Question of the proper definition of the wealth of a state--Reason
given by the French economists for considering all manufacturers as
unproductive labourers, not the true reason--The labour of artificers
and manufacturers sufficiently productive to individuals, though not to
the state--A remarkable passage in Dr Price's two volumes of
Observations--Error of Dr Price in attributing the happiness and rapid
population of America, chiefly, to its peculiar state of
civilization--No advantage can be expected from shutting our eyes to
the difficulties in the way to the improvement of society.
A question seems naturally to arise here whether the exchangeable value
of the annual produce of the land and labour be the proper definition
of the wealth of a country, or whether the gross produce of the land,
according to the French economists, may not be a more accurate
definition. Certain it is that every increase of wealth, according to
the definition of the economists, will be an increase of the funds for
the maintenance of labour, and consequently will always tend to
ameliorate the condition of the labouring poor, though an increase of
wealth, according to Dr Adam Smith's definition, will by no means
invariably have the same tendency. And yet it may not follow from this
consideration that Dr Adam Smith's definition is not just. It seems in
many respects improper to exclude the clothing and lodging of a whole
people from any part of their revenue. Much of it may, indeed, be of
very trivial and unimportant value in comparison with the food of the
country, yet still it may be fairly considered as a part of its
revenue; and, therefore, the only point in which I should differ from
Dr Adam Smith is where he seems to consider every increase of the
revenue or stock of a society as an increase of the funds for the
maintenance of labour, and consequently as tending always to ameliorate
the condition of the poor.
The fine silks and cottons, the laces, and other ornamental luxuries of
a rich country, may contribute very considerably to augment the
exchangeable value of its annual produce; yet they contribute but in a
very small degree to augment the mass of happiness in the society, and
it appears to me that it is with some view to the real utility of the
produce that we ought to estimate the productiveness or
unproductiveness of different sorts of labour. The French economists
consider all labour employed in manufactures as unproductive. Comparing
it with the labour employed upon land, I should be perfectly disposed
to agree with them, but not exactly for the reasons which they give.
They say that labour employed upon land is productive because the
produce, over and above completely paying the labourer and the farmer,
affords a clear rent to the landlord, and that the labour employed upon
a piece of lace is unproductive because it merely replaces the
provisions that the workman had consumed, and the stock of his
employer, without affording any clear rent whatever. But supposing the
value of the wrought lace to be such as that, besides paying in the
most complete manner the workman and his employer, it could afford a
clear rent to a third person, it appears to me that, in comparison with
the labour employed upon land, it would be still as unproductive as
ever. Though, according to the reasoning used by the French economists,
the man employed in the manufacture of lace would, in this case, seem
to be a productive labourer. Yet according to their definition of the
wealth of a state, he ought not to be considered in that light. He will
have added nothing to the gross produce of the land: he has consumed a
portion of this gross produce, and has left a bit of lace in return;
and though he may sell this bit of lace for three times the quantity of
provisions that he consumed whilst he was making it, and thus be a very
productive labourer with regard to himself, yet he cannot be considered
as having added by his labour to any essential part of the riches of
the state. The clear rent, therefore, that a certain produce can
afford, after paying the expenses of procuring it, does not appear to
be the sole criterion, by which to judge of the productiveness or
unproductiveness to a state of any particular species of labour.
Suppose that two hundred thousand men, who are now employed in
producing manufactures that only tend to gratify the vanity of a few
rich people, were to be employed upon some barren and uncultivated
lands, and to produce only half the quantity of food that they
themselves consumed; they would be still more productive labourers with
regard to the state than they were before, though their labour, so far
from affording a rent to a third person, would but half replace the
provisions used in obtaining the produce. In their former employment
they consumed a certain portion of the food of the country and left in
return some silks and laces. In their latter employment they consumed
the same quantity of food and left in return provision for a hundred
thousand men. There can be little doubt which of the two legacies would
be the most really beneficial to the country, and it will, I think, be
allowed that the wealth which supported the two hundred thousand men
while they were producing silks and laces would have been more usefully
employed in supporting them while they were producing the additional
quantity of food.
