading and voyaging
in various directions, they distribute strength, they are, to the home strength, as arrives in the hand of the
giant —striking here, and there far away.
Labour being thus various in its result, the prosperity of any nation is in exact proportion to the quantity
of labour which it spends in obtaining and employing means of life. Observe, — I say, obtaining and
employing; that is to say, not merely wisely producing, but wisely distributing and consuming. Economists
usually speak as if there were no good in consumption absolute14. So far from this being so, consumption
absolute is the end, crown, and perfection of production; and wise consumption is a far more difficult art
than wise production. Twenty people can gain money for one who can use it; and the vital question, for
individual and for nation, is, never “how much do they make?” but “to what purpose do they spend?”
The reader may, perhaps, have been surprised at the slight reference I have hitherto made to “capital,”
and its functions. It is here the place to define them.
Capital signifies “head, or source, or root material” — it is material by which some derivative or secondary
good is produced. It is only capital proper (caput vivum, not caput mortuum) when it is thus producing
something different from itself. It is a root, which does not enter into vital function till it produces
something else than a root: namely, fruit. That fruit will in time again produce roots; and so all living capital
issues in reproduction of capital; but capital which produces nothing but capital is only root producing root;
bulb issuing in bulb, never in tulip; seed issuing in seed, never in bread. The Political Economy of Europe
has hitherto devoted itself wholly to the multiplication, or (less even) the aggregation, of bulbs. It never
saw, nor conceived, such a thing as a tulip. Nay, boiled bulbs they might have been—glass bulbs—Prince
Rupert’s drops, consummated in powder (well, if it were glass-powder and not gunpowder), for any end or
meaning the economists had in defining the laws of aggregation. We will try and get a clearer notion of
them.
The best and simplest general type of capital is a well-made ploughshare. Now, if that ploughshare
did nothing but beget other ploughshares, in a polypous manner, — however the great cluster of polypous
12The most accurately nugatory labour is, perhaps, that of which not enough is given to answer a purpose effectually, and which,
therefore, has all to be done over again. Also, labour which fails of effect through non-co-operation. The cure of a little village
near Bellinzona, to whom I had expressed wonder that the peasants allowed the Ticino to flood their fields, told me that they would
not join to build an effectual embankment high up the valley, because everybody said “that would help his neighbours as much as
himself.” So every proprietor built a bit of low embankment about his own field; and the Ticino, as soon as it had a mind, swept
away and swallowed all up together.
13Observe, I say, rearing,” not “begetting.” The praise is in the seventh season, not in sporitos, nor in phutalia, but in opora. It is
strange that men always praise enthusiastically any person who, by a momentary exertion, saves a life; but praise very hesitatingly
a person who, by exertion and self-denial prolonged through years, creates one. We give the crown “ob civem servatum”; — why
not “ob civem natum?” Born, I mean, to the full, in soul as well as body. England has oak enough, I think, for both chaplets.
14When Mr Mill speaks of productive consumption, he only means consumption which results in increase of capital, or material
wealth. See I. iii. 4, and I. iii. 5.
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plough might glitter in the sun, it would have lost its function of capital. It becomes true capital only by
another kind of splendour, — when it is seen “splendescere sulco,” to grow bright in the furrow; rather
with diminution of its substance, than addition, by the noble friction. And the true home question, to every
capitalist and to every nation, is not, “how many ploughs have you?” but, “where are your furrows?” not
— “how quickly will this capital reproduce itself?” — but, “what will it do during reproduction?” What
substance will it furnish, good for life? what work construct, protective of life? if none, its own reproduction
is useless — if worse than none, (for capital may destroy life as well as support it), its own reproduction is
worse than useless; it is merely an advance from Tisiphone, on mortgage— not a profit by any means.
Not a profit, as the ancients truly saw, and showed in the type of Ixion; — for capital is the head, or
fountain head of wealth — the “well-head” of wealth, as the clouds are the well-heads of rain; but when
clouds are without water, and only beget clouds, they issue in wrath at last, instead of rain, and in lightning
instead of harvest; whence Ixion is said first to have invited his guests to a banquet, and then made them
fall into a pit, (as also Demas’ silver mine,) after which, to show the rage of riches passing from lust of
pleasure to lust of power, yet power not truly understood, Ixion is said to have desired Juno, and instead,
embracing a cloud (or phantasm), to have begotten the Centaurs; the power of mere wealth being, in itself,
as the embrace of a shadow, — comfortless, (so also “Ephraim feedeth on wind and followth after the east
wind;” or “that which is not”—Prov. xxiii. 5; and again Dante’s Geryon, the type of avaricious fraud, as he
flies, gathers the air up with retractile claws,—“l’aer a se raccolse”15) but in its offspring, a mingling of the
brutal with the human nature; human in sagacity—using both intellect and arrow; but brutal in its body and
hoof, for consuming, and trampling down. For which sin Ixion is at last bound upon a wheel — fiery and
toothed, and rolling perpetually in the air: — the type of human labour when selfish and fruitless (kept far
into the Middle Ages in their wheels of fortune); the wheel which has in it no breath or spirit, but is whirled
by chance only; whereas of all true work the Ezekiel vision is true, that the Spirit of the living creature is in
the wheels, and where the angels go, the wheels go by them; but move no otherwise.
