According to the various industry, capacity, good fortune, and desires
of men, they obtain greater or smaller share of, and claim upon, the
wealth of the world.
The inequalities between these shares, always in some degree just and
necessary, may be either restrained by law (or circumstance) within
certain limits; or may increase indefinitely.
Where no moral or legal restraint is put upon the exercise of the will
and intellect of the stronger, shrewder, or more covetous men, these
differences become ultimately enormous. But as soon as they become so
distinct in their extremes as that, on one side, there shall be
manifest redundance of possession, and on the other manifest pressure
of need,--the terms "riches" and "poverty" are used to express the
opposite states; being contrary only in the manner of the terms
"warmth" and "cold"; which neither of them imply an actual degree, but
only a relation to other degrees, of temperature.
Respecting riches, the economist has to inquire, first, into the
advisable modes of their collection; secondly, into the advisable
modes of their administration. Respecting the collection of national
riches, he has to inquire, first, whether he is justified in calling
the nation rich; if the quantity of money it possesses relatively to
that possessed by other nations be large, irrespectively of the manner
of its distribution. Or does the mode of distribution in any wise
affect the nature of the riches? Thus, if the king alone be
rich--suppose Croesus or Mausolus--are the Lydians and Carians
therefore a rich nation? Or if one or two slave-masters be rich, and
the nation be otherwise composed of slaves, is it to be called a rich
nation? For if not, and the ideas of a certain mode of distribution
or operation in the riches, and of a certain degree of freedom in the
people, enter into our idea of riches as attributed to a people, we
shall have to define the degree of fluency or circulative character
which is essential to their vitality; and the degree of independence
of action required in their possessors. Questions which look as if
they would take time in answering. And farther. Since there are two
modes in which the inequality, which is indeed the condition and
constituent of riches, may be established--namely, by increase of
possession on the one side, and by decrease of it on the other--we
have to inquire, with respect to any given state of riches, precisely
in what manner the correlative poverty was produced; that is to say,
whether by being surpassed only, or being depressed, what are the
advantages, or the contrary, conceivable in the depression. For
instance, it being one of the commonest advantages of being rich to
entertain a number of servants, we have to inquire, on the one side,
what economical process produced the poverty of the persons who serve
him; and what advantage each (on his own side) derives from the
result.
These being the main questions touching the collection of riches, the
next, or last, part of the inquiry is into their administration.
They have in the main three great economical powers which require
separate examination: namely, the powers of selection, direction, and
provision.
A. Their power of SELECTION relates to things of which the supply is
limited (as the supply of best things is always). When it becomes
matter of question to whom such things are to belong, the richest
person has necessarily the first choice, unless some arbitrary mode of
distribution be otherwise determined upon. The business of the
economist is to show how this choice may be a Wise one.
B. Their power of DIRECTION arises out of the necessary relation of
rich men to poor, which ultimately, in one way or another, involves
the direction of, or authority over, the labour of the poor; and this
nearly as much over their mental as their bodily labour. The business
of the economist is to show how this direction may be a Just one.
C. Their power of PROVISION or "preparatory sight" (for pro-accumulation
is by no means necessarily pro-vision), is dependent upon their
redundance; which may of course by active persons be made available
in preparation for future work or future profit; in which function
riches have generally received the name of capital; that is to say, of
head- or source-material. The business of the economist is to show how
this provision may be a Distant one.
The examination of these three functions of riches will embrace every
final problem of political economy;--and, above, or before all, this
curious and vital problem,--whether, since the wholesome action of
riches in these three functions will depend (it appears) on the
Wisdom, Justice, and Far-sightedness of the holders; and it is by no
means to be assumed that persons primarily rich, must therefore be
just and wise,--it may not be ultimately possible so, or somewhat so,
to arrange matters, as that persons primarily just and wise, should
therefore be rich.
Such being the general plan of the inquiry before us, I shall not
limit myself to any consecutive following of it, having hardly any
good hope of being able to complete so laborious a work as it must
prove to me; but from time to time, as I have leisure, shall endeavour
to carry forward this part or that, as may be immediately possible;
indicating always with accuracy the place which the particular essay
will or should take in the completed system.
II.
NATURE OF WEALTH, VARIATIONS OF VALUE, THE NATIONAL STORE, NATURE OF
LABOUR, VALUE AND PRICE, THE CURRENCY.
The last paper having consisted of little more than definition of
terms, I purpose, in this, to expand and illustrate the given
definitions, so as to avoid confusion in their use when we enter into
the detail of our subject.
The view which has been taken of the nature of wealth, namely, that it
consists in an intrinsic value developed by a vital power, is directly
opposed to two nearly universal conceptions of wealth. In the
assertion that value is primarily intrinsic, it opposes the idea that
anything which is an object of desire to numbers, and is limited in
quantity, may be called, or virtually become, wealth. And in the
assertion that value is secondarily dependent upon power in the
possessor, it opposes the idea that wealth consists of things
exchangeable at rated prices. Before going farther, we will make these
two positions clearer.
First. All wealth is intrinsic, and is not constituted by the judgment
of men. This is easily seen in the case of things affecting the body;
we know that no force of fantasy will make stones nourishing, or
poison innocent; but it is less apparent in things affecting the mind.
We are easily--perhaps willingly--misled by the appearance of
beneficial results obtained by industries addressed wholly to the
gratification of fanciful desire; and apt to suppose that whatever is
widely coveted, dearly bought, and pleasurable in possession, must be
included in our definition of wealth. It is the more difficult to quit
ourselves of this error because many things which are true wealth in
moderate use, yet become false wealth in immoderate; and many things
are mixed of good and evil,--as, mostly, books and works of art,--out
of which one person will get the good, and another the evil; so that
it seems as if there were no fixed good or evil in the things
themselves, but only in the view taken, and use made of them. But that
is not so. The evil and good are fixed in essence and in proportion.
They are separable by instinct and judgment, but not interchangeable;
and in things in which evil depends upon excess, the point of excess,
though indefinable, is fixed; and the power of the thing is on the
hither side for good, and on the farther side for evil. And in all
cases this power is inherent, not dependent on opinion or choice. Our
thoughts of things neither make, nor mar their eternal force;
nor--which is the most serious point for future consideration--can
they prevent the effect of it upon ourselves.
Therefore, the object of special analysis of wealth into which we have
presently to enter will be not so much to enumerate what is
serviceable, as to distinguish what is destructive; and to show that
it is inevitably destructive; that to receive pleasure from an evil
thing is not to escape from, or alter the evil of it, but to be
altered by it; that is, to suffer from it to the utmost, having our
own nature, in that degree, made evil also. And it will be shown
farther that, through whatever length of time or subtleties of
connexion the harm is accomplished (being also less or more according
to the fineness and worth of the humanity on which it is wrought),
still, nothing but harm ever comes of a bad thing.
So that, finally, wealth is not the accidental object of a morbid
desire, but the constant object of a legitimate one.[70] By the fury
of ignorance, and fitfulness of caprice, large interests may be
continually attached to things unserviceable or hurtful; if their
nature could be altered by our passions, the science of Political
Economy would be but as the weighing of clouds, and the portioning out
of shadows. But of ignorance there is no science; and of caprice no
law. Their disturbing forces interfere with the operations of economy,
but have nothing in common with them; the calm arbiter of national
destiny regards only essential power for good in all it accumulates,
and alike disdains the wanderings of imagination and the thirsts of
disease.
[70] Few passages of the Book which at least some part of the
nations at present most advanced in civilization accept as
an expression of final truth, have been more distorted than
those bearing on Idolatry. For the idolatry there denounced
is neither sculpture, nor veneration of sculpture. It is
simply the substitution of an "Eidolon," phantasm, or
imagination of Good, for that which is real and enduring;
from the Highest Living Good, which gives life, to the
lowest material good which ministers to it. The Creator, and
the things created, which He is said to have "seen good" in
creating, are in this their eternal goodness always called
Helpful or Holy: and the sweep and range of idolatry extend
to the rejection of all or any of these, "calling evil good,
or good evil,--putting bitter for sweet, and sweet for
bitter," so betraying the first of all Loyalties, to the
fixed Law of life, and with resolute opposite loyalty
serving our own imagination of good, which is the law, not
of the dwelling, but of the Grave (otherwise called the law
of error; or "mark missing," which we translate law of
"Sin"), these "two masters," between whose services we have
to choose, being otherwise distinguished as God and
"Mammon," which Mammon, though we narrowly take it as the
power of money only, is in truth the great evil spirit of
false and fond desire, or "Covetousness, which is Idolatry."
So that Iconoclasm--image or likeness-breaking--is easy; but
an idol cannot be broken--it must be forsaken, and this is
not so easy, either in resolution or persuasion. For men may
readily be convinced of the weakness of an image, but not of
the emptiness of a phantasm.
Secondly. The assertion that wealth is not only intrinsic, but
dependent, in order to become effectual, on a given degree of vital
power in its possessor, is opposed to another popular view of
wealth;--namely, that though it may always be constituted by caprice,
it is, when so constituted, a substantial thing, of which given
quantities may be counted as existing here, or there, and exchangeable
at rated prices.
In this view there are three errors. The first and chief is the
overlooking the fact that all exchangeableness of commodity, or
effective demand for it, depends on the sum of capacity for its use
existing, here or elsewhere. The book we cannot read, or picture we
take no delight in, may indeed be called part of our wealth, in so far
as we have power of exchanging either for something we like better.
But our power of effecting such exchange, and yet more, of effecting
it to advantage, depends absolutely on the number of accessible
persons who can understand the book, or enjoy the painting, and who
will dispute the possession of them. Thus the actual worth of either,
even to us, depends no less on their essential goodness than on the
capacity consisting somewhere for the perception of it; and it is vain
in any completed system of production to think of obtaining one
without the other. So that, though the great political economist knows
that co-existence of capacity for use with temporary possession cannot
be always secured, the final fact, on which he bases all action and
administration, is that, in the whole nation, or group of nations, he
has to deal with, for every grain of intrinsic value produced he must
with exactest chemistry produce its twin grain of governing capacity,
or in the degrees of his failure he has no wealth. Nature's challenge
to us is in earnest, as the Assyrian's mock, "I will give you two
thousand horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon them."
