Chapter LXXII: Section CCXIV: Causes of an Increase of Production

Only when wants increase does production increase also.[214-1] The old maxim: _Si quem volueris esse divitem, non est quod augeas divitias, sed minuas cupiditates (Seneca)_, would, if consistently carried out, have thwarted the advance of civilization and frustrated the improvement of man's condition. On the other hand, most political economists, without more ado, assume that individuals, and still more nations, are wont to extend the aggregate of their enjoyments just as far as there is a possibility of satisfying their wants. But they forget here how great a part is played in the world, as men are constituted, by the principle of inertia.[214-2] At the first blush, what seems more natural than that the less labor a people need employ to obtain the most indispensable means of subsistence, the more time and taste would remain to them to satisfy their more refined wants. According to this, we should expect to discover a more refined civilization, especially, in intellectual matters, in the earliest periods, when population is small, when land exists in excess and is not yet exhausted. But, in reality, precisely the reverse is the case. In the earliest stages of civilization accessible to our observation, we find materialism prevailing in its coarsest form, and life absorbed entirely by the lowest physical wants. (Tropical lands.) Where bread grows on the trees, and one needs only to reach out his hand and pluck it; where all one wants to cover his nakedness is a few palm leaves, ordinary souls find no incentive to an ant-like activity, or to a union among themselves for economic purposes.[214-3] When a Mexican countryman earns enough to keep himself and his family from absolute want by two days' labor in a week, he idles away the other five. It never occurs to him that he might devote his leisure time to putting his hut or his household furniture, etc., in better shape. The necessity of foresight even is almost unknown; and in the most luxuriantly fertile country in the world, a bad harvest immediately leads to the most frightful famine. Humboldt was assured that there was no hope of making the people more industrious except by the destruction of the banana plantations.[214-4] But, indeed, there would be little gained by such compulsory industry. To work for any other end than satiation, it is necessary that man should feel wants beyond the want created by mere hunger.[214-5] There are so many conditions precedent (and mutually limiting one another) to a general advance in civilization, that such an advance can, as a rule, take place only very gradually. Let us suppose, for instance, a single Indian in Mexico, perfectly willing to work six days in the week, and in this way to cultivate a piece of land three times as great as his fellow Indians. Where would he get the land? He would, for a time find no purchasers for his surplus, and therefore not be in a condition to pay the landlord as much as the latter hitherto received from the pasturage alone. Not until cities are built and offer the rural population the products of industry in exchange for theirs, can they be incited to, or become capable of effecting a better cultivation of the land. This incentive and this capacity, are inseparably connected with each other. Where the agricultural population produce no real surplus, but after the fashion of medieval times, produce everything they want themselves, and consume all their own products with the exception of the part paid to the state as a tax, there can scarcely be an industrial class, a commercial class, or a class devoted to science, art, etc. And, conversely, it is only the higher civilization which finds expression in the development of these classes, that, by a more skillful guidance of the national labor, can call forth its productiveness to an extent sufficient to yield a considerable surplus of agricultural commodities over and above the most immediate wants of the cultivators of the soil themselves. Hence, we find that precisely in those countries which are most advanced in the economic sense, there is relatively the smallest number of men engaged in agriculture, and relatively the largest number in production of a finer kind.[214-6] It is here as in private housekeeping: the poorer a man is, the greater is the portion of his income which he is wont to lay out for indispensable necessities.[214-7] [214-8]

[Footnote 214-1: There is obviously here supposed besides
the want thus increased, a capacity for development. Thus,
for instance, the inhabitants of New Zealand brought with
them, in what concerns clothing, dwellings, etc., the
customs of a tropical into a colder country, and did not
understand how to oppose the rigor of the new climate,
except by building immoderately large fires, until they
became acquainted with European teachers. (Edinb. Review,
April, 1850, 466.)]

[Footnote 214-2: Compare _R. S. Zachariä_, Vierzig Bücher
vom Staate, VII, 37. Men in the lower stages of civilization
cherish a greater contempt for those more advanced than they
are themselves visited with by the latter. Thus it was
customary for the Siberian hunting races to utter a
malediction: May your enemy live like a Tartar, and have the
folly to engage in the breeding of cattle. (_Abulghazi
Bahadur_, Histoire généalogique des Tartares.) Nomadic races
look upon the inhabitants of cities as for the most part
prisoners.]

