02. THE VEINS OF WEALTH
The answer which would be made by any ordinary economist to the statement
in the preceding paper, is in a few words as follows:
"It is true that certain advantages of a general nature may be obtained by the
development of social affections. But economists never take such advantages
into consideration. Our science is simply the science of getting rich. So far from
being fallacious, it is found by experience to be practically effective. Persons
who follow its precepts do become rich, and persons who disobey them become
poor. Every capitalist of Europe has acquired his fortune by following the laws
of our science. It is vain to bring forward tricks of logic against the force of
accomplished facts. Every man of business knows by experience how money is
made and how it is lost."
Pardon me. Men of business do indeed make money, but they do not know if
they make it by fair means or if their money-making contributes to national
welfare. They rarely know the meaning of the word 'rich'. At least if they know,
they do not allow for the fact that it is a relative word, implying its opposite
'poor' as positively as the word 'north' implies its opposite 'south'. Men write as
if it were possible, by following certain scientific precepts, for everybody to be
rich. Whereas riches are a power like that of electricity, acting only through
inequalities or negations of itself. The force of the guinea you have in your
pocket depends wholly on the default of a guinea in your neighbour's pocket. If
he did not want it, it would be of no use to you; the degree of power it
possesses depends accurately upon the need he has for it, and the art of
making yourself rich, in the ordinary mercantile economist's sense, is therefore
equally and necessarily the art of keeping your neighbour poor.
I wish the reader clearly to understand the difference between the two
economies, to which the terms, 'political' and 'mercantile' might be attached. Ruskin UNTO THIS LAST
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Political economy consists simply in the production, preservation and
distribution, at fittest time and place, of useful or pleasurable things. The
farmer who cuts his hay at the right time; the builder who lays good bricks in
well-tempered mortar; the housewife who takes care of her furniture in the
parlour and guards against all waste in her kitchen are all political economists
in the true and final sense, adding continually to the riches and well-being of
the nation to which they belong.
But mercantile economy signifies the accumulation, in the hands of individuals,
of legal claim upon, or power over, the labour of others; every such claim
implying precisely as much poverty or debt on one side as it implies riches or
right on the other.
The idea of riches among active men in civilized nations generally refers to
such commercial wealth; and in estimating their possessions, they rather
calculate the value of their horses and fields by the number of guineas they
could get for them, than the value of their guineas by the number of horses and
fields they could buy with them.
Real property is of little use to its owner, unless together with it he has
commercial power over labour. Thus suppose a man has a large estate of
fruitful land with rich beds of gold in its gravel; countless herds of cattle;
houses, and gardens and storehouses; but suppose, after all, that he could get
no servants? In order that he may be able to have servants, some one in his
neighbourhood must be poor and in want of his gold or his corn. Assume that no
one is in want of either, and that no servants are to be had. He must therefore
bake his own bread, make his own clothes, plough his own ground and shepherd
his own flocks. His gold will be as useful to him as any other yellow pebbles on
his estate. His stores must rot, for he cannot consume them. He can eat no
more than another man could eat, and wear no more than another man could
wear. He must lead a life of severe and common labour to procure even
ordinary comforts. Ruskin UNTO THIS LAST
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The most covetous of mankind would, with small exultation, I presume, accept
riches of this kind on these terms. What is really desired, under the name of
riches is, essentially, power over men; in its simplest sense, the power of
obtaining for our own advantage the labour of servant, tradesman and artist.
And this power of wealth of course is greater or less in direct proportion to the
poverty of the men over whom it is exercised and in inverse proportion to the
number of persons who are as rich as ourselves, and who are ready to give the
same price for an article of which the supply is limited. If the musician is poor,
he will sing for small pay, as long as there is only one person who can pay him;
but if there be two or three, he will sing for the one who offers him most. So
that the art of becoming 'rich' in the common sense is not only the art of
accumulating much money for ourselves but also of contriving that our
neighbours shall have less. In accurate terms it is 'the art of establishing the
maximum inequality in our own favour'.
The rash and absurd assumption that such inequalities are necessarily
advantageous lies at the root of most of the popular fallacies on the subject of
economics. For the beneficialness of the inequality depends first, on the
methods by which it was accomplished and secondly, on the purposes to which
it is applied. Inequalities of wealth, unjustly established, have assuredly
injured the nation in which they exist during their establishment; and unjustly
directed, injure it yet more during their existence. But inequalities of wealth,
justly established, benefit the nation in the course of their establishment; and
nobly used, aid it yet more by their existence.