Bavieca's paces are brave, if the Cid backs him; but woe to us, if we
take the dust of capacity, wearing the armour of it, for capacity
itself, for so all procession, however goodly in the show of it, is to
the tomb.
The second error in this popular view of wealth is that, in estimating
property which we cannot use as wealth, because it is exchangeable, we
in reality confuse wealth with money. The land we have no skill to
cultivate, the book which is sealed to us, or dress which is
superfluous, may indeed be exchangeable, but as such are nothing more
than a cumbrous form of bank-note, of doubtful and slow
convertibility. As long as we retain possession of them, we merely
keep our bank-notes in the shape of gravel or clay, of book leaves, or
of embroidered tissue. Circumstances may perhaps render such forms the
safest, or a certain complacency may attach to the exhibition of
them;--into both these advantages we shall inquire afterwards; I wish
the reader only to observe here, that exchangeable property which we
cannot use is, to us personally, merely one of the forms of money, not
of wealth.
The third error in the popular view is the confusion of guardianship
with possession; the real state of men of property being, too commonly
that of curators, not possessors of wealth. For a man's power of Use,
Administration, Ostentation, Destruction, or Bequest; and possession
is in use only, which for each man is sternly limited; so that such
things, and so much of them, are well for him, or Wealth; and more of
them, or any other things, are ill for him, or Illth. Plunged to the
lips in Orinoco, he shall drink to his thirst measure,--more, at his
peril; with a thousand oxen on his lands, he shall eat to his hunger
measure,--more, at his peril. He cannot live in two houses at once; a
few bales of silk or wool will suffice for the fabric of all the
clothes he can ever wear, and a few books will probably hold all the
furniture good for his brain.[71] Beyond these, in the best of us but
narrow, capacities, we have but the power of administering, or if for
harm, mal-administering, wealth (that is to say, distributing,
lending, or increasing it);--of exhibiting it (as in magnificence of
retinue or furniture), of destroying, or, finally, of bequeathing it.
And with multitudes of rich men, administration degenerates into
curatorship; they merely hold their property in charge, as Trustees,
for the benefit of some person or persons to whom it is to be
delivered upon their death; and the position, explained in clear
terms, would hardly seem a covetable one. What would be the probable
decision of a youth on his entrance into life, to whom the career
hoped for him was proposed in terms such as these: "You must work
unremittingly, and with your utmost intelligence, during all your
available years; you will thus accumulate wealth to a large amount;
but you must touch none of it, beyond what is needful for your
support. Whatever sums you may gain beyond those required for your
decent and moderate maintenance shall be properly taken care of, and
on your death-bed you shall have the power of determining to whom they
shall belong, or to what purposes be applied?"
[71] I reserve, until the completion and collection of these
papers, any support by the authority of other writers of the
statements made in them; were, indeed, such authorities
wisely sought for and shown, there would be no occasion for
my writing at all. Even in the scattered passages referring
to this subject in three books of Carlyle's:--"Sartor
Resartus"; "Past and Present"; and the "Latter-Day
Pamphlets"; all has been said that needs to be said, and far
better than I shall ever say it again. But the habit of the
public mind at the present is to require everything to be
uttered diffusely, loudly, and seven times over, before it
will listen; and it has exclaimed against these papers of
mine, as if they contained things daring and new, when there
is not one assertion in them of which the truth has not been
for ages known to the wisest, and proclaimed by the most
eloquent of men. It will be a far greater pleasure to me
hereafter, to collect their words than add to mine; Horace's
clear rendering of the substance of the preceding passages
in the text may be found room for at once:--
Si quis emat citharas, emptas comportet in unum,
Nec studio citharae, nec Musae deditus ulli;
Si scalpra et formas, non sutor; nautica vela,
Aversus mercaturis: delirus et amens
Undique dicatur merito. Qui discrepat istis,
Qui nummos aurumque recondit, nescius uti
Compositis, metuensque velut contingere sacrum?
With which it is perhaps desirable also to give Xenophon's
statement, it being clearer than any English one can be,
owing to the power of the general Greek term for wealth,
"useable things":--
[Greek: Tauta ara onta, to men epistameno chresthai
auton hekastois chremata esti, to de me epistameno,
ou chremata; hosper ge auloi to men epistameno axios
logou aulein chremata eisi, to de me epistameno ouden
mallon e achrestoi lithoi, ei me apsdidoito ge autous.
* * * Me poloumenoi men gar ou chremata eisin hoi auloi;
(ouden gar chresimoi eisi) poloumenoi de chremata;
Pros tauta d' ho Sokrates eipen, en epistetai ge polein.
Ei de poloin hau pros touton hos me epistetai chresthai,
oude poloumenoi eisi chremata.]
The labour of life, under such conditions, would probably be neither
zealous nor cheerful; yet the only difference between this position
and that of the ordinary capitalist is the power which the latter
delights in supposing himself to possess, and which is attributed to
him by others, of spending his money at any moment. This pleasure,
taken in the imagination of power to part with that which we have no
intention of parting with, is one of the most curious though commonest
forms of Eidolon, or Phantasm of Wealth. But the political economist
has nothing to do with this idealism, and looks only to the practical
issue of it,--namely, that the holder of wealth, in such temper,
may be regarded simply as a mechanical means of collection;
or as a money-chest with a slit in it,[72] set in the public
thoroughfare;--chest of which only Death has the key, and probably
Chance the distribution of contents. In his function of lender (which,
however, is one of administration, not use, as far as he is himself
concerned), the capitalist takes, indeed, a more interesting aspect;
but even in that function, his relations with the state are apt to
degenerate into a mechanism for the convenient contraction of debt;--a
function the more mischievous, because a nation invariably appeases
its conscience with respect to an unjustifiable expense by meeting it
with borrowed funds,--expresses its repentance of a foolish piece of
business by letting its tradesmen wait for their money,--and always
leaves its descendants to pay for the work which will be of the least
service to them.[73]
[72] The orifice being not merely of a receptant, but of a
suctional character. Among the types of human virtue and
vice presented grotesquely by the lower animals, perhaps
none is more curiously definite that that of avarice in the
Cephalopod, a creature which has a purse for a body; a
hawk's beak for a mouth; suckers for feet and hands; and
whose house is its own skeleton.
[73] It would be well if a somewhat dogged conviction could
be enforced on nations as on individuals, that, with few
exceptions, what they cannot at present pay for, they should
not at present have.
Quit of these three sources of misconception, the reader will have
little farther difficulty in apprehending the real nature of Effectual
value. He may, however, at first not without surprise, perceive the
consequences involved in the acceptance of our definition. For if the
actual existence of wealth be dependent on the power of its possessor,
it follows that the sum of wealth held by the nation, instead of being
constant or calculable, varies hourly, nay, momentarily, with the
number and character of its holders; and that in changing hands, it
changes in quantity. And farther, since the worth of the currency is
proportioned to the sum of material wealth which it represents, if the
sum of the wealth changes, the worth of the currency changes. And thus
both the sum of the property, and power of the currency, of the State,
vary momentarily, as the character and number of the holders. And not
only so, but a different rate and manner of variation is caused by the
character of the holders of different kinds of wealth. The transitions
of value caused by the character of the holders of land differ in mode
from those caused by character in holders of works of art; and these
again from those caused by character in holders of machinery or other
working capital. But we cannot examine these special phenomena of any
kind of wealth until we have a clear idea of the way in which true
currency expresses them; and of the resulting modes in which the cost
and price of any article are related to its value. To obtain this we
must approach the subject in its first elements.
Let us suppose a national store of wealth, real or imaginary (that is
to say, composed of material things either useful, or believed to be
so), presided over by a Government,[74] and that every workman, having
produced any article involving labour in its production, and for which
he has no immediate use, brings it to add to this store, receiving,
from the Government, in exchange an order either for the return of the
thing itself, or of its equivalent in other things,[75] such as he may
choose out of the store at any time when he needs them. Now, supposing
that the labourer speedily uses this general order, or, in common
language, "spends the money," he has neither changed the circumstances
of the nation nor his own, except in so far as he may have produced
useful and consumed useless articles, or vice versa. But if he does
not use, or uses in part only, the order he receives, and lays aside
some portion of it; and thus every day bringing his contribution to
the national store, lays by some percentage of the order received in
exchange for it, he increases the national wealth daily by as much as
he does not use of the received order, and to the same amount
accumulates a monetary claim on the Government. It is of course always
in his power, as it is his legal right, to bring forward this
accumulation of claim, and at once to consume, to destroy, or
distribute, the sum of his wealth. Supposing he never does so, but
dies, leaving his claim to others, he has enriched the State during
his life by the quantity of wealth over which that claim extends, or
has, in other words, rendered so much additional life possible in the
State, of which additional life he bequeaths the immediate possibility
to those whom he invests with his claim, he would distribute this
possibility of life among the nation at large.
[74] The reader is to include here in the idea of "Government,"
any branch of the Executive, or even any body of private
persons, entrusted with the practical management of public
interests unconnected directly with their own personal ones.
In theoretical discussions of legislative interference
with political economy, it is usually and of course
unnecessarily, assumed that Government must be always of
that form and force in which we have been accustomed to see
it;--that its abuses can never be less, nor its wisdom
greater, nor its powers more numerous. But, practically, the
custom in most civilized countries is, for every man to
deprecate the interference of Government as long as things
tell for his personal advantage, and to call for it when
they cease to do so. The request of the Manchester
Economists to be supplied with cotton by the Government (the
system of supply and demand having, for the time, fallen
sorrowfully short of the expectations of scientific persons
from it), is an interesting case in point. It were to be
wished that less wide and bitter suffering (suffering, too,
of the innocent) had been needed to force the nation, or
some part of it, to ask itself why a body of men, already
confessedly capable of managing matters both military and
divine, should not be permitted, or even requested at need
to provide in some wise for sustenance as well as for
defence, and secure, if it might be (and it might, I think,
even the rather be), purity of bodily ailment, as well as of
religious conviction? Why, having made many roads for the
passage of armies, they may not make a few for the
conveyance of food; and after organizing, with applause,
various schemes of spiritual instruction for the Public,
organize, moreover, some methods of bodily nourishment for
them? Or is the soul so much less trustworthy in its
instincts than the stomach, that legislation is necessary
for the one, but inconvenient to the other?
