Chapter LXXI: Section CCXIII

EQUILIBRIUM BETWEEN PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION.

In all cases economic production is a means to some kind of consumption as its end.[213-1] The sharpest spur to productive activity is the feeling of want.[213-2] "Want teaches art, want teaches prayer, blessed want!" Well too has it been said: "Necessity is the mother of invention!" Leaving mere animals out of consideration,[213-3] those men who experience very few wants, with the exception of some rare and highly intellectual natures, prefer rest to labor. Therefore, when European merchants desire to engage in trade with a savage nation they have uniformly to begin by sending them their nails, axes, looking-glasses, brandy, etc., as gifts. Not until the savage has experienced a new enjoyment does the want of continuing it make itself felt; or is he prepared to produce for purposes of commerce.[213-4] In a state of normal development, the complete and continuing satisfaction of the coarser wants should constitute the foundation for the higher.[213-5]

[Footnote 213-1: We should not, indeed, say, on this
account, with _Adam Smith_, IV, ch. 8, that "consumption is
the sole end and purpose of all production," for labor and
saving, besides their economic object have a higher one,
imperishable and personal. Compare _Knies_, Polit. Oek. 129,
and _supra_, § 30.]

[Footnote 213-2: According to _Sir F. M. Eden_, State of the
Poor, I, 254, it is one of the most unambiguous symptoms of
advanced civilization when families eat regularly at the
same table; so also sleeping in real beds. "Bed and board!"
It is said that the regularity of meal times was introduced
among the Greeks by Palamedes. _Athen._ I, 11, after
_Æschylus_.]

[Footnote 213-3: Hibernating animals have supplies and
dwellings, that is something analogous to capital.]

[Footnote 213-4: This advance is generally observed to be
introduced by the _jus fortioris_. _Steuart_, Principles I,
ch. 7. (Compare §§ 45-6-8.) In this way, the earliest
oriental despotisms have unwittingly been of great service
to mankind. What the sultan here accomplished with his few
favorites was done in the lower stages of civilization of
the west by the aristocracy of great vassals, in a manner
more worthy of human beings, and in a much more stable form.
(_J. S. Mill_, Principles I, 14 ff.)]

[Footnote 213-5: _Banfield_, Organization of Industry, 1848,
11.]