A capital employed upon land may be unproductive to the individual that
employs it and yet be highly productive to the society. A capital
employed in trade, on the contrary, may be highly productive to the
individual, and yet be almost totally unproductive to the society: and
this is the reason why I should call manufacturing labour unproductive,
in comparison of that which is employed in agriculture, and not for the
reason given by the French economists. It is, indeed, almost impossible
to see the great fortunes that are made in trade, and the liberality
with which so many merchants live, and yet agree in the statement of
the economists, that manufacturers can only grow rich by depriving
themselves of the funds destined for their support. In many branches of
trade the profits are so great as would allow of a clear rent to a
third person; but as there is no third person in the case, and as all
the profits centre in the master manufacturer, or merchant, he seems to
have a fair chance of growing rich, without much privation; and we
consequently see large fortunes acquired in trade by persons who have
not been remarked for their parsimony.
Daily experience proves that the labour employed in trade and
manufactures is sufficiently productive to individuals, but it
certainly is not productive in the same degree to the state. Every
accession to the food of a country tends to the immediate benefit of
the whole society; but the fortunes made in trade tend but in a remote
and uncertain manner to the same end, and in some respects have even a
contrary tendency. The home trade of consumption is by far the most
important trade of every nation. China is the richest country in the
world, without any other. Putting then, for a moment, foreign trade out
of the question, the man who, by an ingenious manufacture, obtains a
double portion out of the old stock of provisions, will certainly not
to be so useful to the state as the man who, by his labour, adds a
single share to the former stock. The consumable commodities of silks,
laces, trinkets, and expensive furniture, are undoubtedly a part of the
revenue of the society; but they are the revenue only of the rich, and
not of the society in general. An increase in this part of the revenue
of a state, cannot, therefore, be considered of the same importance as
an increase of food, which forms the principal revenue of the great
mass of the people.
Foreign commerce adds to the wealth of a state, according to Dr Adam
Smith's definition, though not according to the definition of the
economists. Its principal use, and the reason, probably, that it has in
general been held in such high estimation is that it adds greatly to
the external power of a nation or to its power of commanding the labour
of other countries; but it will be found, upon a near examination, to
contribute but little to the increase of the internal funds for the
maintenance of labour, and consequently but little to the happiness of
the greatest part of society. In the natural progress of a state
towards riches, manufactures, and foreign commerce would follow, in
their order, the high cultivation of the soil. In Europe, this natural
order of things has been inverted, and the soil has been cultivated
from the redundancy of manufacturing capital, instead of manufactures
rising from the redundancy of capital employed upon land. The superior
encouragement that has been given to the industry of the towns, and the
consequent higher price that is paid for the labour of artificers than
for the labour of those employed in husbandry, are probably the reasons
why so much soil in Europe remains uncultivated. Had a different policy
been pursued throughout Europe, it might undoubtedly have been much
more populous than at present, and yet not be more incumbered by its
population.
I cannot quit this curious subject of the difficulty arising from
population, a subject that appears to me to deserve a minute
investigation and able discussion much beyond my power to give it,
without taking notice of an extraordinary passage in Dr Price's two
volumes of Observations. Having given some tables on the probabilities
of life, in towns and in the country, he says (Vol. II, p. 243):
From this comparison, it appears with how much truth great cities have
been called the graves of mankind. It must also convince all who
consider it, that according to the observation, at the end of the
fourth essay, in the former volume, it is by no means strictly proper
to consider our diseases as the original intention of nature. They are,
without doubt, in general our own creation. Were there a country where
the inhabitants led lives entirely natural and virtuous, few of them
would die without measuring out the whole period of present existence
allotted to them; pain and distemper would be unknown among them, and
death would come upon them like a sleep, in consequence of no other
cause than gradual and unavoidable decay.
I own that I felt myself obliged to draw a very opposite conclusion
from the facts advanced in Dr Price's two volumes. I had for some time
been aware that population and food increased in different ratios, and
a vague opinion had been floating in my mind that they could only be
kept equal by some species of misery or vice, but the perusal of Dr
Price's two volumes of Observations, after that opinion had been
conceived, raised it at once to conviction. With so many facts in his
view to prove the extraordinary rapidity with which population
increases when unchecked, and with such a body of evidence before him
to elucidate even the manner by which the general laws of nature
repress a redundant population, it is perfectly inconceivable to me how
he could write the passage that I have quoted. He was a strenuous
advocate for early marriages, as the best preservative against vicious
manners. He had no fanciful conceptions about the extinction of the
passion between the sexes, like Mr Godwin, nor did he ever think of
eluding the difficulty in the ways hinted at by Mr Condorcet. He
frequently talks of giving the prolifick powers of nature room to exert
themselves. Yet with these ideas, that his understanding could escape
from the obvious and necessary inference that an unchecked population
would increase, beyond comparison, faster than the earth, by the best
directed exertions of man, could produce food for its support, appears
to me as astonishing as if he had resisted the conclusion of one of the
plainest propositions of Euclid.