There is a strange fallacy running at this time through all
talk about free trade. It is continually assumed that every
kind of Government interference takes away liberty of trade.
Whereas liberty is lost only when interference hinders, not
when it helps. You do not take away a man's freedom by
showing him his road--nor by making it smoother for him (not
that it is always desirable to do so, but it may be); nor
even by fencing it for him, if there is an open ditch at the
side of it. The real mode in which protection interferes
with liberty, and the real evil of it, is not in its
"protecting" one person, but in its hindering another; a
form of interference which invariably does most mischief to
the person it is intended to serve, which the Northern
Americans are about discomfortably to discover, unless they
think better of it. There is also a ludicrous confusion in
many persons' minds between protection and encouragement;
they differ materially. "Protection" is saying to
the commercial schoolboy, "Nobody shall hit you."
"Encouragement," is saying to him, "That's the way to
hit."
[75] The question of equivalence (namely, how much wine a man
is to receive in return for so much corn, or how much coal
in return for so much iron) is a quite separate one, which
we will examine presently. For the time let it be assumed
that this equivalence has been determined, and that the
Government order in exchange for a fixed weight of any
article (called, suppose, _a_), is either for the return of
that weight of the article itself, or of another fixed
weight of the article _b_, or another of the article _c_,
and so on.
We hitherto consider the Government itself as simply a conservative
power, taking charge of the wealth entrusted to it.
But a Government may be far other than a conservative power. It may be
on the one hand constructive, on the other destructive.
If a constructive, or improving power, using all the wealth entrusted
to it to the best advantage, the nation is enriched in root and branch
at once, and the Government is enabled for every order presented, to
return a quantity of wealth greater than the order was written for,
according to the fructification obtained in the interim.[76]
[76] The reader must be warned in advance that the conditions
here supposed have nothing to do with the "interest" of
money commonly so called.
This ability may be either concealed, in which case the currency does
not completely represent the wealth of the country, or it may be
manifested by the continual payment of the excess of value on each
order, in which case there is (irrespectively, observe, of collateral
results afterwards to be examined) a perpetual rise in the worth of
the currency, that is to say, a fall in the price of all articles
represented by it.
But if the Government be destructive, or a consuming power, it becomes
unable to return the value received on the presentation of the order.
This inability may either (A), be concealed by meeting demands to the
full, until it issue in bankruptcy, or in some form of national
debt;--or (B), it may be concealed during oscillatory movements
between destructiveness and productiveness, which result on the whole
in stability;--or (C), it may be manifested by the consistent return
of less than value received on each presented order, in which case
there is a consistent fall in the worth of the currency, or rise in
the price of the things represented by it.
Now, if for this conception of a central Government, we substitute
that of another body of persons occupied in industrial pursuits, of
whom each adds in his private capacity to the common store: so that
the store itself, instead of remaining a public property of
ascertainable quantity, for the guardianship of which a body of public
men are responsible, becomes disseminated private property, each man
giving in exchange for any article received from another, a general
order for its equivalent in whatever other article the claimant may
desire (such general order being payable by any member of the society
in whose possession the demanded article may be found), we at once
obtain an approximation to the actual condition of a civilized
mercantile community from which approximation we might easily proceed
into still completer analysis. I purpose, however, to arrive at every
result by the gradual expansion of the simpler conception; but I wish
the reader to observe, in the meantime, that both the social
conditions thus supposed (and I will by anticipation say also all
possible social conditions) agree in two great points; namely, in the
primal importance of the supposed national store or stock, and in its
destructibility or improvability by the holders of it.
I. Observe that in both conditions, that of central
Government-holding, and diffused private-holding, the quantity of
stock is of the same national moment. In the one case, indeed, its
amount may be known by examination of the persons to whom it is
confided; in the other it cannot be known but by exposing the private
affairs of every individual. But, known or unknown, its significance
is the same under each condition. The riches of the nation consist in
the abundance, and their wealth depends on the nature of this store.
II. In the second place, both conditions (and all other possible ones)
agree in the destructibility or improvability of the store by its
holders. Whether in private hands, or under Government charge, the
national store may be daily consumed, or daily enlarged, by its
possessors; and while the currency remains apparently unaltered, the
property it represents may diminish or increase.
The first question, then, which we have to put under our simple
conception of central Government, namely, "What store has it?" is one
of equal importance, whatever may be the constitution of the State;
while the second question--namely, "Who are the holders of the
store?"--involves the discussion of the constitution of the State
itself.
The first inquiry resolves itself into three heads:
1. What is the nature of the store?
2. What is its quantity in relation to the population?
3. What is its quantity in relation to the currency?
The second inquiry, into two:
1. Who are the Holders of the store, and in what proportions?
2. Who are the Claimants of the store (that is to say, the holders
of the currency), and in what proportions?
We will examine the range of the first three questions in the present
paper; of the two following, in the sequel.
Question First. What is the nature of the store? Has the nation
hitherto worked for and gathered the right thing or the wrong? On that
issue rest the possibilities of its life.
For example, let us imagine a society, of no great extent, occupied in
procuring and laying up store of corn, wine, wool, silk, and other
such preservable materials of food and clothing; and that it has a
currency representing them. Imagine farther, that on days of
festivity, the society, discovering itself to derive satisfaction from
pyrotechnics, gradually turns its attention more and more to the
manufacture of gunpowder; so that an increasing number of labourers,
giving what time they can spare to this branch of industry, bring
increasing quantities of combustibles into the store, and use the
general orders received in exchange to obtain such wine, wool, or corn
as they may have need of. The currency remains the same, and
represents precisely the same amount of material in the store, and of
labour spent in producing it. But the corn and wine gradually vanish,
and in their place, as gradually, appear sulphur and saltpetre; till
at last, the labourers who have consumed corn and supplied nitre,
presenting on a festal morning some of their currency to obtain
materials for the feast, discover that no amount of currency will
command anything Festive, except Fire. The supply of rockets is
unlimited, but that of food limited in a quite final manner; and the
whole currency in the hands of the society represents an infinite
power of detonation, but none of existence.
The statement, caricatured as it may seem, is only exaggerated in
assuming the persistence of the folly to extremity, unchecked, as in
reality it would be, by the gradual rise in price of food. But it
falls short of the actual facts of human life in expression of the
depth and intensity of the folly itself. For a great part (the reader
would not believe how great until he saw the statistics in detail) of
the most earnest and ingenious industry of the world is spent in
producing munitions of war; gathering that is to say the materials,
not of festive, but of consuming fire; filling its stores with all
power of the instruments of pain, and all affluence of the ministries
of death. It was no true Trionfo della Morte which men have seen and
feared (sometimes scarcely feared) so long;--wherein he brought them
rest from their labours. We see and share another and higher form of
his triumph now. Task-master instead of Releaser, he rules the dust of
the arena no less than of the tomb; and, content once in the grave
whither man went, to make his works cease and his devices to
vanish,--now, in the busy city and on the serviceable sea, makes his
work to increase, and his devices to multiply.
To this doubled loss, or negative power of labour, spent in producing
means of destruction, we have to add in our estimate of the
consequences of human folly, whatever more insidious waste of toil
there is in the production of unnecessary luxury. Such and such an
occupation (it is said) supports so many labourers, because so many
obtain wages in following it; but it is never considered that unless
there be a supporting power in the product of the occupation, the
wages given to one man are merely withdrawn from another. We cannot
say of any trade that it maintains such and such a number of persons,
unless we know how and where the money, now spent in the purchase of
its produce, would have been spent, if that produce had not been
manufactured. The purchasing funds truly support a number of people in
making This; but (probably) leave unsupported an equal number who are
making, or could have made That. The manufacturers of small watches
thrive in Geneva;--it is well;--but where would the money spent on
small watches have gone, had there been no small watches to buy?
If the so frequently uttered aphorism of mercantile economy--"labour
is limited by capital"--were true, this question would be a definite
one. But it is untrue; and that widely. Out of a given quantity of
wages, more or less labour is to be had, according to the quantity of
will with which we can inspire the workman; and the true limit of
labour is only in the limit of this moral stimulus of the will, and
the bodily power. In an ultimate, but entirely practical sense, labour
is limited by capital, as it is by matter--that is to say, where there
is no material, there can be no work--but in the practical sense,
labour is limited only by the great original capital[77] of Head,
Heart, and Hand. Even in the most artificial relations of commerce, it
is to capital as fire to fuel: out of so much fuel you shall have so
much fire--not in proportion to the mass of combustibles, but to the
force of wind that fans and water that quenches; and the appliance of
both. And labour is furthered, as conflagration is, not so much by
added fuel, as by admitted air.
[77] The aphorism, being hurried English for "labour is limited
by want of capital," involves also awkward English in its
denial, which cannot be helped.
For which reasons, I had to insert, above, the qualifying "probably";
for it can never be said positively that the purchase money, or wages
fund of any trade is withdrawn from some other trade. The object
itself may be the stimulus of the production of the money which buys
it; that is to say, the work by which the purchaser obtained the means
of buying it would not have been done by him, unless he had wanted
that particular thing. And the production of any article not
intrinsically (nor in the process of manufacture) injurious, is
useful, if the desire of it causes productive labour in other
directions.
In the national store, therefore, the presence of things intrinsically
valueless does not imply an entirely correlative absence of things
valuable. We cannot be certain that all the labour spent on vanity has
been diverted from reality, and that for every bad thing produced, a
precious thing has been lost. In great measure, the vain 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.
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 uses. 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.
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 of them.
Now it does not follow, because the store is large in proportion to
the number of 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 by 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 realization of 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.