This being the real nature of capital, it follows that there are two kinds of true production, always going
on in an active State: one of seed, and one of food; or production for the Ground, and for the Mouth; both
of which are by covetous persons thought to be production only for the granary; whereas the function of
the granary is but intermediate and conservative, fulfilled in distribution; else it ends in nothing but mildew,
and nourishment of rats and worms. And since production for the Ground is only useful with future hope
of harvest, all essential production is for the Mouth; and is finally measured by the mouth; hence, as I said
above, consumption is the crown of production; and the wealth of a nation is only to be estimated by what it
consumes.
The want of any clear sight of this fact is the capital error, issuing in rich interest and revenue of error
among the political economists. Their minds are continually set on money-gain, not on mouth-gain; and
they fall into every sort of net and snare, dazzled by the coin-glitter as birds by the fowler’s glass; or rather
(for there is not much else like birds in them) they are like children trying to jump on the heads of their own
shadows; the money-gain being only the shadow of the true gain, which is humanity.
The final object of political economy, therefore, is to get good method of consumption, and great quantity
of consumption: in other words, to use everything, and to use it nobly. whether it be substance, service,
or service perfecting substance. The most curious error in Mr Mill’s entire work, (provided for him
15So also in the vision of the women bearing the ephah, before quoted, “the wind was in their wings,” not wings “of a stork,” as
in our version; but “miivi,” of a kite, in the Vulgate, or perhaps more accurately still in the Septuagint, “hoopoe,” a bird connected
typically with the power of riches by many traditions, of which that of its petition for a crest of gold is perhaps the most interesting.
The “Birds” of Aristophanes, in which its part is principal, are full of them; note especially the “fortification of the air with baked
bricks, like Babylon,” I. 550; and, again, compare the Plutus of Dante, who (to show the influence of riches in destroying the
reason) is the only one of the powers of the Inferno who cannot speak intelligibly and also the cowardliest; he is not merely quelled
or restrained, but literally “collapses” at a word; the sudden and helpless operation of mercantile panic being all told in the brief
metaphor, “as the sails, swollen with the wind, fall, when the mast breaks.”
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originally by Ricardo,) is his endeavour to distinguish between direct and indirect service, and consequent
assertion that a demand for commodities is not demand for labour (I. v. 9, et seq.). He distinguishes between
labourers employed to lay out pleasure grounds, and to manufacture velvet; declaring that it makes material
difference to the labouring classes in which of these two ways a capitalist spends his money; because the
employment of the gardeners is a demand for labour, but the purchase of velvet is not16. Error colossal, as
well as strange. It will, indeed, make a difference to the labourer whether we bid him swing his scythe in
the spring winds, or drive the loom in pestilential air. but, so far as his pocket is concerned, it makes, to him
absolutely no difference whether we order him to make green velvet, with seed and a scythe, or red velvet,
with silk and scissors. Neither does it anywise concern him whether, when the velvet is made, we consume
it by walking on it, or wearing it, so long as our consumption of it is wholly selfish. But if our consumption
is to be in anywise unselfish, not only our mode of consuming the articles we require interests him, but also
the kind of article we require with a view to consumption. As thus (returning for a moment to Mr Mill’s
great hardware theory17): it matters, so far as the labourer’s immediate profit is concerned, not an iron filing
whether I employ him in growing a peach, or forging a bombshell; but my probable mode of consumption
of those articles matters seriously. Admit that it is to be in both cases “unselfish,” and the difference, to him,
is final, whether when his child is ill, I walk into his cottage and give it the peach, or drop the shell down his
chimney, and blow his roof off.
The worst of it, for the peasant, is, that the capitalist’s consumption of the peach is apt to be selfish,
and of the shell, distributive18; but, in all cases, this is the broad and general fact, that on due catallactic
commercial principles, somebody’s roof must go off in fulfilment of the bomb’s destiny. You may grow for
your neighbour, at your liking, grapes or grape-shot; he will also, catallactically, grow grapes or grape-shot
for you, and you will each reap what you have sown.