Thus the circulation of wealth in a nation resembles that of the blood in the
natural body. There is one quickness of the current which comes of cheerful
emotion or wholesome exercise; and another which comes of shame or of
fever. There is a flush of the body which is full of warmth and life; and another
which will pass into putrefaction.
Again even as diseased local determination of the blood involves depression of
the general health of the system, all morbid local action of riches will be found
ultimately to involve a weakening of the resources of the body politic. Ruskin UNTO THIS LAST
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Suppose two sailors cast away on an uninhabited coast and obliged to maintain
themselves there by their own labour for a series of years.
If they both kept their health, and worked steadily and in amity with each
other, they might build themselves a house and in time to come possess some
cultivated land together with various stores laid up for future use. All these
things would be real riches or property; and supposing the men both to have
worked equally hard, they would each have right to equal share or use of it.
Their political economy would consist merely in the careful preservation and
just division of these possessions.
Perhaps however after some time one or other might be dissatisfied with the
results of their common farming; and they might in consequence agree to
divide the land into equal shares, so that each might thenceforward work in his
own field and live by it. Suppose that after this arrangement had been made,
one of them was to fall ill, and be unable to work on his land at a critical
time—say of sowing or harvest. He would naturally ask the other to sow or reap
for him.
Then his companion might say, with perfect justice, 'I will do this additional
work for you; but if I do it, you must promise to do as much for me at another
time. I will count how many hours I spend on your ground, and you shall give
me a written promise to work for the same number of hours on mine, whenever
I need your help, and you are able to give it.'
Suppose the disabled man's sickness to continue, and that under various
circumstances, for several years, requiring the help of the other, he on each
occasion gave a written pledge to work, as soon as he was able, at his
companion's orders, for the same number of hours as the other had given up to
him.
What will the positions of the two men be when the invalid is able to resume
work? Ruskin UNTO THIS LAST
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Considered as a 'polis' or state, they will be poorer than they would have been
otherwise; poorer by the withdrawal of what the sick man's labour would have
produced in the interval. His friend may perhaps have toiled with an energy
quickened by the enlarged need but in the end his own land must have suffered
by the withdrawal of so much of his time from it; and the united property of
the two men will be less than it would have been if both had remained in
health and activity.
But the relations in which they stand to each other are also widely altered. The
sick man has not only pledged his labour for some years, but will have
exhausted his share of the stores, and will be in consequence for some time
dependent on the other for food, for which he can only 'pay' him by yet more
deeply pledging his own labour.
Supposing the written promises to be held entirely valid, the person who had
hitherto worked for both might now, if he chose, rest altogether, and pass his
time in idleness, not only forcing his companion to redeem all his previous
pledges but exacting from him pledges for further labour, to an arbitrary
amount, for what food he had to advance to him.
There might not be the least illegality (in the ordinary sense of the word) in the
arrangement; but if a stranger arrived on the coast at this advanced stage of
their political economy, he would find one man commercially Rich; the other
commercially Poor. He would see, with no small surprise, one passing his days
in idleness; the other labouring for both and living sparely, in the hope of
recovering his independence at some distant period.
What I want the reader to note especially is the fact that the establishment of
the mercantile wealth which consists in a claim upon labour signifies a political
diminution of the real wealth which consists in substantial possessions.
Take another example, more consistent with the ordinary course of affairs of
trade. Suppose that three men, instead of two, formed the little isolated
republic, and were obliged to separate, in order to farm different pieces of
land at some distance from each other: each estate furnishing a distinct kind of Ruskin UNTO THIS LAST
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produce and each in need of the material raised on the other. Suppose that the
third man, in order to save the time of all three, simply superintends the
transference of commodities from one farm to the other, on condition of
receiving a share of every parcel of goods conveyed.