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. 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 scalework, 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.
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 Plutonic scale, and to apply them.
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 more; and its power in exchange,
or credit-power, is thus increased (or retained) 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[78] 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 that "available
labour" which by our definition (p. 219) 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.
[78] These are nearly all briefly represented by the image used
for the force of money by Dante, of mast and sail,--
"Quali dal vento be gonfiate vele
Caggiono avvolte, poi che l'alber fiacca
Tal cadde a terra la fiera crudele."
The image may be followed out, like all of Dante's, into as
close detail as the reader chooses. Thus the stress of the
sail must be proportioned to the strength of mast, and it is
only in unforeseen danger that a skilful seaman ever carries
all the canvas his spars will bear: states of mercantile
languor are like the flap of the sail in a calm,--of
mercantile precaution, like taking in reefs; and the
mercantile ruin is instant on the breaking of the mast.
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.[79] 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 toils which we die in."
[79] That is to say, its only price is its return. Compare
"Unto This Last," p. 162 and what follows.
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.[80] The idea that it is a commodity to be
bought or sold, is the alpha and omega of Politico-Economic fallacy.
[80] The object of Political Economy is not to buy, nor to sell
labour,--but to spare it. Every attempt to buy or sell it
is, in the outcome, ineffectual;--so far as successful, it
is not sale, but Betrayal; and the purchase money is a part
of that typical thirty pieces which bought, first the
greatest of labours, and afterwards the burial field of the
Stranger; for this purchase-money, being in its very
smallness or vileness the exactly measured opposite of
"vilis annona amicorum," makes all men strangers to each
other.
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" (constat). 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 only in "labor," not in "opera."[81]
It does not matter how much power a thing needs to produce it; it
matters only how much distress. Generally the more power it requires,
the less the distress; so that the noblest works of man cost less than
the meanest.
[81] Cicero's distinction, "sordidi quaestus, quorum operae, non
quorum artes emuntur," admirable in principle, is inaccurate
in expression, because Cicero did not practically know how
much operative dexterity is necessary in all the higher
arts; but the cost of this dexterity is incalculable. Be
it great or small, the "cost" of the mere authority and
perfectness of touch in a hammerstroke of Donatello's, or a
pencil touch of Correggio's, is inestimable by any ordinary
arithmetic. (The best masters themselves usually estimate it
at sums varying from two to three or four shillings a day,
with wine or soup extra.)
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.[82]
[82] Only observe, as some labour is more destructive of life
than other labour, the hour or day of the more destructive
toil is supposed to include proportionate rest. Though men
do not, or cannot, usually take such rest, except in death.
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 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 (irrespectively of any question of demand or supply) 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.
The cost and value of things, however difficult to determine
accurately, are thus both dependent on ascertainable physical
circumstances.[83]
[83] There is, therefore, observe, no such thing as cheapness
(in the common use of that term), without some error or
injustice. A thing is said to be cheap, not because it is
common, but because it is supposed to be sold under its
worth. Everything has its proper and true worth at any given
time, in relation to everything else; and at that worth
should be bought and sold. If sold under it, it is cheap to
the buyer by exactly so much as the seller loses, and no
more. Putrid meat, at twopence a pound, is not "cheaper"
than wholesome meat at sevenpence a pound; it is probably
much dearer; but if, by watching your opportunity, you can
get the wholesome meat for sixpence a pound, it is cheaper
to you by a penny, which you have gained, and the seller has
lost. The present rage for cheapness is either, therefore,
simply and literally, a rage for badness of all commodities,
or it is an attempt to find persons whose necessities will
force them to let you have more than you should for your
money. It is quite easy to produce such persons, and in
large numbers; for the more distress there is in a nation,
the more cheapness of this sort you can obtain, and your
boasted cheapness is thus merely a measure of the extent of
your national distress.
There is, indeed, a condition of apparent cheapness, which
we confuse, in practice and in reasoning, with the other;
namely, the real reduction in cost of articles by right
application of labour. But in this case the article is only
cheap with reference to its former price, the so-called
cheapness is only our expression for the sensation of
contrast between its former and existing prices. So soon as
the new methods of producing the article are established, it
ceases to be esteemed either cheap or dear, at the new
price, as at the old one, and is felt to be cheap only when
accident enables it to be purchased beneath this new value.
And it is to no advantage to produce the article more
easily, except as it enables you to multiply your
population. Cheapness of this kind is merely the discovery
that more men can be maintained on the same ground; and the
question, how many you will maintain in proportion to your
means, remains exactly in the same terms that it did before.
A form of immediate cheapness results, however, in many
cases, without distress, from the labour of a population
where food is redundant, or where the labour by which the
food is produced leaves much idle time on their hands, which
may be applied to the production of "cheap" articles.
All such phenomena indicate to the political economist
places where the labour is unbalanced. In the first case,
the just balance is to be effected by taking labourers from
the spot where the pressure exists, and sending them to that
where food is redundant. In the second, the cheapness is a
local accident, advantageous to the local purchaser,
disadvantageous to the local producer. It is one of the
first duties of commerce to extend the market and thus give
the local producer his full advantage.
Cheapness caused by natural accidents of harvest, weather,
etc., is always counterbalanced, in due time, by natural
scarcity similarly caused. It is the part of wise
Government, and healthy commerce, so to provide in times and
places of plenty for times and places of dearth, as that
there shall never be waste, nor famine.
Cheapness caused by gluts of the market is merely a disease
of clumsy and wanton commerce.
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 bad for so much.
But it remains questionable, and in all manner of ways questionable,
whether I choose to give so much.[84]
[84] Price has already been defined (pp. 214, 215) to be the
quantity of labour which the possessor of a thing is willing
to take for it. It is best to consider the price to be that
fixed by the possessor, because the possessor has absolute
power of refusing sale, while the purchaser has no absolute
power of compelling it; but the effectual or market price is
that at which their estimates coincide.
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.
Hence the price of anything depends on four variables.[85]
1. Its cost.
2. Its attainable quantity at that cost.
3. The number and power of the persons who want it.
4. The estimate they have formed of its desirableness.
(Its value only affects its price so far as it is contemplated in this
estimate; perhaps, therefore, not at all.)
[85] The two first of these variables are included in the _x_,
and the two last in the _y_, of the formula given at p. 162
of "Unto This Last," and the four are the radical conditions
which regulate the price of things on first production; in
their price in exchange, the third and fourth of these
divide each into two others, forming the Four which are
stated at p. 186 of "Unto This Last."
Now, in order to show the manner in which price is expressed in terms
of a currency, we must assume these four quantities to be known, and
the "estimate of desirableness," commonly called the Demand, to be
certain. We will take the number of persons at the lowest. Let A and B
be two labourers who "demand," that is to say, have resolved to labour
for, two articles, _a_ and _b_. Their demand for these articles (if
the reader likes better, he may say their need) is to be absolute,
existence depending on the getting these two things. Suppose, for
instance, that they are bread and fuel in a cold country, and let _a_
represent the least quantity of bread, and _b_ the least quantity of
fuel, which will support a man's life for a day. Let _a_ be producible
by an hour's labour but _b_ only by two hours' labour; then the cost
of _a_ is one hour, and of _b_ two (cost, by our definition, being
expressible in terms of time). If, therefore, each man worked both for
his corn and fuel, each would have to work three hours a day. But they
divide the labour for its greater ease.[86] Then if A works three
hours, he produces 3_a_, which is one _a_ more than both the men want.
And if B works three hours, he produces only 1-1/2_b_, or half of _b_
less than both want. But if A works three hours and B six, A has 3_a_,
and B has 3_b_, a maintenance in the right proportion for both for a
day and a half; so that each might take a half a day's rest. But as B
has worked double time, the whole of this day's rest belongs in equity
to him. Therefore, the just exchange should be, A, giving two _a_ for
one _b_, has one _a_ and one _b_;--maintenance for a day. B, giving
one _b_ for two _a_, has two _a_ and two _b_;--maintenance for two
days.
[86] This "greater ease" ought to be allowed for by a diminution
in the times of the divided work; but as the proportion of
times would remain the same, I do not introduce this
unnecessary complexity into the calculation.
But B cannot rest on the second day, or A would be left without the
article which B produces. Nor is there any means of making the
exchange just, unless a third labourer is called in. Then one workman,
A, produces _a_, and two, B and C, produce _b_;--A, working three
hours, has three _a_;--B, three hours, 1-1/2_b_;--C, three hours,
1-1/2_b_. B and C each give half of _b_ for _a_, and all have their
equal daily maintenance for equal daily work.
To carry the example a single step farther, let three articles, _a_,
_b_, and _c_, be needed.
Let _a_ need one hour's work, _b_ two, and _c_ four; then the day's
work must be seven hours, and one man in a day's work can make 7_a_,
or 3-1/2_b_, or 1-3/4_c_. Therefore one A works for _a_, producing
7_a_; two B's work for _b_, producing 7_b_; four C's work for _c_,
producing 7_c_.
A has six _a_ to spare, and gives two _a_ for one _b_, and four _a_
for one _c_. Each B has 2-1/2_b_ to spare, and gives 1/2_b_ for one
_a_, and two _b_ for one _c_. Each C has 3/4 of _c_ to spare, and
gives 1/2_c_ for one _b_, and 1/4 of _c_ for one _a_. And all have
their day's maintenance.
Generally, therefore, it follows that, if the demand is constant,[87]
the relative prices of things are as their costs, or as the quantities
of labour involved in production.
[87] Compare "Unto This Last," p. 177, et seq.
Then, in order to express their prices in terms of a currency, we
have only to put the currency into the form of orders for a certain
quantity of any given article (with us it is in the form of orders for
gold), and all quantities of other articles are priced by the relation
they bear to the article which the currency claims.