Dr Price, speaking of the different stages of the civilized state,
says, 'The first, or simple stages of civilization, are those which
favour most the increase and the happiness of mankind.' He then
instances the American colonies, as being at that time in the first and
happiest of the states that he had described, and as affording a very
striking proof of the effects of the different stages of civilization
on population. But he does not seem to be aware that the happiness of
the Americans depended much less upon their peculiar degree of
civilization than upon the peculiarity of their situation, as new
colonies, upon their having a great plenty of fertile uncultivated
land. In parts of Norway, Denmark, or Sweden, or in this country, two
or three hundred years ago, he might have found perhaps nearly the same
degree of civilization, but by no means the same happiness or the same
increase of population. He quotes himself a statute of Henry the
Eighth, complaining of the decay of tillage, and the enhanced price of
provisions, 'whereby a marvellous number of people were rendered
incapable of maintaining themselves and families.' The superior degree
of civil liberty which prevailed in America contributed, without doubt,
its share to promote the industry, happiness, and population of these
states, but even civil liberty, all powerful as it is, will not create
fresh land. The Americans may be said, perhaps, to enjoy a greater
degree of civil liberty, now they are an independent people, than while
they were in subjection in England, but we may be perfectly sure that
population will not long continue to increase with the same rapidity as
it did then.
A person who contemplated the happy state of the lower classes of
people in America twenty years ago would naturally wish to retain them
for ever in that state, and might think, perhaps, that by preventing
the introduction of manufactures and luxury he might effect his
purpose, but he might as reasonably expect to prevent a wife or
mistress from growing old by never exposing her to the sun or air. The
situation of new colonies, well governed, is a bloom of youth that no
efforts can arrest. There are, indeed, many modes of treatment in the
political, as well as animal, body, that contribute to accelerate or
retard the approaches of age, but there can be no chance of success, in
any mode that could be devised, for keeping either of them in perpetual
youth. By encouraging the industry of the towns more than the industry
of the country, Europe may be said, perhaps, to have brought on a
premature old age. A different policy in this respect would infuse
fresh life and vigour into every state. While from the law of
primogeniture, and other European customs, land bears a monopoly price,
a capital can never be employed in it with much advantage to the
individual; and, therefore, it is not probable that the soil should be
properly cultivated. And, though in every civilized state a class of
proprietors and a class of labourers must exist, yet one permanent
advantage would always result from a nearer equalization of property.
The greater the number of proprietors, the smaller must be the number
of labourers: a greater part of society would be in the happy state of
possessing property: and a smaller part in the unhappy state of
possessing no other property than their labour. But the best directed
exertions, though they may alleviate, can never remove the pressure of
want, and it will be difficult for any person who contemplates the
genuine situation of man on earth, and the general laws of nature, to
suppose it possible that any, the most enlightened, efforts could place
mankind in a state where 'few would die without measuring out the whole
period of present existence allotted to them; where pain and distemper
would be unknown among them; and death would come upon them like a
sleep, in consequence of no other cause than gradual and unavoidable
decay.'
It is, undoubtedly, a most disheartening reflection that the great
obstacle in the way to any extraordinary improvement in society is of a
nature that we can never hope to overcome. The perpetual tendency in
the race of man to increase beyond the means of subsistence is one of
the general laws of animated nature which we can have no reason to
expect will change. Yet, discouraging as the contemplation of this
difficulty must be to those whose exertions are laudably directed to
the improvement of the human species, it is evident that no possible
good can arise from any endeavours to slur it over or keep it in the
background. On the contrary, the most baleful mischiefs may be expected
from the unmanly conduct of not daring to face truth because it is
unpleasing. Independently of what relates to this great obstacle,
sufficient yet remains to be done for mankind to animate us to the most
unremitted exertion. But if we proceed without a thorough knowledge and
accurate comprehension of the nature, extent, and magnitude of the
difficulties we have to encounter, or if we unwisely direct our efforts
towards an object in which we cannot hope for success, we shall not
only exhaust our strength in fruitless exertions and remain at as great
a distance as ever from the summit of our wishes, but we shall be
perpetually crushed by the recoil of this rock of Sisyphus.