The Crown of Wild Olive
things represent the results of roused indolence; they have been carved,
as toys, in extra time; and, if they had not been made, nothing else
would have been made. Even to munitions of war this principle applies;
they partly represent the work of men who, if they had not made spears,
would never have made pruning hooks, and who are incapable of any
activities but those of contest.
53. Thus then, finally, the nature of the store has to be considered
under two main lights; the one, that of its immediate and actual
utility; the other, that of the past national character which it
signifies by its production, and future character which it must develop
by its use. And the issue of this investigation will be to show us that.
Economy does not depend merely on principles of "demand and supply," but
primarily on what is demanded, and what is supplied; which I will beg of
you to observe, and take to heart.
* * * * *
54. II. QUESTION SECOND.--What is the quantity of the store, in relation
to the population?
It follows from what has been already stated that the accurate form in
which this question has to be put is--"What quantity of each article
composing the store exists in proportion to the real need for it by the
population?" But we shall for the time assume, in order to keep all our
terms at the simplest, that the store is wholly composed of useful
articles, and accurately proportioned to the several needs for them.
Now it cannot be assumed, because the store is large in proportion to
the number of the people, that the people must be in comfort; nor
because it is small, that they must be in distress. An active and
economical race always produces more than it requires, and lives (if it
is permitted to do so) in competence on the produce of its daily labour.
The quantity of its store, great or small, is therefore in many respects
indifferent to it, and cannot be inferred from its aspect. Similarly an
inactive and wasteful population, which cannot live by its daily labour,
but is dependent, partly or wholly, on consumption of its store, may be
(by various difficulties, hereafter to be examined, in realizing or
getting at such store) retained in a state of abject distress, though
its possessions may be immense. But the results always involved in the
magnitude of store are, the commercial power of the nation, its
security, and its mental character. Its commercial power, in that
according to the quantity of its store, may be the extent of its
dealings; its security, in that according to the quantity of its store
are its means of sudden exertion or sustained endurance; and its
character, in that certain conditions of civilization cannot be attained
without permanent and continually accumulating store, of great intrinsic
value, and of peculiar nature.[21]
55. Now, seeing that these three advantages arise from largeness of
store in proportion to population, the question arises immediately,
"Given the store--is the nation enriched by diminution of its numbers?
Are a successful national speculation, and a pestilence, economically
the same thing?"
This is in part a sophistical question; such as it would be to ask
whether a man was richer when struck by disease which must limit his
life within a predicable period, than he was when in health. He is
enabled to enlarge his current expenses, and has for all purposes a
larger sum at his immediate disposal (for, given the fortune, the
shorter the life, the larger the annuity); yet no man considers himself
richer because he is condemned by his physician.
56. The logical reply is that, since Wealth is by definition only the
means of life, a nation cannot be enriched by its own mortality. Or in
shorter words, the life is more than the meat; and existence itself,
more wealth than the means of existence. Whence, of two nations who have
equal store, the more numerous is to be considered the richer, provided
the type of the inhabitant be as high (for, though the relative bulk of
their store be less, its relative efficiency, or the amount of effectual
wealth, must be greater). But if the type of the population be
deteriorated by increase of its numbers, we have evidence of poverty in
its worst influence; and then, to determine whether the nation in its
total may still be justifiably esteemed rich, we must set or weigh, the
number of the poor against that of the rich.
To effect which piece of scale-work, it is of course necessary to
determine, first, who are poor and who are rich; nor this only, but also
how poor and how rich they are. Which will prove a curious
thermometrical investigation; for we shall have to do for gold and for
silver, what we have done for quicksilver;--determine, namely, their
freezing-point, their zero, their temperate and fever-heat points;
finally, their vaporescent point, at which riches, sometimes
explosively, as lately in America, "make to themselves wings:"--and
correspondently, the number of degrees _below_ zero at which poverty,
ceasing to brace with any wholesome cold, burns to the bone.[22]
57. For the performance of these operations, in the strictest sense
scientific, we will first look to the existing so-called "science" of
Political Economy; we will ask it to define for us the comparatively and
superlatively rich, and the comparatively and superlatively poor; and on
its own terms--if any terms it can pronounce--examine, in our prosperous
England, how many rich and how many poor people there are; and whether
the quantity and intensity of the poverty is indeed so overbalanced by
the quantity and intensity of wealth, that we may permit ourselves a
luxurious blindness to it, and call ourselves, complacently, a rich
country. And if we find no clear definition in the existing science, we
will endeavour for ourselves to fix the true degrees of the scale, and
to apply them.[23]
* * * * *
58. QUESTION THIRD. What is the quantity of the store in relation to the
Currency?