But the worth of the currency itself is not in the slightest degree
founded more on the worth of the article for which the gold is
exchangeable. It is just as accurate to say, "So many pounds are worth
an acre of land," as "An acre of land is worth so many pounds." The
worth of gold, of land, of houses, and of food, and of all other
things, depends at any moment on the existing quantities and relative
demands for all and each; and a change in the worth of, or demand for,
any one, involves an instantaneously correspondent change in the
worth, and demand for, all the rest--a change as inevitable and as
accurately balanced (though often in its process as untraceable) as
the change in volume of the outflowing river from some vast lake,
caused by change in the volume of the inflowing streams, though no eye
can trace, no instrument detect motion either on its surface, or in
the depth.
Thus, then, the real working power or worth of the currency is founded
on the entire sum of the relative estimates formed by the population
of its possessions; a change in this estimate in any direction (and
therefore every change in the national character), instantly alters
the value of money, in its second great function of commanding labour.
But we must always carefully and sternly distinguish between this
worth of currency, dependent on the conceived or appreciated value of
what it represents, and the worth of it, dependent on the existence of
what it represents. A currency is true or false, in proportion to the
security with which it gives claim to the possession of land, house,
horse, or picture; but a currency is strong or weak, worth much or
worth little, in proportion to the degree of estimate in which the
nation holds the house, horse, or picture which is claimed. Thus the
power of the English currency has been, till of late, largely based on
the national estimate of horses and of wine: so that a man might
always give any price to furnish choicely his stable, or his cellar,
and receive public approval therefor: but if he gave the same sum to
furnish his library, he was called mad, or a Bibliomaniac. And
although he might lose his fortune by his horses, and his health or
life by his cellar, and rarely lost either by his books, he was yet
never called a Hippomaniac nor an Oinomaniac; but only Bibliomaniac,
because the current worth of money was understood to be legitimately
founded on cattle and wine, but not on literature. The prices lately
given at sales for pictures and MSS. indicate some tendency to change
in the national character in this respect, so that the worth of the
currency may even come in time to rest, in an acknowledged manner,
somewhat on the state and keeping of the Bedford missal, as well as on
the health of Caractacus or Blink Bonny; and old pictures be
considered property, no less than old port. They might have been so
before now, but it is more difficult to choose the one than the other.
Now, observe, all these sources of variation in the power of the
currency exist wholly irrespective of the influences of vice,
indolence, and improvidence. We have hitherto supposed, throughout the
analysis, every professing labourer to labour honestly, heartily, and
in harmony with his fellows. We have now to bring farther into the
calculation the effects of relative industry, honour, and forethought,
and thus to follow out the bearings of our second inquiry: Who are the
holders of the Store and Currency, and in what proportions?
This, however, we must reserve for our next paper,--noticing here
only that, however distinct the several branches of the subject are,
radically, they are so interwoven in their issues that we cannot
rightly treat any one, till we have taken cognisance of all. Thus the
quantity of the currency in proportion to number of population is
materially influenced by the number of the holders in proportion to
the non-holders; and this again by the number of holders of goods. For
as, by definition, the currency is a claim to goods which are not
possessed, its quantity indicates the number of claimants in
proportion to the number of holders; and the force and complexity of
claim. For if the claims be not complex, currency as a means of
exchange may be very small in quantity. A sells some corn to B,
receiving a promise from B to pay in cattle, which A then hands over
to C, to get some wine. C in due time claims the cattle from B; and B
takes back his promise. These exchanges have, or might have been, all
effected with a single coin or promise; and the proportion of the
currency to the store would in such circumstances indicate only the
circulating vitality of it--that is to say, the quantity and
convenient divisibility of that part of the store which the habits of
the nation keep in circulation. If a cattle-breeder is content to
live with his household chiefly on meat and milk, and does not want
rich furniture, or jewels, or books,--if a wine- and corn-grower
maintains himself and his men chiefly on grapes and bread;--if the
wives and daughters of families weave and spin the clothing of the
household, and the nation, as a whole, remains content with the
produce of its own soil and the work of its own hands, it has little
occasion for circulating media. It pledges and promises little and
seldom; exchanges only so far as exchange is necessary for life. The
store belongs to the people in whose hands it is found, and money is
little needed either as an expression of right, or practical means of
division and exchange.
But in proportion as the habits of the nation become complex and
fantastic (and they may be both, without therefore being civilized),
its circulating medium must increase in proportion to its store. If
everyone wants a little of everything,--if food must be of many kinds,
and dress of many fashions,--if multitudes live by work which,
ministering to fancy, has its pay measured by fancy, so that large
prices will be given by one person for what is valueless to
another,--if there are great inequalities of knowledge, causing great
inequalities of estimate,--and finally, and worst of all, if the
currency itself, from its largeness, and the power which the
possession of it implies, becomes the sole object of desire with large
numbers of the nation, so that the holding of it is disputed among
them as the main object of life:--in each and all these cases, the
currency enlarges in proportion to the store, and, as a means of
exchange and division, as a bond of right, and as an expression of
passion, plays a more and more important part in the nation's
dealings, character, and life.
Against which part, when, as a bond of Right, it becomes too
conspicuous and too burdensome, the popular voice is apt to be raised
in a violent and irrational manner, leading to revolution instead of
remedy. Whereas all possibility of Economy depends on the clear
assertion and maintenance of this bond of right, however burdensome.
The first necessity of all economical government is to secure the
unquestioned and unquestionable working of the great law of
Property--that a man who works for a thing shall be allowed to get it,
keep it, and consume it, in peace; and that he who does not eat his
cake to-day, shall be seen, without grudging, to have his cake
to-morrow. This, I say, is the first point to be secured by social
law; without this, no political advance, nay, no political existence,
is in any sort possible. Whatever evil, luxury, iniquity, may seem to
result from it, this is nevertheless the first of all Equities; and to
the enforcement of this, by law and by police-truncheon, the nation
must always primarily set its mind--that the cupboard door may have a
firm lock to it, and no man's dinner be carried off by the mob, on its
way home from the baker's. Which, thus fearlessly asserting, we shall
endeavour in the next paper to consider how far it may be practicable
for the mob itself, also, in due breadth of dish, to have dinners to
carry home.
III.
THE CURRENCY-HOLDERS AND STORE-HOLDERS. THE DISEASE OF DESIRE.
It will be seen by reference to the last paper that our present task
is to examine the relation of holders of store to holders of currency;
and of both to those who hold neither. In order to do this, we must
determine on which side we are to place substances such as gold,
commonly known as bases of currency. By aid of previous definitions
the reader will now be able to understand closer statements than have
yet been possible.
The currency of any country consists of every document acknowledging
debt which is transferable in the country.
This transferableness depends upon its intelligibility and credit. Its
intelligibility depends chiefly on the difficulty of forging anything
like it;--its credit much on national character, but ultimately always
on the existence of substantial means of meeting its demand.
As the degrees of transferableness are variable (some documents
passing only in certain places, and others passing, if at all, for
less than their inscribed value), both the mass and, so to speak,
fluidity, of the currency, are variable. True or perfect currency
flows freely, like a pure stream; it becomes sluggish or stagnant in
proportion to the quantity of less transferable matter which mixes
with it, adding to its bulk, but diminishing its purity. Substances of
intrinsic value, such as gold, mingle also with the currency, and
increase, while they modify, its power; these are carried by it as
stones are carried by a torrent, sometimes momentarily impeding,
sometimes concentrating its force, but not affecting its purity.
These substances of intrinsic value may be also stamped or signed so
as to become acknowledgments of debt, and then become, so far as they
operate independently of their intrinsic value, part of the real
currency.
Deferring consideration of minor forms of currency, consisting of
documents bearing private signature, we will examine the principle of
legally authorized or national currency.
This, in its perfect condition, is a form of public acknowledgment of
debt, so regulated and divided that any person presenting a commodity
of tried worth in the public market, shall, if he please, receive in
exchange for it a document giving him claim for the return of its
equivalent, (1) in any place, (2) at any time, and (3) in any kind.
When currency is quite healthy and vital, the persons entrusted with
its management are always able to give on demand either--
A. The assigning document for the assigned quantity of goods. Or,
B. The assigned quantity of goods for the assigning document.
If they cannot give document for goods, the national exchange is at
fault.
If they cannot give goods for document, the national credit is at
fault.
The nature and power of the document are therefore to be examined
under the three relations which it bears to Place, Time, and Kind.
1. It gives claim to the return of equivalent wealth in any Place. Its
use in this function is to save carriage, so that parting with a
bushel of corn in London, we may receive an order for a bushel of corn
for the Antipodes, or elsewhere. To be perfect in this use, the
substance of currency must be to the maximum portable, credible, and
intelligible. Its non-acceptance or discredit results always from some
form of ignorance or dishonour: so far as such interruptions rise out
of differences in denomination, there is no ground for their
continuance among civilized nations. It may be convenient in one
country to use chiefly copper for coinage, in another silver, and in
another gold,--reckoning accordingly in centimes, francs, or sequins;
but that a French franc should be different in weight from an English
shilling, and an Austrian zwanziger vary in weight and alloy from
both, is wanton loss of commercial power.
2. It gives claim to the return of equivalent wealth at any Time. In
this second use, currency is the exponent of accumulation: it renders
the laying up of store at the command of individuals unlimitedly
possible;--whereas, but for its intervention, all gathering would be
confined within certain limits by the bulk of poverty, or by its
decay, or the difficulty of its guardianship. "I will pull down my
barns and build greater" cannot be a daily saying; and all material
investment is enlargement of care. The national currency transfers the
guardianship of the store to many; and preserves to the original
producer the right of re-entering on its possession at any future
period.
3. It gives claim (practical, though not legal) to the return of
equivalent wealth in any Kind. It is a transferable right, not merely
to this or that, but to anything; and its power in this function is
proportioned to the range of choice. If you give a child an apple or a
toy, you give him a determinate pleasure, but if you give him a penny,
an indeterminate one, proportioned to the range of selection offered
by the shops in the village. The power of the world's currency is
similarly in proportion to the openness of the world's fair, and
commonly enhanced by the brilliancy of external aspect, rather than
solidity of its wares.
