Chapter LXXXVIII: Section CCXXX: Equalizing Tendency of Later Luxury

The whole social character of this luxury has something equalizing[230-1] in it; but it supposes particularly that there is not too marked a difference in the resources of the people.

A proper gradation of national wants is best guarantied by a good distribution of the national resources.[230-2] The more unequal the latter is, the more is there spent on vain wants instead of on real ones; and the more numerous are the instances of rapid and even immoral consumption. Where there are only a few over-rich men, more foreign products and products of capital are wont to be called for than home products and productions of labor; and luxury especially despises all those commodities manufactured in large institutions.[230-3] Every change in the consumption-customs of a people, in this respect, should be most carefully observed; thus, for instance, whether brandy is exchanged for beer, tobacco for meat, cotton for cloth, or the reverse.[230-4]

One of the characteristics of this period is the endeavor to possess the best quality of whatever is possessed at all, and to be satisfied with less of it rather than purchase more of an inferior quality. This is, essentially, to practice frugality, inasmuch as certain production-services remain the same whether the commodity is of the best or the worst quality, and that commodities of the best quality are more superior to the worst in intrinsic goodness than they are in price. But this course supposes a certain well-being already existing.

In this period, also, the luxury of the state is wont to take the direction of those enjoyments which are accessible to all.[230-5]

[Footnote 230-1: Formerly the dress of citizens was a weak
imitation of the court costume: at present the reverse is
the case, and the court costume is only a heightening of the
citizen costume. Compare _Riehl_, Bürgerl. Gesellschaft,
191.]

[Footnote 230-2: _Helvetius_, De l'Homme, 1771. sec. VI, ch.
5.]

[Footnote 230-3: _J. B. Say_, Traité, II, 4; _Sismondi_, N.
P., IV, ch. 4. As early a writer as _Lauderdale_, Inquiry,
358 ff., thought the social leveling of modern times would
promote English industry. In the East Indies, on the other
hand, only the most expensive watches, rifles, candelabras
etc. were sold, because the nabobs were the only persons who
created any demand for European commodities (312 ff.). _Adam
Smith_, Wealth of Nat., II, ch. 3, draws a very correct
distinction between the luxury of durable goods and that of
those which perish rapidly; the former is less calculated to
impoverish an individual or a whole nation; and hence it is
much more closely allied to frugality. Similarly even
_Isocrates_, ad Niccol., 19; _Livy_, XXIV, 7; _Plin._, H.
N., XIII, 4; _Mariana_, 1598, De Rege et Regis Institutione,
III, 10; _Sir W. Temple_, Works, I, 140 seq., who found this
better kind of luxury in Holland: _Berkeley_, Querist, No.
296 ff.]

[Footnote 230-4: _Schmoller_, loc. cit., considers it no
favorable symptom, that in Prussia, between 1802 and 1867,
the per capita consumption of milk decreased and that of
wool increased. According to _L. Levi_, the consumption of
brandy in England decreased from 1854 and 1870, from 1.13 to
1.01 gallons per capita; but, on the other hand, the
consumption of malt increased from 1.45 to 1.84 bushels, and
the consumption of wine from 0.23 to 0.45 gallons. The
number of licenses to retail spirituous liquors was, in
1830, 6.30 per thousand of the population; in 1860-69, only
5.57. (Statist. Journal, 1872, 32 ff.)]

[Footnote 230-5: Compare _Cicero_, pro Murena, 36. The
Athenians under Pericles, in times of peace, spent more than
one-third of their state-income on plastic and architectural
works of art. The annual state-income amounted to 1,000
talents (_Xenoph._, Exp. Cyri, VII, 1, 27), while the
propylea alone cost, within 5 years, 2,012 talents.
(_Böckh_, Staatsh., I, 283.) On the other hand,
_Demosthenes_ complains of the shabbiness of public
buildings, and the magnificence of private ones in his time.
(adv. Aristocr., 689, Syntax., 174 seq.)

_Demetrius Phalereus_ blames even Pericles, on account of
his extravagance on the propylea, although Lycurgus had
been, not long before, addicted to luxury after the manner
of Pericles. (_Cicero_, De Off., II, 17.)]