The Crown of Wild Olive
the chief conditions of the production of wealth had remained unstated,
but the nature of wealth itself had never been defined. "Every one has a
notion, sufficiently correct for common purposes, of what is meant by
wealth," wrote Mr. Mill, in the outset of his treatise; and contentedly
proceeded, as if a chemist should proceed to investigate the laws of
chemistry without endeavouring to ascertain the nature of fire or water,
because every one had a notion of them, "sufficiently correct for common
purposes."
But even that apparently indisputable statement was untrue. There is not
one person in ten thousand who has a notion sufficiently correct, even
for the commonest purposes, of "what is meant" by wealth; still less of
what wealth everlastingly _is_, whether we mean it or not; which it is
the business of every student of economy to ascertain. We, indeed, know
(either by experience or in imagination) what it is to be able to
provide ourselves with luxurious food, and handsome clothes; and if Mr.
Mill had thought that wealth consisted only in these, or in the means
of obtaining these, it would have been easy for him to have so defined
it with perfect scientific accuracy. But he knew better: he knew that
some kinds of wealth consisted in the possession, or power of obtaining,
other things than these; but, having, in the studies of his life, no
clue to the principles of essential value, he was compelled to take
public opinion as the ground of his science; and the public, of course,
willingly accepted the notion of a science founded on their opinions.
I had, on the contrary, a singular advantage, not only in the greater
extent of the field of investigation opened to me by my daily pursuits,
but in the severity of some lessons I accidentally received in the
course of them.
When, in the winter of 1851, I was collecting materials for my work on
Venetian architecture, three of the pictures of Tintoret on the roof of
the School of St. Roch were hanging down in ragged fragments, mixed with
lath and plaster, round the apertures made by the fall of three Austrian
heavy shot. The city of Venice was not, it appeared, rich enough to
repair the damage that winter; and buckets were set on the floor of the
upper room of the school to catch the rain, which not only fell directly
through the shot holes, but found its way, owing to the generally
pervious state of the roof, through many of the canvases of Tintoret's
in other parts of the ceiling.
It was a lesson to me, as I have just said, no less direct than severe;
for I knew already at that time (though I have not ventured to assert,
until recently at Oxford,) that the pictures of Tintoret in Venice were
accurately the most precious articles of wealth in Europe, being the
best existing productions of human industry. Now at the time that three
of them were thus fluttering in moist rags from the roof they had
adorned, the shops of the Rue Rivoli at Paris were, in obedience
to a steadily-increasing public Demand, beginning to show a
steadily-increasing Supply of elaborately-finished and coloured
lithographs, representing the modern dances of delight, among which the
cancan has since taken a distinguished place.
The labour employed on the stone of one of these lithographs is very
much more than Tintoret was in the habit of giving to a picture of
average size. Considering labour as the origin of value, therefore, the
stone so highly wrought would be of greater value than the picture; and
since also it is capable of producing a large number of immediately
saleable or exchangeable impressions, for which the "demand" is
constant, the city of Paris naturally supposed itself, and on all
hitherto believed or stated principles of political economy, was,
infinitely richer in the possession of a large number of these
lithographic stones, (not to speak of countless oil pictures and marble
carvings of similar character), than Venice in the possession of those
rags of mildewed canvas, flaunting in the south wind and its salt rain.
And, accordingly, Paris provided (without thought of the expense) lofty
arcades of shops, and rich recesses of innumerable private apartments,
for the protection of these better treasures of hers from the weather.
Yet, all the while, Paris was not the richer for these possessions.
Intrinsically, the delightful lithographs were not wealth, but polar
contraries of wealth. She was, by the exact quantity of labour she had
given to produce these, sunk below, instead of above, absolute Poverty.
They not only were false Riches--they were true _Debt_, which had to be
paid at last--and the present aspect of the Rue Rivoli shows in what
manner.
And the faded stains of the Venetian ceiling, all the while, were
absolute and inestimable wealth. Useless to their possessors as
forgotten treasure in a buried city, they had in them, nevertheless, the
intrinsic and eternal nature of wealth; and Venice, still possessing the
ruins of them, was a rich city; only, the Venetians had _not_ a notion
sufficiently correct even for the very common purpose of inducing them
to put slates on a roof, of what was "meant by wealth."
The vulgar economist would reply that his science had nothing to do with
the qualities of pictures, but with their exchange-value only; and that
his business was, exclusively, to consider whether the remains of
Tintoret were worth as many ten-and-sixpences as the impressions which
might be taken from the lithographic stones.
