Chapter LXXXII: Section CCXXIV: Luxury in General

The idea conveyed by the word luxury is an essentially relative one. Every individual calls all consumption with which he can dispense himself, and every class that which seems not indispensable to themselves, luxury. The same is true of every age and nation. Just as young people ridicule every old fashion as pedantry, every new fashion is censured by old people as luxury.[224-1]

But (§ I) a higher civilization always finds expression in an increased number and an increased urgency of satisfied wants. Yet, there is a limit at which new or intensified wants cease to be an element of higher civilization, and become elements of demoralization. Every immoral and every unwise want exceeds this limit.[224-2] Immoral wants are not only those the satisfaction of which wounds the conscience, but also those in which the necessities of the soul are postponed to the affording of superfluities to the body; and where the enjoyment of the few is purchased at the expense of the wretchedness of the many. And not only those are unwise or imprudent for which the voluntary outlay is greater than one's income, but those also where the indispensable is made to suffer for the dispensable.

Thus it was in Athens, in the time of Demosthenes, when the festivities of the year cost more than the maintenance of the fleet; when Euripides' tragedies came dearer to the people than the Persian war in former times. There was even a law passed (Ol. 107,4) prohibiting the application of the dramatic fund to purposes of war under pain of death.[224-3]

In the history of any individual people, it may be shown with approximate certainty at what point luxury exceeded its salutary limits. But in the case of two different nations, it is quite possible that what was criminal prodigality with the one, may have been a salutary enjoyment of life with the other; in case their economic (_wirthschaftlichen_) powers are different. Precisely as in the case of individuals, where for instance, the daily drinking of table wine may be simplicity in the rich and immoral luxury in the case of a poor father of a family.[224-4] Healthy reason has this peculiarity, that where people will not listen to it, it never hesitates to make itself felt. (_Benjamin Franklin._)[224-5]

However, the luxury of a period always throws itself, by way of preference, on those branches of commodities which are cheapest.

[Footnote 224-1: _Stuart_, Principles, II, ch. 30,
_Ferguson_, History of Civil Society, VI, 2. Thus
_Dandolus_, Chron. Venet., 247, tells of the wife of a doge
at Constantinople who was so given to luxury that she ate
with a golden fork instead of her fingers. But she was
punished for this outrage upon nature: her body began to
stink even while she was alive. In the introduction to
_Hollinshed's_ Chronicon, 1557, there is a bitter complaint
that, a short time previous, so many chimneys had been
erected in England, that so many earthen and tin dishes had
been introduced in the place of wooden ones. Another author
finds fault that oak was then used in building instead of
willow, and adds that formerly the men were of oak but now
of willow. _Slaney_, On rural Expenditure, 41. Compare
_Xenoph._, Cyrop., VIII, 8, 17.]

[Footnote 224-2: Biblically determined: _Romans_, 13, 14.]

[Footnote 224-3: _Plutarch_, De Gloria Athen., 348.
_Athen._, XIV, 623. Petit. Legg. Att., 385.]

[Footnote 224-4: _Livy_, XXXIV, 6 ff.]

[Footnote 224-5: Most writers who have treated of luxury at
all have generally confined themselves to inquiring whether
it was salutary or reprehensible. Aristippus and
Antisthenes, Diogenes, etc.; Epicureans and Stoics. The
latter were reproached with being bad citizens, because
their moderation in all things was a hindrance to trade.
(_Athen._, IV, 163.) The Aristotelian _Herakleides_ declared
luxury to be the principal means to inspire men with
noble-mindedness; inspired by luxury, the Athenians
conquered at Marathon. (_Athen._, XII, 512.) _Pliny_ was one
of the most violent opponents of luxury. See _Pliny_, N. N.,
XXXIII, 1, 4, 13, and other places. The controversy has been
renewed by the moderns, especially since the beginning of
the 18th century, after luxury of every kind had previously
(for the most part on theological grounds, but also by
Hutten, for instance) been one-sidedly condemned. Among its
defenders were _Mandeville_, The Fable of the Bees, 1706,
who, however, calls everything a luxury which exceeds the
baldest necessities of life; _Voltaire_ in Le Mondain, the
Apologie du Luxe, and Sur L'Usage de la Vie; _Mélon_, Essai
politique sur le Commerce, ch. 9; _Hume_, Discourses, No. 2,
On Refinement in the Arts; _Dumont_, Théorie du Luxe, 1771;
_Filangieri_, Delle Leggi politiche ed economiche, II, 37;
and the majority of the Mercantile school and of the
Physiocrates. Among the opponents of luxury, _J. J.
Rousseau_ towers over almost all others. Further, _Fénélon_,
Télémaque, 1699, L. XXII; _Pinto_, Essai sur le Luxe, 1762.

The reasons and counter-reasons advanced by those writers
apply not only to luxury but to the lights and shades of
high civilization in general. When a political economist
declares for or against luxury in general, he resembles a
doctor who should declare for or against the nerves in
general. There has been luxury in every country and in every
age. Among a healthy people, luxury is also healthy, an
essential element in the general health of the nation. Among
an unhealthy people luxury is a disease, and
disease-engendering.

For an impartial examination of the question, see
_Ferguson_, History of Civil Society, towards the end; see
also _Beckmann_, in _Justis'_ Grundsätzen der Polizei, 1782,
§ 308; _Rau_, Ueber den Luxus, 1817; _Roscher_, Ueber den
Luxus, in the Archiv der Politischen Oekonomie, 1843, and in
his Ansichten der Volkswirthschaft, 1861, 399 ff.]