It is, therefore, the manner and issue of consumption which are the real tests of production. Production
does not consist in things laboriously made, but in things serviceably consumable; and the question for the
nation is not how much labour it employs, but how much life it produces. For as consumption is the end and
aim of production, so life is the end and aim of consumption.
I left this question to the reader’s thought two months ago, choosing rather that he should work it out
for himself than have it sharply stated to him. But now, the ground being sufficiently broken (and the details
into which the several questions, here opened, must lead us, being too complex for discussion in the pages of
16The value of raw material, which has, indeed, to be deducted from the price of the labour, is not contemplated in the passages
referred to, Mr. Mill having fallen into the mistake solely by pursuing the collateral results of the payment of wages to middlemen.
He says” The consumer does not, with his own funds, pay the weaver for his day’s work. “Pardon me; the consumer of the velvet
pays the weaver with his own funds as much as he pays the gardener. He pays, probably, an intermediate ship-owner, velvet
merchant, and shopman; pays carriage money, shop rent, damage money, time money, and care money; all these are above and
beside the velvet price, (just as the wages of a head gardener would be above the grass price). but the velvet is as much produced by
the consumer’s capital, though he does not pay for it till six months after production, as the grass is produced by his capital, though
he does not pay the man who mowed and rolled it on Monday, till Saturday afternoon. I do not know if Mr. Mill’s conclusion, —
“the capital cannot be dispensed with, the purchasers can “ (p. 98), has yet been reduced to practice in the City on any large scale.
17Which, observe, is the precise opposite of the one under examination. The hardware theory required us to discharge our
gardeners and engage manufacturers; the velvet theory requires us to discharge our manufacturers and engage gardeners.
18It is one very awful form of the operation of wealth in Europe that it is entirely capitalists’ wealth which supports unjust wars.
Just wars do not need so much money to support them; for most of the men who wage such, wage them gratis; but for an unjust
war, men’s bodies and souls have both to be bought; and the best tools of war for them besides; which makes such war costly to the
maximum; not to speak of the cost of base fear, and angry suspicion, between nations which have not grace nor honesty enough in
all their multitudes to buy an hour’s peace of mind with: as, at present, France and England, purchasing of each other ten millions
sterling worth of consternation annually, (a remarkably light crop, half thorns and half aspen leaves,—sown, reaped, and granaried
by the “science” of the modern political economist, teaching covetousness instead of truth.) And all unjust war being supportable, if
not by pillage of the enemy, only by loans from capitalists, these loans are repaid by subsequent taxation of the people, who appear
to have no will in the matter, the capitalists’ will being the primary root of the war; but its real root is the covetousness of the whole
nation, rendering it incapable of faith, frankness, or justice, and bringing about, therefore, in due time, his own separate loss and
punishment to each person.
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a periodical, so that I must pursue them elsewhere), I desire, in closing the series of introductory papers, to
leave this one great fact clearly stated. THERE IS NO WEALTH BUT LIFE. Life, including all its powers
of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble
and happy human beings; that man is richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the
utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives
of others.
A strange political economy; the only one, nevertheless, that ever was or can be: all political economy
founded on self-interest19 being but the fulfilment of that which once brought schism into the Policy of
angels, and ruin into the Economy of Heaven.
“The greatest number of human beings noble and happy.” But is the nobleness consistent with the
number? Yes, not only consistent with it, but essential to it. The maximum of life can only be reached by
the maximum of virtue. In this respect the law of human population differs wholly from that of animal life.
The multiplication of animals is checked only by want of food, and by the hostility of races; the population
of the gnat is restrained by the hunger of the swallow, and that of the swallow by the scarcity of gnats. Man,
considered as an animal, is indeed limited by the same laws: hunger, or plague, or war, are the necessary
and only restraints upon his increase,—effectual restraints hitherto,—his principal study having been how
most swiftly to destroy himself, or ravage his dwelling-places, and his highest skill directed to give range to
the famine, seed to the plague, and sway to the sword. But, considered as other than an animal, his increase
is not limited by these laws. It is limited only by the limits of his courage and his love. Both of these have
their bounds; and ought to have; his race has its bounds also; but these have not yet been reached, nor will
be reached for ages.