But he would not venture, without reserve, to make such an answer, if
the example be taken in horses, instead of pictures. The most dull
economist would perceive, and admit, that a gentleman who had a fine
stud of horses was absolutely richer than one who had only ill-bred and
broken-winded ones. He would instinctively feel, though his
pseudo-science had never taught him, that the price paid for the
animals, in either case, did not alter the fact of their worth: that the
good horse, though it might have been bought by chance for a few
guineas, was not therefore less valuable, nor the owner of the galled
jade any the richer, because he had given a hundred for it.
So that the economist, in saying that his science takes no account of
the qualities of pictures, merely signifies that he cannot conceive of
any quality of essential badness or goodness existing in pictures; and
that he is incapable of investigating the laws of wealth in such
articles. Which is the fact. But, being incapable of defining intrinsic
value in pictures, it follows that he must be equally helpless to define
the nature of intrinsic value in painted glass, or in painted pottery,
or in patterned stuffs, or in any other national produce requiring true
human ingenuity. Nay, though capable of conceiving the idea of intrinsic
value with respect to beasts of burden, no economist has endeavoured to
state the general principles of National Economy, even with regard to
the horse or the ass. And, in fine, _the modern political economists
have been, without exception, incapable of apprehending the nature of
intrinsic value at all_.
And the first specialty of the following treatise consists in its giving
at the outset, and maintaining as the foundation of all subsequent
reasoning, a definition of Intrinsic Value, and Intrinsic
Contrary-of-Value; the negative power having been left by former writers
entirely out of account, and the positive power left entirely undefined.
But, secondly: the modern economist, ignoring intrinsic value, and
accepting the popular estimate of things as the only ground of his
science, has imagined himself to have ascertained the constant laws
regulating the relation of this popular demand to its supply; or, at
least, to have proved that demand and supply were connected by heavenly
balance, over which human foresight had no power. I chanced, by singular
coincidence, lately to see this theory of the law of demand and supply
brought to as sharp practical issue in another great siege, as I had
seen the theories of intrinsic value brought, in the siege of Venice.
I had the honour of being on the committee under the presidentship of
the Lord Mayor of London, for the victualling of Paris after her
surrender. It became, at one period of our sittings, a question of vital
importance at what moment the law of demand and supply would come into
operation, and what the operation of it would exactly be: the demand, on
this occasion, being very urgent indeed; that of several millions of
people within a few hours of utter starvation, for any kind of food
whatsoever. Nevertheless, it was admitted, in the course of debate, to
be probable that the divine principle of demand and supply might find
itself at the eleventh hour, and some minutes over, in want of carts and
horses; and we ventured so far to interfere with the divine principle as
to provide carts and horses, with haste which proved, happily, in time
for the need; but not a moment in advance of it. It was farther
recognized by the committee that the divine principle of demand and
supply would commence its operations by charging the poor of Paris
twelve-pence for a penny's worth of whatever they wanted; and would end
its operations by offering them twelve-pence worth for a penny, of
whatever they didn't want. Whereupon it was concluded by the committee
that the tiny knot, on this special occasion, was scarcely "_dignus
vindice_," by the divine principle of demand and supply: and that we
would venture, for once, in a profane manner, to provide for the poor of
Paris what they wanted, when they wanted it. Which, to the value of the
sums entrusted to us, it will be remembered we succeeded in doing.
But the fact is that the so-called "law," which was felt to be false in
this case of extreme exigence, is alike false in cases of less
exigence. It is false always, and everywhere. Nay to such an extent is
its existence imaginary, that the vulgar economists are not even agreed
in their account of it; for some of them mean by it, only that prices
are regulated by the relation between demand and supply, which is partly
true; and others mean that the relation itself is one with the process
of which it is unwise to interfere; a statement which is not only, as in
the above instance, untrue; but accurately the reverse of the truth: for
all wise economy, political or domestic, consists in the resolved
maintenance of a given relation between supply and demand, other than
the instinctive, or (directly) natural, one.
Similarly, vulgar political economy asserts for a "law" that wages are
determined by competition.
Now I pay my servants exactly what wages I think necessary to make them
comfortable. The sum is not determined at all by competition; but
sometimes by my notions of their comfort and deserving, and sometimes by
theirs. If I were to become penniless to-morrow, several of them would
certainly still serve me for nothing.
In both the real and supposed cases the so-called "law" of vulgar
political economy is absolutely set at defiance. But I cannot set the
law of gravitation at defiance, nor determine that in my house I will
not allow ice to melt, when the temperature is above thirty-two degrees.
A true law outside of my house, will remain a true one inside of it. It
is not, therefore, a law of Nature that wages are determined by
competition. Still less is it a law of State, or we should not now be
disputing about it publicly, to the loss of many millions of pounds to
the country. The fact which vulgar economists have been weak enough to
imagine a law, is only that, for the last twenty years a number of very
senseless persons have attempted to determine wages in that manner; and
have, in a measure, succeeded in occasionally doing so.
Both in definition of the elements of wealth, and in statement of the