We have said that the currency consists of orders for equivalent
goods. If equivalent, their quality must be guaranteed. The kinds of
goods chosen for specific claim must, therefore, be capable of test,
while, also, that a store may be kept in hand to meet the call of the
currency, smallness of bulk, with great relative value, is desirable;
and indestructibility, over at least a certain period, essential.
Such indestructibility and facility of being tested are united in
gold; its intrinsic value is great, and its imaginary value is
greater; so that, partly through indolence, partly through necessity
and want of organization, most nations have agreed to take gold for
the only basis of their currencies;--with this grave disadvantage,
that its portability enabling the metal to become an active part of
the medium of exchange, the stream of the currency itself becomes
opaque with gold--half currency and half commodity, in unison of
functions which partly neutralize, partly enhance each other's force.
They partly neutralize, since in so far as the gold is commodity, it
is bad currency, because liable to sale; and in so far as it is
currency, it is bad commodity, because its exchange value interferes
with its practical use. Especially its employment in the higher
branches of the arts becomes unsafe on account of its liability to be
melted down for exchange.
Again. They partly enhance, since in so far as the gold has
acknowledged intrinsic value, it is good currency, because everywhere
acceptable; and in so far as it has legal exchangeable value, its
worth as a commodity is increased. We want no gold in the form of dust
or crystal; but we seek for it coined because in that form it will pay
baker and butcher. And this worth in exchange not only absorbs a large
quantity in that use,[88] but greatly increases the effect on the
imagination of the quantity used in the arts. Thus, in brief, the
force of the functions is increased, but their precision blunted, by
their unison.
[88] The waste of labour in obtaining the gold, though it cannot
be estimated by help of any existing data, may be understood
in its bearing on entire economy by supposing it limited to
transactions between two persons. If two farmers in
Australia have been exchanging corn and cattle with each
other for years, keeping their accounts of reciprocal debt
in any simple way, the sum of the possessions of either
would not be diminished, though the part of it which was
lent or borrowed were only reckoned by marks on a stone, or
notches on a tree; and the one counted himself accordingly,
so many scratches, or so many notches, better than the
other. But it would soon be seriously diminished if,
discovering gold in their fields, each resolved only to
accept golden counters for a reckoning; and accordingly,
whenever he wanted a sack of corn or a cow, was obliged to
go and wash sand for a week before he could get the means of
giving a receipt for them.
These inconveniences, however, attach to gold as a basis of currency
on account of its portability and preciousness. But a far greater
inconvenience attaches to it as the only legal basis of currency.
Imagine gold to be only attainable in masses weighing several pounds
each, and its value, like that of a malachite or marble, proportioned
to its largeness of bulk;--it could not then get itself confused with
the currency in daily use, but it might still remain as its basis; and
this second inconvenience would still affect it, namely, that its
significance as an expression of debt, varies, as that of every other
article would, with the popular estimate of its desirableness, and
with the quantity offered in the market. My power of obtaining other
goods for gold depends always on the strength of public passion for
gold, and on the limitation of its quantity, so that when either of
two things happen--that the world esteems gold less, or finds it more
easily,--my right of claim is in that degree effaced; and it has been
even gravely maintained that a discovery of a mountain of gold would
cancel the National Debt; in other words, that men may be paid for
what costs much in what costs nothing. Now, if it is true that there
is little chance of sudden convulsion in this respect, the world will
not rapidly increase in wisdom so as to despise gold, and perhaps may
even desire it more eagerly the more easily it is obtained;
nevertheless the right of debt ought not to rest on a basis of
imagination; nor should the frame of a national currency vibrate with
every miser's panic and every merchant's imprudence.
There are two methods of avoiding this insecurity, which would have
been fallen upon long ago if, instead of calculating the conditions of
the supply of gold, men had only considered how the world might live
and manage its affairs without gold at all.[89] One is to base the
currency on substances of truer intrinsic value; the other, to base it
on several substances instead of one. If I can only claim gold, the
discovery of a continent of cornfields need not trouble me. If,
however, I wish to exchange my bread for other things, a good harvest
will for the time limit my power in this respect; but if I can claim
either bread, iron, or silk at pleasure, the standard of value has
three feet instead of one, and will be proportionally firm. Thus,
ultimately the steadiness of currency depends upon the breadth of its
base; but the difficulty of organization increasing with this breadth,
the discovery of the condition at once safest and most convenient[90]
can only be by long analysis which must for the present be deferred.
Gold or silver[91] may always be retained in limited use, as a luxury
of coinage and questionless standard, of one weight and alloy among
nations, varying only in the die. The purity of coinage when metallic,
is closely indicative of the honesty of the system of revenue, and
even of the general dignity of the State.[92]
[89] It is difficult to estimate the curious futility of
discussions such as that which lately occupied a section of
the British Association, on the absorption of gold, while no
one can produce even the simplest of the data necessary for
the inquiry. To take the first occurring one,--What means
have we of ascertaining the weight of gold employed this
year in the toilettes of the women of Europe (not to
speak of Asia); and, supposing it known, what means of
conjecturing the weight by which, next year, their fancies,
and the changes of style among their jewellers, will
diminish or increase it?
[90] See, in Pope's epistle to Lord Bathurst, his sketch of the
difficulties and uses of a currency literally "pecuniary"--
"His Grace will game--to White's a bull he led," etc.
[91] Perhaps both; perhaps silver only. It may be found
expedient ultimately to leave gold free for use in the arts.
As a means of reckoning, the standard might be, and in some
cases has already been, entirely ideal.--See Mill's
"Political Economy," book iii., chap. 7, at beginning.
[92] The purity of the drachma and sequin were not without
significance of the state of intellect, art, and policy,
both in Athens and Venice;--a fact first impressed upon
me ten years ago, when, in daguerreotypes of Venetian
architecture, I found no purchasable gold pure enough
to gild them with, but that of the old Venetian sequin.
Whatever the article or articles may be which the national currency
promises to pay, a premium on that article indicates bankruptcy of the
Government in that proportion, the division of the assets being
restrained only by the remaining confidence of the holders of notes in
the return of prosperity to the firm. Incontrovertible currencies,
those of forced acceptance, or of unlimited issue, are merely various
modes of disguising taxation, and delaying its pressure, until it is
too late to interfere with its causes. To do away with the possibility
of such disguise would have been among the first results of a true
economical science, had any such existed; but there have been too many
motives for the concealment, so long as it could by any artifices be
maintained, to permit hitherto even the founding of such a science.
And, indeed, it is only through evil conduct, wilfully persisted in,
that there is any embarrassment either in the theory or the working of
currency. No exchequer is ever embarrassed, nor is any financial
question difficult of solution, when people keep their practice
honest, and their heads cool. But when Governments lose all office of
pilotage, protection, scrutiny, and witness; and live only in
magnificence of proclaimed larceny, effulgent mendacity, and polished
mendicity; or when the people choosing Speculation (the S usual
redundant in the spelling) instead of Toil, pursue no dishonesty with
chastisement, that each may with impunity take his dishonest turn; and
enlarge their lust of wealth through ignorance of its use, making
their harlot of the dust, and setting Earth, the Mother, at the mercy
of Earth, the Destroyer, so that she has to seek in hell the children
she left playing in the meadows,--there are no tricks of financial
terminology that will save them; all signature and mintage do but
magnify the ruin they retard; and even the riches that remain,
stagnant or current, change only from the slime of Avernus to the sand
of Phlegethon;--quicksand at the embouchure;--land fluently
recommended by recent auctioneers as "eligible for building leases."
Finally, then, the power of true currency is fourfold.
1. Credit power. Its worth in exchange, dependent on public opinion of
the stability and honesty of the issuer.
2. Real worth. Supposing the gold, or whatever else the currency
expressly promises, to be required from the issuer, for all his notes;
and that the call cannot be met in full. Then the actual worth of the
document (whatever its credit power) would be, and its actual worth at
any moment is to be defined as being, what the division of the assets
of the issuer, and his subsequent will work, would produce for it.
3. The exchange power of its base. Granting that we can get five
pounds in gold for our note, it remains a question how much of other
things we can get for five pounds in gold. The more of other things
exist, and the less gold, the greater this power.
4. The power over labour, exercised by the given quantity of the base,
or of the things to be got for it. The question in this case is, how
much work, and (question of questions) whose work, is to be had for
the food which five pounds will buy. This depends on the number of the
population; on their gifts, and on their dispositions, with which,
down to their slightest humours and up to their strongest impulses,
the power of the currency varies; and in this last of its ranges,--the
range of passion, price, or praise (converso in pretium Deo), is at
once least, and greatest.
Such being the main conditions of national currency, we proceed to
examine those of the total currency, under the broad definition,
"transferable acknowledgment of debt";[93] among the many forms of
which there are in effect only two, distinctly opposed; namely, the
acknowledgments of debts which will be paid, and of debts which will
not. Documents, whether in whole or part, of bad debt, being to those
of good debt as bad money to bullion, we put for the present these
forms of imposture aside (as in analysing a metal we should wash it
clear of dross), and then range, in their exact quantities, the true
currency of the country on one side, and the store or property of the
country on the other. We place gold, and all such substances, on the
side of documents, as far as they operate by signature;--on the side
of store as far as they operate by value. Then the currency represents
the quantity of debt in the country, and the store the quantity of its
possession. The ownership of all the property is divided between the
holders of currency and holders of store, and whatever the claiming
value of the currency is at any moment, that value is to be deducted
from the riches of the store-holders, the deduction being practically
made in the payment of rent for houses and lands, of interest on
stock, and in other ways to be hereafter examined.
[93] Under which term, observe, we include all documents of debt
which, being honest, might be transferable, though they
practically are not transferred; while we exclude all
documents which are in reality worthless, though in fact
transferred temporarily as bad money is. The document of
honest debt, not transferred, is merely to paper currency as
gold withdrawn from circulation is to that of bullion. Much
confusion has crept into the reasoning on this subject from
the idea that withdrawal from circulation is a definable
state, whereas it is a gradated state, and indefinable. The
sovereign in my pocket is withdrawn from circulation as long
as I choose to keep it there. It is no otherwise withdrawn
if I bury it, nor even if I choose to make it, and others,
into a golden cup, and drink out of them; since a rise in
the price of the wine, or of other things, may at any time
cause me to melt the cup and throw it back into currency;
and the bullion operates on the prices of the things in the
market as directly, though not as forcibly, while it is in
the form of a cup, as it does in the form of a sovereign. No
calculation can be founded on my humour in any ease. If I
like to handle rouleaus, and therefore keep a quantity of
gold, to play with, in the form of jointed basaltic columns,
it is all one in its effect on the market as if I kept it in
the form of twisted filigree, or steadily amicus lamnae, beat
the narrow gold pieces into broad ones, and dined off them.