If this carrier always brings to each estate, from the other, what is chiefly
wanted, at the right time, the operations of the two farmers will prosper, and
the largest possible result in produce or wealth will be attained by the little
community. But suppose no intercourse between the landowners is possible,
except through the travelling agent; and that after a time, this agent keeps
back the articles with which he has been entrusted until there comes a period
of extreme necessity for them, on one side or other, and then exacts in
exchange for them all that the distressed farmer can share of other kinds of
produce; it is easy to see that by ingeniously watching his opportunities, he
might possess himself of the greater part of the surplus produce of the two
estates, and at last, in a year of scarcity, purchase both for himself and
maintain the former proprietors thenceforward as his labourers or servants.
This would be a case of commercial wealth acquired on the exactest principles
of modern political economy. But it is clear in this instance also that the
wealth of the State or of the three men considered as a society, is collectively
less than it would have been if the merchant had been content with juster
profit. The operations of the two farmers have been cramped to the utmost;
the limitations of the supply of things they wanted at critical times, together
with the failure of courage consequent on the prolongation of a struggle for
mere existence, must have diminished the effective results of their labour; and
the stores accumulated by the merchant will not be of equivalent value to
those which, had he been honest, would have filled the granaries of the
farmers and his own.
The question, therefore, respecting not only the advantage but even the
quantity of national wealth, resolves itself finally into one of abstract justice.
The - real value of acquired wealth depends on the moral sign attached to it,
just, as sternly as that of a mathematical quantity depends on the algebraical Ruskin UNTO THIS LAST
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sign attached to it. Any given accumulation of commercial wealth, may be
indicative, on the one hand, of faithful industries, progressive energies and
productive ingenuities; or on the other hand, it may be indicative of mortal
luxury, merciless tyranny, ruinous chicanery.
And these are not merely moral attributes of riches, which the seeker of riches
may, if he chooses, despise; the, are literally material attributes of riches,
depreciating or exalting the monetary signification of the sum in question. One
mass of money is the outcome of action which has created,—another, of action
which has annihilated,—ten times as much in the gathering of it.
Therefore the idea that directions can be given for the gaining of wealth,
irrespectively of the consideration of its moral sources is perhaps the most
insolently futile of all that ever beguiled men through their vices. So far as I
know, there is not in history record of anything, so disgraceful to the human
intellect as the modern idea that the commercial text 'Buy in the cheapest
market and sell in the dearest' represents an available principle of national
economy. Buy in the cheapest market?—yes; but what made your market cheap
? Charcoal may be cheap among your roof timbers after a fire and bricks may
be cheap in your streets after an earthquake; but fire and earthquake may not
therefore be national benefits. Sell in the dearest?—yes, truly; but what made
your market dear? You sold your bread well today; was it to a dying man who
gave his last coin for it and will never need bread more; or to a rich man who
tomorrow will buy your farm over your head; or to a soldier on his way to
pillage the bank in which you have put your fortune?
None of these things you can know. One thing only you can know; namely
whether this dealing of yours is a just and faithful one, which is all you need
concern yourself about respecting it; sure thus to have done your part in
bringing about ultimately in the world a state of things which will not issue in
pillage or in death. Ruskin UNTO THIS LAST
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It has been shown that the chief value of money consists in its having power
over human beings; that without this power large material possessions are
useless, and to a person possessing such power, comparatively unnecessary. But
power over human beings is attainable by other means than by money.
In this moral power there is a monetary value as real as that represented by
more ponderous currencies. A man's hand may be full of invisible gold, and the
wave of it or the grasp shall do more than another's with a shower of bullion.
But farther. Since the essence of wealth consists in its authority over men, if
the apparent wealth fails in this power, it ceases to be wealth at all. It does
not appear lately in England that our authority over men is absolute.
Finally since the essence of wealth consists in power over men, will it not
follow that the nobler and the more in number the persons are over whom it
has power, the greater the wealth? Perhaps it may even appear after some
consideration that the persons themselves are the wealth; not gold and silver.
The true veins of wealth are purple—and not in Rock but in Flesh. The final
consummation of all wealth is in the producing as many as possible fullbreathed, bright-eyed and happy-hearted human beings. In some far-away and
yet undreamt-of hour I can even imagine that instead of adorning the turbans
of her slaves with diamonds from Golkonda and thus showing off her material
wealth, England, as a Christian mother, may at last attain to the virtues and
the treasures of a non-Christian one and be able to lead forth her Sons, saying,
"These are MY Jewels." Ruskin UNTO THIS LAST
ምንም አስተያየቶች የሉም:
አስተያየት ይለጥፉ