We have seen that the real worth of the currency, so far as dependent on
its relation to the magnitude of the store, may vary, within certain
limits, without affecting its worth in exchange. The diminution or
increase of the represented wealth may be unperceived, and the currency
may be taken either for more or less than it is truly worth. Usually it
is taken for much more; and its power in exchange, or credit-power, is
thus increased up to a given strain upon its relation to existing
wealth. This credit-power is of chief importance in the thoughts,
because most sharply present to the experience, of a mercantile
community: but the conditions of its stability[24] and all other
relations of the currency to the material store are entirely simple in
principle, if not in action. Far other than simple are the relations of
the currency to the available labour which it also represents. For this
relation is involved not only with that of the magnitude of the store to
the number, but with that of the magnitude of the store to the mind, of
the population. Its proportion to their number, and the resulting worth
of currency, are calculable; but its proportion to their will for labour
is not. The worth of the piece of money which claims a given quantity of
the store is, in exchange, less or greater according to the facility of
obtaining the same quantity of the same thing without having recourse to
the store. In other words it depends on the immediate Cost and Price of
the thing. We must now, therefore, complete the definition of these
terms.
59. All cost and price are counted in Labour. We must know first,
therefore, what is to be counted _as_ Labour.
I have already defined labour to be the Contest of the life of man with
an opposite. Literally, it is the quantity of "Lapse," loss, or failure
of human life, caused by any effort. It is usually confused with effort
itself, or the application of power (opera); but there is much effort
which is merely a mode of recreation, or of pleasure. The most beautiful
actions of the human body, and the highest results of the human
intelligence, are conditions, or achievements, of quite
unlaborious,--nay, of recreative,--effort. But labour is the _suffering_
in effort. It is the negative quantity, or quantity of de-feat, which
has to be counted against every Feat, and of de-fect which has to be
counted against every Fact, or Deed of men. In brief, it is "that
quantity of our toil which we die in."
We might, therefore, _a priori_, conjecture (as we shall ultimately
find), that it cannot be bought, nor sold. Everything else is bought and
sold for Labour, but labour itself cannot be bought nor sold for
anything, being priceless.[25] The idea that it is a commodity to be
bought or sold, is the alpha and omega of Politico-Economic fallacy.
60. This being the nature of labour, the "Cost" of anything is the
quantity of labour necessary to obtain it;--the quantity for which, or
at which, it "stands" (constant). It is literally the "Constancy" of the
thing;--you shall win it--move it--come at it, for no less than this.
Cost is measured and measurable (using the accurate Latin terms) only in
"labour," not in "opera."[26] It does not matter how much _work_ a thing
needs to produce it; it matters only how much _distress_. Generally the
more the power it requires, the less the distress; so that the noblest
works of man cost less than the meanest.
True labour, or spending of life, is either of the body, in fatigue or
pain; of the temper or heart (as in perseverance of search for
things,--patience in waiting for them,--fortitude or degradation in
suffering for them, and the like), or of the intellect. All these kinds
of labour are supposed to be included in the general term, and the
quantity of labour is then expressed by the time it lasts. So that a
unit of labour is "an hour's work" or a day's work, as we may
determine.[27]
61. Cost, like value, is both intrinsic and effectual. Intrinsic cost is
that of getting the thing in the right way; effectual cost is that of
getting the thing in the way we set about it. But intrinsic cost cannot
be made a subject of analytical investigation, being only partially
discoverable, and that by long experience. Effectual cost is all that
the political Economist can deal with; that is to say, the cost of the
thing under existing circumstances, and by known processes.
Cost, being dependent much on application of method, varies with the
quantity of the thing wanted, and with the number of persons who work
for it. It is easy to get a little of some things, but difficult to get
much; it is impossible to get some things with few hands, but easy to
get them with many.
62. The cost and value of things, however difficult to determine
accurately, are thus both dependent on ascertainable physical
circumstances.[28]
But their _price_ is dependent on the human will.
Such and such a thing is demonstrably good for so much. And it may
demonstrably be had for so much.
But it remains questionable, and in all manner of ways questionable,
whether I choose to give so much.[29]
This choice is always a relative one. It is a choice to give a price for
this, rather than for that;--a resolution to have the thing, if getting
it does not involve the loss of a better thing. Price depends,
therefore, not only on the cost of the commodity itself, but on its
relation to the cost of every other attainable thing.
Farther. The _power_ of choice is also a relative one. It depends not
merely on our own estimate of the thing, but on everybody else's
estimate; therefore on the number and force of the will of the
concurrent buyers, and on the existing quantity of the thing in
proportion to that number and force.