The probability is greater that I break the rouleau than
that I melt the plate; but the increased probability is not
calculable. Thus, documents are only withdrawn from the
currency when cancelled, and bullion when it is so
effectually lost as that the probability of finding it is no
greater than that of finding new gold in the mine.
At present I wish only to note the broad relations of the two great
classes--the currency-holders and store-holders.[94] Of course they
are partly united, most monied men having possessions of land or other
goods; but they are separate in their nature and functions. The
currency-holders as a class regulate the demand for labour, and the
store-holders the laws of it; the currency-holders determine what
shall be produced, and the store-holders the conditions of its
production. Farther, as true currency represents by definition debts
which will be paid, it represents either the debtor's wealth, or his
ability and willingness; that is to say, either wealth existing in his
hands transferred to him by the creditor, or wealth which, as he is at
some time surely to return it, he is either increasing, or, if
diminishing, has the will and strength to reproduce. A sound currency,
therefore, as by its increase it represents enlarging debt, represents
also enlarging means; but in this curious way, that a certain quantity
of it marks the deficiency of the wealth of the country from what it
would have been if that currency had not existed.[95] In this respect
it is like the detritus of a mountain; assume that it lies at a fixed
angle, and the more the detritus, the larger must be the mountain; but
it would have been larger still, had there been none.
[94] They are (up to the amount of the currency) simply creditors
and debtors--the commercial types of the two great sects of
humanity which those words describe; for debt and credit are
of course merely the mercantile forms of the words "duty"
and "creed," which give the central ideas: only it is more
accurate to say "faith" than "creed," because creed has been
applied carelessly to mere forms of words. Duty properly
signifies whatever in substance or act one person owes to
another, and faith the other's trust in his rendering it.
The French "devoir" and "foi" are fuller and clearer words
than ours; for, faith being the passive of fact, foi comes
straight through fides from fio; and the French keep the
group of words formed from the infinitive--fieri, "se fier,"
"se defier," "defiance," and the grand following "defi." Our
English "affiance," "defiance," "confidence," "diffidence,"
retain accurate meanings; but our "faithful" has become
obscure, from being used for "faithworthy," as well as "full
of faith." "His name that sat on him was called Faithful and
True."
Trust is the passive of true saying, as faith is the passive
of due doing; and the right learning of these etymologies,
which are in the strictest sense only to be learned "by
heart," is of considerably more importance to the youth of a
nation than its reading and ciphering.
[95] For example, suppose an active peasant, having got his
ground into good order and built himself a comfortable
house, finding still time on his hands, sees one of his
neighbours little able to work, and ill lodged, and offers
to build him also a house, and to put his land in order, on
condition of receiving for a given period rent for the
building and tithe of the fruits. The offer is accepted, and
a document given promissory of rent and tithe. This note is
money. It can only be good money if the man who has incurred
the debt so far recovers his strength as to be able to take
advantage of the help he has received, and meet the demand
of the note; if he lets his house fall to ruin, and his
field to waste, his promissory note will soon be valueless:
but the existence of the note at all is a consequence of his
not having worked so stoutly as the other. Let him gain as
much as to be able to pay back the entire debt; the note is
cancelled and we have two rich store-holders and no
currency.
Finally, though, as above stated, every man possessing money has
usually also some property beyond what is necessary for his immediate
wants, and men possessing property usually also hold currency beyond
what is necessary for their immediate exchanges, it mainly determines
the class to which they belong, whether in their eyes the money is an
adjunct of the property, or the property of the money. In the first
case, the holder's pleasure is in his possessions, and in his money
subordinately, as the means of bettering or adding to them. In the
second, his pleasure is in his money, and in his possessions only as
representing it. In the first case, the money is as an atmosphere
surrounding the wealth, rising from it and raining back upon it; but
in the second, it is a deluge, with the wealth floating, and for the
most part perishing in it. The shortest distinction between the men is
that the one wishes always to buy and the other to sell.
Such being the great relations of the classes, their several
characters are of the highest importance to the nation; for on the
character of the store-holders depends the preservation, display, and
serviceableness of its wealth;--on that of the currency-holders its
nature, and in great part its distribution; and on both its
production.
The store-holders are either constructive, or neutral, or destructive;
and in subsequent papers we shall, with respect to every kind of
wealth, examine the relative power of the store-holder for its
improvement or destruction; and we shall then find it to be of
incomparably greater importance to the nation in whose hands the thing
is put, than how much of it is got; and that the character of the
holders may be conjectured by the quality of the store, for such and
such a thing; nor only asks for it, but if to be bettered, betters it:
so that possession and possessor reciprocally act on each other
through the entire sum of national possession. The base nation asking
for base things sinks daily to deeper vileness of nature and of use;
while the noble nation, asking for noble things, rises daily into
diviner eminence in both; the tendency to degradation being surely
marked by [Greek: ataxia], carelessness as to the hands in which
things are put, competition for the acquisition of them,
disorderliness in accumulation, inaccuracy in reckoning, and bluntness
in conception as to the entire nature of possession.
Now, the currency-holders always increase in number and influence in
proportion to the bluntness of nature and clumsiness of the
store-holders; for the less use people can make of things the more
they tire of them, and want to change them for something else, and
all frequency of change increases the quantity and power of currency;
while the large currency-holder himself is essentially a person who
never has been able to make up his mind as to what he will have, and
proceeds, therefore, in vague collection and aggregation, with more
and more infuriate passion, urged by complacency in progress, and
pride in conquest.
While, however, there is this obscurity in the nature of possession of
currency, there is a charm in the absoluteness of it, which is to some
people very enticing. In the enjoyment of real property others must
partly share. The groom has some enjoyment of the stud, and the
gardener of the garden; but the money is, or seems shut up; it is
wholly enviable. No one else can have part in any complacencies
arising from it.
The power of arithmetical comparison is also a great thing to
unimaginative people. They know always they are so much better than
they were, in money; so much better than others, in money; wit cannot
be so compared, nor character. My neighbour cannot be convinced I am
wiser than he is, but he can that I am worth so much more; and the
universality of the conviction is no less flattering than its
clearness. Only a few can understand, none measure, superiorities in
other things; but everybody can understand money, and count it.
Now, these various temptations to accumulation would be politically
harmless, if what was vainly accumulated had any fair chance of being
wisely spent. For as accumulation cannot go on for ever, but must some
day end in its reverse--if this reverse were indeed a beneficial
distribution and use, as irrigation from reservoir, the fever of
gathering, though perilous to the gatherer, might be serviceable to
the community. But it constantly happens (so constantly, that it may
be stated as a political law having few exceptions), that what is
unreasonably gathered is also unreasonably spent by the persons into
whose hands it finally falls. Very frequently it is spent in war, or
else in stupefying luxury, twice hurtful, both in being indulged by
the rich and witnessed by the poor. So that the _mal tener_ and _mal
dare_ are as correlative as complementary colours; and the circulation
of wealth, which ought to be soft, steady, strong, far-sweeping, and
full of warmth, like the Gulf Stream, being narrowed into an eddy, and
concentrated on a point, changes into the alternate suction and
surrender of Charybdis. Which is, indeed, I doubt not, the true
meaning of that marvellous fable, "infinite," as Bacon said of it,
"in matter of meditation."[96]
[96] It is a strange habit of wise humanity to speak in enigmas
only, so that the highest truths and usefullest laws must be
hunted for through whole picture-galleries of dreams, which
to the vulgar seem dreams only. Thus Homer, the Greek
tragedians, Plato, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Goethe,
have hidden all that is chiefly serviceable in their work,
and in all the various literature they absorbed and
re-embodied, under types which have rendered it quite
useless to the multitude. What is worse, the two primal
declarers of moral discovery, Homer and Plato, are partly at
issue; for Plato's logical power quenched his imagination,
and he became incapable of understanding the purely
imaginative element either in poetry or painting; he
therefore somewhat overrates the pure discipline of
passionate art in song and music, and misses that of
meditative art. There is, however, a deeper reason for his
distrust of Homer. His love of justice, and reverently
religious nature made him dread as death, every form of
fallacy; but chiefly, fallacy respecting the world to come
(his own myths being only symbolic exponents of a rational
hope). We shall perhaps now every day discover more clearly
how right Plato was in this, and feel ourselves more and
more wonderstruck that men such as Homer and Dante (and, in
an inferior sphere, Milton), not to speak of the great
sculptors and painters of every age, have permitted
themselves, though full of all nobleness and wisdom, to coin
idle imaginations of the mysteries of eternity, and mould
the faiths of the families of the earth by the courses of
their own vague and visionary arts: while the indisputable
truths respecting human life and duty, respecting which they
all have but one voice, lie hidden behind these veils of
phantasy, unsought and often unsuspected. I will gather
carefully, out of Dante and Homer, what of this kind bears
on our subject, in its due place; the first broad intention
of their symbols may be sketched at once. The rewards of a
worthy use of riches, subordinate to other ends, are shown
by Dante in the fifth and sixth orbs of Paradise; for the
punishment of their unworthy use, three places are assigned;
one for the avaricious and prodigal whose souls are lost
("Hell": Canto 7); one for the avaricious and prodigal whose
souls are capable of purification ("Purgatory": Canto 19);
and one for the usurers, of whom none can be redeemed
("Hell": Canto 17). The first group, the largest in all hell
(gente piu che altrove troppa), meet in contrary currents,
as the waves of Charybdis, casting weights at each other
from opposite sides. This weariness of contention is the
chief element of their torture; so marked by the beautiful
lines, beginning, Or puoi, figliuol, etc. (but the usurers,
who made their money inactively, sit on the sand, equally
without rest, however, "Di qua, di la soccorrien," etc.).