[Footnote 214-3: The "happy, contented negroes," as Lord
John Russel called them, work in Jamaica, on an average,
only one hour a day since their emancipation. (Colonial
Magazine, Nov. 1849, 458.) Egypt, India, etc., from time
immemorial, the classic lands of monkish laziness. Compare
_Hume_, Discourses, No. 1, on Commerce. On the other hand,
the person who has six months before him for which he must
labor and lay up a store, if he would not famish or freeze,
must necessarily be active and frugal; and there are other
virtues which go along with these. (_List_, System der
polit. Oek., I, 304.) According to _Humboldt_, the change of
seasons compels man to get accustomed to different kinds of
food, and thus fits him to migrate. The inhabitants of
tropical countries are, on the other hand, like
caterpillars, which cannot emigrate nor be made to emigrate,
on account of the uniform nature of their food.]

[Footnote 214-4: _Humboldt_, N. Espagne, IV, ch. 9, II, ch.
5. Similarly among the coarser Malayan tribes, the facility
with which fish is caught and the cheapness of sago are the
principal causes of their inertia and of their unprogressive
uncivilization. (_Crawfurd._)]

[Footnote 214-5: _Le travail de la faim est toujours borné
comme elle. (Raynal.)_]

[Footnote 214-6: Compare _Adam Smith_, I, ch. 11, 2;
_supra_, § 54. In Russia, nearly 80 per cent. of the
population live immediately from agriculture; in Great
Britain, in 1835, only 35; in 1821, only 33; in 1831, only
31-1/2; in 1841, only 26 per cent. (_Porter._) According to
_Marshall_, there were, in 1831, in British Europe,
1,116,000 persons who lived from their rents, etc. In
Ireland, there were, in 1831, over 65 per cent. of the
population engaged in agriculture (_Porter_); in 1841, even
66 per cent.]

[Footnote 214-7: In Paris, in 1834, the average income per
capita was estimated to be 1,029.9 francs, of which 46
francs were paid out for service; 55.7 for education; 11.5
for physicians' services, etc.; 7 on theatrical shows; 36
for washing; 13.6 for public purposes. (_Dingler_, Polyt.
Journal, LIII, 464.) According to _Ducpétiaux_, Budgets
économiques des Classes ouvrières en Belgique, 1855, and
_Engel_, Sächs. Statist. Ztschr., 1857, 170, the
proportional percentage of family expenses for the following
articles of consumption is:

=======================+=========================================
| EXPENSES OF
+--------------------+----------+---------
| _a laborer's_ | _family_ |_a well-_
| _family_ | _of the_ |_to-do_
_Consumption Purpose._ | _in comfortable_ | _middle_ |_family._
| _circumstances._ | _class._ |
+----------+---------+----------+---------
| _In_ | _In_ | _In_ | _In_
|_Belgium._|_Saxony._|_Saxony._ |_Saxony._
| _per_ | _per_ | _per_ | _per_
| _cent._ | _cent._ | _cent._ | _cent._
-----------------------+----------+---------+----------+---------
Food, | 61 \ | 62 \ | 55 \ | 50 \
Clothing, | 15 } | 16 } 95 | 18 } 90 | 18 } 85
Shelter, | 10 } 95 | 12 } | 12 } | 12 }
Heating and lighting, | 5 } | 5 / | 5 / | 5 /
Utensils and tools, | 4 / | | |
| | | |
Education, instruction,| 2 \ | 2 \ | 3.5 \ | 5.5 \
Public security, | 1 } 5 | 1 } 5 | 2 } 10 | 3 } 15
Sanitary purposes, | 1 } | 1 } | 2 } | 3 }
Personal services, | 1 / | 1 / | 2.5 / | 3.5 /
=======================+==========+=========+==========+=========