In all the ranges of human thought I know none so melancholy as the speculations of political
economists on the population question. It is proposed to better the condition of the labourer by giving
him higher wages. “Nay,” says the economist, — “if you raise his wages, he will either people down to
the same point of misery at which you found him, or drink your wages away.” He will. I know it. Who
gave him this will? Suppose it were your own son of whom you spoke, declaring to me that you dared not
take him into your firm, nor even give him his just labourer’s wages, because if you did he would die of
drunkenness, and leave half a score of children to the parish. “Who gave your son these dispositions?” —
I should enquire. Has he them by inheritance or by education? By one or other they must come; and as in
him, so also in the poor. Either these poor are of a race essentially different from ours, and unredeemable
(which, however, often implied, I have heard none yet openly say), or else by such care as we have ourselves
received, we may make them continent and sober as ourselves-wise and dispassionate as we are models
arduous of imitation. “But,” it is answered, “they cannot receive education.” Why not? That is precisely the
point at issue. Charitable persons suppose the worst fault of the rich is to refuse the people meat; and the
people cry for their meat, kept back by fraud, to the Lord of Multitudes20. Alas! it is not meat of which the
19“In all reasoning about prices, the proviso must be understood, ’supposing all parties to take care of their own interest.”’ —
Mill, III. i. 5.
20James v. 4. Observe, in these statements I am not talking up, nor countenancing one whit, the common socialist idea of division
of property; division of property is its destruction; and with it the destruction of all hope, all industry, and all justice: it is simply
chaos a chaos towards which the believers in modern political economy are fast tending, and from which I am striving to save
them. The rich man does not keep back meat from the poor by retaining his riches; but by basely using them. Riches are a form of
strength; and a strong man does not injure others by keeping his strength, but by using it injuriously. The socialist, seeing a strong
man oppress a weak one, cries out. — “Break the strong man’s arms.” but I say, “Teach him to use them to better purpose.” The
fortitude and intelligence which acquire riches are intended, by the Giver of both, not to scatter, nor to give away, but to employ
those riches in the service of mankind; in other words, in the redemption of the erring and aid of the weak — that is to say, there
is first to be the work to gain money; then the Sabbath of use for it — the Sabbath, whose law is, not to lose life, but to save. It is
continually the fault or the folly of the poor that they are poor, as it is usually a child’s fault if it falls into a pond, and a cripple’s
weakness that slips at a crossing; nevertheless, most passers — by would pull the child out, or help up the cripple. Put it at the
worst, that all the poor of the world are but disobedient children, or careless cripples, and that all rich people are wise and strong,
and you will see at once that neither is the socialist right in desiring to make everybody poor, powerless, and foolish as he is himself,
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refusal is cruelest, or to which the claim is validest. The life is more than the meat. The rich not only refuse
food to the poor; they refuse wisdom; they refuse virtue; they refuse salvation. Ye sheep without shepherd,
it is not the pasture that has been shut from you, but the Presence. Meat! perhaps your right to that may
be pleadable; but other rights have to be pleaded first. Claim your crumbs from the table, if you will; but
claim them as children, not as dogs; claim your right to be fed, but claim more loudly your right to be holy,
perfect, and pure.
Strange words to be used of working people: “What! holy; without any long robes nor anointing oils;
these rough-jacketed, rough-worded persons; set to nameless and dishonoured service? Perfect! — these,
with dim eyes and cramped limbs, and slowly wakening minds? Pure — these, with sensual desire and
grovelling thought; foul of body, and coarse of soul?” It may be so; nevertheless, such as they are, they are
the holiest, perfectest, purest persons the earth can at present show. They may be what you have said; but if
so, they yet are holier than we, who have left them thus.
But what can be done for them? Who can clothe — who teach — who restrain their multitudes? What
end can there he 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 space 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 passage. 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 case21, 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?
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 God; what will be the result upon the general power
nor the rich man right in leaving the children in the mire.
21The quantity of life is the same in both cases; but it is differently allotted.
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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 classes 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 space 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 transmute 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 substitute 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 God, and the shouts
of His happy multitudes ring round the wine-press 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 by every wondrous word and
unknowable work of God. 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 circumstances 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 quantity 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 them selves 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 piece.
Of which lowly peace it is written that “justice” and peace have kissed each other;” and that the fruit of
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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 assuredly 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 — polein from pelo, prasis from 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 door-posts, 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
hands22; 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 oson en asphodelps
geg oneiar — the sum of enjoyment depending not on the quantity of things tasted, but on the vivacity and
patience of taste.
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 multitudes 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.
22The proper offices of middle-men, 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.
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ምንም አስተያየቶች የሉም:
አስተያየት ይለጥፉ