For it is not avarice but contention for riches, leading to
this double misuse of them, which, in Dante's sight, is the
unredeemable sin. The place of its punishment is guarded by
Plutus, "the great enemy," and "la fiera crudele," a spirit
quite different from the Greek Plutus, who, though old and
blind, is not cruel, and is curable, so as to become
far-sighted ([Greek: hou typhlos all' oxy blepon]--Plato's
epithets in first book of the Laws). Still more does this
Dantesque type differ from the resplendent Plutus of Goethe
in the second part of "Faust," who is the personified power
of wealth for good or evil; not the passion for wealth; and
again from the Plutus of Spenser, who is the passion of mere
aggregation. Dante's Plutus is specially and definitely the
spirit of Contention and Competition, or Evil Commerce; and
because, as I showed in my last paper, this kind of commerce
"makes all men strangers," his speech is unintelligible, and
no single soul of all those ruined by him has recognizable
features.
(La sconescente vita--
Ad ogni conoscenza or li fa bruni).
On the other hand, the redeemable sins of avarice and
prodigality are, in Dante's sight, those which are without
deliberate or calculated operation. The lust, or lavishness,
of riches can be purged, so long as there has been no
servile consistency of dispute and competition for them. The
sin is spoken of as that of degradation by the love of
earth; it is purified by deeper humiliation--the souls crawl
on their bellies; their chant, "my soul cleaveth unto the
dust." But the spirits here condemned are all recognizable,
and even the worst examples of the thirst for gold, which
they are compelled to tell the histories of during the
night, are of men swept by the passion of avarice into
violent crime, but not sold to its steady work. The precept
given to each of these spirits for its deliverance is--Turn
thine eyes to the lucre (lure) which the Eternal King rolls
with the mighty wheels: otherwise, the wheels of the
"Greater Fortune," of which the constellation is ascending
when Dante's dream begins. Compare George Herbert,--
"Lift up thy head;
Take stars for money; stars, not to be told
By any art, yet to be purchased."
And Plato's notable sentence in the third book of
"Polity":--"Tell them they have divine gold and silver in
their souls for ever; that they need no money stamped of
men--neither may they otherwise than impiously mingle the
gathering of the divine with the mortal treasure, for
through that which the law of the multitude has coined,
endless crimes have been done and suffered; but in theirs is
neither pollution nor sorrow." At the entrance of this place
of punishment an evil spirit is seen by Dante, quite other
than the "Gran Nemico." The great enemy is obeyed knowingly
and willingly; but this spirit--feminine--and called a
Siren--is the "Deceitfulness of riches," [Greek: apate
ploutou] of the gospels, winning obedience by guile. This is
the Idol of Riches, made doubly phantasmal by Dante's seeing
her in a dream. She is lovely to look upon, and enchants by
her sweet singing, but her womb is loathsome. Now, Dante
does not call her one of the Sirens carelessly, any more
than he speaks of Charybdis carelessly, and though he had
only got at the meaning of the Homeric fable through
Virgil's obscure tradition of it, the clue he has given us
is quite enough. Bacon's interpretation, "the Sirens, or
pleasures," which has become universal since his time, is
opposed alike to Plato's meaning and Homer's. The Sirens are
not pleasures, but Desires: in the Odyssey they are the
phantoms of vain desire; but in Plato's vision of Destiny,
phantoms of constant Desire; singing each a different note
on the circles of the distaff of Necessity, but forming one
harmony, to which the three great Fates put words. Dante,
however, adopted the Homeric conception of them, which was
that they were demons of the Imagination, not carnal (desire
of the eyes; not lust of the flesh); therefore said to be
daughters of the Muses. Yet not of the muses, heavenly or
historical, but of the muse of pleasure; and they are at
first winged, because even vain hope excites and helps when
first formed; but afterwards, contending for the possession
of the imagination with the muses themselves, they are
deprived of their wings, and thus we are to distinguish the
Siren power from the Power of Circe, who is no daughter of
the muses, but of the strong elements, Sun and Sea; her
power is that of frank and full vital pleasure, which, if
governed and watched, nourishes men; but, unwatched, and
having no "moly," bitterness or delay mixed with it, turns
men into beasts, but does not slay them, leaves them, on the
contrary, power of revival. She is herself indeed an
Enchantress;--pure Animal life; transforming--or
degrading--but always wonderful (she puts the stores on
board the ship invisibly, and is gone again, like a ghost);
even the wild beasts rejoice and are softened around her
cave; to men, she gives no rich feast, nothing but pure and
right nourishment,--Pramnian wine, cheese and flour; that is
corn, milk, and wine, the three great sustainers of life--it
is their own fault if these make swine of them; and swine
are chosen merely as the type of consumption; as Plato's
[Greek: huon polis] in the second book of the "Polity," and
perhaps chosen by Homer with a deeper knowledge of the
likeness of nourishment, and internal form of body. "Et quel
est, s'il vous plait, cet audacieux animal qui se permet
d'etre bati au dedans comme une jolie petite fille?"
"Helas! chere enfant, j'ai honte de le nommer, et il ne
foudra pas m'en vouloir. C'est ... c'est le cochon. Ce n'est
pas precisement flatteur pour vous; mais nous en sommes tous
la, et si cela vous contrarie par trop, il faut aller vous
plaindre au bon Dieu qui a voulu que les choses fussent
arrangees ainsi: seulement le cochon, qui ne pense qu' a
manger, a l'estomac bien plus vaste que nous, et c'est
toujours une consolation." ("Histoire d'une Bouchee de
Pain," Lettre ix.) But the deadly Sirens are all things
opposed to the Circean power. They promise pleasure, but
never give it. They nourish in no wise; but slay by slow
death. And whereas they corrupt the heart and the head,
instead of merely betraying the senses, there is no recovery
from their power; they do not tear nor snatch, like Scylla,
but the men who have listened to them are poisoned, and
waste away. Note that the Sirens' field is covered, not
merely with the bones, but with the skins of those who have
been consumed there. They address themselves, in the part of
the song which Homer gives, not to the passions of Ulysses,
but to his vanity, and the only man who ever came within
hearing of them, and escaped untempted, was Orpheus, who
silenced the vain imaginations by singing the praises of the
gods.
It is, then, one of these Sirens whom Dante takes as the
phantasm or deceitfulness of riches; but note further, that
she says it was her song that deceived Ulysses. Look back to
Dante's account of Ulysses' death, and we find it was not
the love of money, but pride of knowledge, that betrayed
him; whence we get the clue to Dante's complete meaning:
that the souls whose love of wealth is pardonable have been
first deceived into pursuit of it by a dream of its higher
uses, or by ambition. His Siren is therefore the Philotime
of Spenser, daughter of Mammon--
"Whom all that folk with such contention
Do flock about, my deare, my daughter is--
Honour and dignitie from her alone
Derived are."
By comparing Spenser's entire account of this Philotime with
Dante's of the Wealth-Siren, we shall get at the full
meaning of both poets; but that of Homer lies hidden much
more deeply. For his Sirens are indefinite, and they are
desires of any evil thing; power of wealth is not specially
indicated by him, until, escaping the harmonious danger of
imagination, Ulysses has to choose between two practical
ways of life, indicated by the two rocks of Scylla and
Charybdis. The monsters that haunt them are quite distinct
from the rocks themselves, which, having many other
subordinate significations, are in the main Labour and
Idleness, or getting and spending; each with its attendant
monster, or betraying demon. The rock of gaining has its
summit in the clouds, invisible and not to be climbed; that
of spending is low, but marked by the cursed fig-tree, which
has leaves but no fruit. We know the type elsewhere; and
there is a curious lateral allusion to it by Dante when
Jacopo di Sant' Andrea, who had ruined himself by profusion
and committed suicide, scatters the leaves of the bush of
Lotto degli Agli, endeavouring to hide himself among them.
We shall hereafter examine the type completely; here I will
only give an approximate rendering of Homer's words, which
have been obscured more by translation than even by
tradition--
"They are overhanging rocks. The great waves of blue water
break round them; and the blessed Gods call them the
Wanderers.
"By one of them no winged thing can pass--not even the wild
doves that bring ambrosia to their father Jove--but the
smooth rock seizes its sacrifice of them." (Not even
ambrosia to be had without Labour. The word is peculiar--as
a part of anything offered for sacrifice; especially used of
heave-offering.) "It reaches the wide heaven with its top,
and a dark-blue cloud rests on it, and never passes; neither
does the clear sky hold it in summer nor in harvest. Nor can
any man climb it--not if he had twenty feet and hands, for
it is smooth as though it were hewn.
"And in the midst of it is a cave which is turned the way of
hell. And therein dwells Scylla, whining for prey: her cry,
indeed, is no louder than that of a newly-born whelp: but
she herself is an awful thing--nor can any creature see her
face and be glad; no, though it were a god that rose against
her. For she has twelve feet, all fore-feet, and six necks,
and terrible heads on them; and each has three rows of
teeth, full of black death.
"But the opposite rock is lower than this, though but a
bow-shot distant; and upon it there is a great fig-tree,
full of leaves; and under it the terrible Charybdis sucks it
down, and thrice casts it up again; be not thou there when
she sucks down, for Neptune himself could not save thee."
The reader will find the meaning of these types gradually
elicited as we proceed.
This disease of desire having especial relation to the great art of
Exchange, or Commerce, we must, in order to complete our code of first
principles, shortly state the nature and limits of that art.
As the currency conveys right of choice out of many things in exchange
for one, so Commerce is the agency by which the power of choice is
obtained; and countries producing only timber can obtain for their
timber silk and gold; or, naturally producing only jewels and
frankincense, can obtain for them cattle and corn. In this function
commerce is of more importance to a country in proportion to the
limitations of its products and the restlessness of its
fancy;--generally of greater importance towards Northern latitudes.