Hence _Engel_ thinks that when the articles of food,
clothing, shelter, heating and lighting have become dearer
by 50 per cent., and other wants have not, and it is desired
to proportionately increase the salaries of officials,
salaries of 300, 600 and 1,000 thalers should be raised to
427.5, 800 and 1,275 thalers respectively. (Preuss. Statist.
Zeitschr., 1875.) _E. Herrmann_, Pricipien der Wirthsch.,
106, estimates that in all Europe, 45.6 of all consumption
is for food, 13.2 for clothing, 5.7 for shelter, 4.6 for
furnishing, 5.3 for heating and lighting, 2.6 for tools and
utensils, 13.3 for public security, 6.6 for purposes of
recreation. Compare _Leplay_, Les Ouvriers Européens, 1855,
and _v. Prittwitz_, Kunst reich zu werden, 487 ff. The
expenses for shelter, service and sociability are specially
apt to increase with an increase of income.]

[Footnote 214-8: The necessity of an equilibrium between
production and consumption was pretty clear to many of the
older political economists. Thus, for instance, _Petty_
calls the coarse absence of the feeling of higher wants
among the Irish the chief cause of their idleness and
poverty. Similarly _Temple_, Observations on the N.
Provinces, ch. 6, in which Ireland and Holland are compared
in this relation. _North_, Discourses upon Trade, 14 seq.;
Potscr. _Roscher_, Zur Geschichte der english.
Volswirthschaftslehre, 83, 91, 127 ff. _Becher_, polit.
Discurs., 1668, 17 ff., was of opinion that the principal
cause keeping the three great estates together, the very
soul of their connection, was consumption. Hence the peasant
lived from the tradesman, and the tradesman from the
merchant. (_Boisguillebert_, Détail de la France, I, 4, II,
9, 21.) According to _Berkeley_, Querist, No. 20, 107, the
awakening of wants is the most probable way to lead a people
to industry. And so _Hume_, loc. cit., _Forbonnais_,
Eléments du Commerce, I, 364. The Physiocrates were in favor
of active consumption. Thus _Quesnay_, Maximes générales, 21
seq.; _Letrosne_, De l'Interêt social, I, 12. _La
reproduction et la consommation sont réciproquement la
mesure l'une de l'autre._ Some of them considered
consumption even as the chief thing (_Mirabeau_, Philosophie
rurale, ch. 1), which could never be too great. Further,
_Verri_, Meditazioni, I, 1-4. _Büsch_, Geldumlauf, III, 11
ff.

The moderns have frequently inequitably neglected the
doctrine of consumption. Thus it appears to be a very
characteristic fact that in _Adam Smith's_ great book, there
is no division bearing the title "consumption," and in the
Basel edition of 1801, that word does not occur in the
index. _Droz_ says that in reading the works of certain of
his followers, one might think that products were not made
for the sake of man, but man for their sake. But, on the
other hand, there came a strong reaction with _Lauderdale_,
Inquiry, ch. 5; _Sismondi_, N. Principes, L., II, passim;
_Ganilh_, Dictionnaire Analytique, 93 ff., 159 ff.; but
especially, and with important scientific discoveries,
_Malthus_, Principles, B. II. _St. Chamans_, Nouvel Essai
sur la Richesse des Nations, 1824, is an exaggerated
caricature of the theory of consumption. For instance, he
resolves the income of individuals into foreign demand or
the demand of strangers (29); considers the first condition
of public credit to lie in the making of outlay (32); and
even calls entirely idle consumers productive, for the
reason that they elevate by their demand a _utilité
possible_, to the dignity of a _utilité réelle_ (286 ff.)
The view advocated by Mirabeau, and referred to above, again
represented by _E. Solly_, Considerations on Political
Economy, 1814, and by _Weishaupt_, Ueb. die Staatsausgaben
und Auflagen, 1819. And so according to _Carey_, Principles,
ch. 35, § 6, the real difficulty does not lie in production,
but in finding a purchaser for the products. But he
overlooks the fact here that only the possessor of other
products can appear as a purchaser. From another side, most
socialists think almost exclusively of the wants of men, and
scarcely consider it worth their while to pay any attention
to the means of satisfying them.]