Human, _i. e._, Social Nature, then our women, as our men, would take
part in the healthy processes of real social life. If we saw that this
constantly increasing expression of a constantly increasing fund of
social energy was limitless happiness, we should turn our competition
another way, cease this painful effort to show who can get the most, and
begin to run races to show who shall do the most, with the result that
there will be more for everyone to have.
Meanwhile, under the action of this special delusion about consumption,
we continue to fill the world with false products, and to spend
strenuous lives trying to get them away from one another. Can we not
recognise this one thing, that consumption is but a means to an end;
that production, Work, is the end to which a legitimate consumption is a
necessary means, and that the only natural and practical measure of
consumption is the need of the consumer.
XV: CONSUMPTION (II)
_Summary_
_Resistance of false concepts to true. Spread of literature. Use of
imagination. Hypothesis as to natural laws in consumption—free
clothing—Veblen. An unnatural market. Commodity money a check to
distribution and production. Real conditions. Enormous producing power
of civilised man. Legitimate consumption. Truffles. Free transportation.
Free provision reduces demand and increases productivity. Property
rights and personal ownership. Evolution of ownership, ownership a
psychic relation, a social condition, based on social needs. True law of
ownership: “Society must insure to the individual those things which are
essential to his social service.” Decrease of self-interest. Success of
our surviving savages. “Making money.” Normal wealth must circulate.
Belief in polygamy. Natural relation not Communism. Legitimate personal
property is in goods consumed—not in goods produced. Normal ownership
inheres in normal consumption. Production belongs to Society. Man does
not consume his own product, but that of Society. Human rights
social—essential conditions of true social relation. Previous position,
based on Ego concept and Want theory, does not work well. Compulsory
production not normal. Owner and Employer. “Iron law of wages.” Want not
a productive force,—tends only to consumption. Organic action of
Society. America’s productivity does not show commensurate greed, but
fuller supply of social nourishment and stimulus. Parent’s relation to
child, and Society’s. Social duty._
XV
CONSUMPTION (II)
Our minds are so thoroughly accustomed to thinking along false lines in
economics that true and natural social processes, when described to
them, seem but fantastic dreams.
This is only according to the brain’s working habits; it takes time to
change it, and we need much patience with ourselves and one another
while changing. Fortunately for the age we live in, there has been so
much change in so many lines that further progress is easy, compared to
what it was a few centuries ago. Fortunately in especial for the country
we live in, its national attitude is that of welcome to the new,
suspicion of the old.
In the wonderful spread of the great art, Literature, and particularly
the branch art, Fiction, as distributed so universally among us by our
libraries, our periodicals, and the daily press, we have far more
general use of the imagination-our brains will stretch. This faculty of
imagination is no mere factor in telling fairy-tales; it is that power
of seeing over and under and around and through, of foreseeing, of
constructing hypotheses, by which science and invention profit as much
as art. Distance, perspective, proportion, these are obtained, in our
consideration of facts, by use of the imagination. The rocks and stars
confronted the savage as they did the beast, and with little more
result; they were visible facts, that is all. He could not imagine any
further content in his observation. We observe, similarly unmoved, the
facts in economics.
Now let us use this common faculty of imagination; and, judging by man’s
behaviour in conditions we do know, try to measure what it would be in
other conditions. Let us take one concrete instance in this process of
consumption, a perfectly conceivable hypothesis, and see for ourselves
how it would work out.
We will now assume that clothing was free to all. This does not mean
that it was dropped from the sky; we are still to produce and distribute
it; but the final absorption by the individual is unchecked. What would
be the consequence? At first there would be a rushing seizure by the
people who have never been satisfied in clothing—they would take and
take again—greedily—inordinately—sacking the shops and stuffing their
houses. But suppose the supply is maintained, steadily. They would soon
find it was inconvenient to stuff their houses, if the stores remained
always to draw from. The hoarding instinct does not spring from
continued plenty, and becomes foolish in the face of it.
Then, though not carrying off so much, they would perhaps choose the
most beautiful and expensive fabrics. Finding that all wore the same,
these distinctions would cease to distinguish; if everybody was wearing
velvet at will, the result would be that those who did not really like
it would leave it off. If everybody was wearing lace, they would find it
was too frail for outing costumes. If there was no artificial glamour on
one stuff more than another; if the supply was steady and free; then,
slowly, gradually, timidly, would appear for the first time among us
true personal choice! People would at least know what they personally
preferred and have it; clothing would be adapted to genuine need and
genuine taste.
Our habits of consumption are so complicated by long deprivation on the
one hand, and by “the pecuniary canons of taste” (Veblen) on the other,
that most of us live and die without ever knowing what we really want.
“The Market” for which our producers competitively cater is an unnatural
one. What we call “the demand” is not a healthy, legitimate demand; it
is uncertain, capricious, subject to strange fluctuations and reactions;
and in endeavouring to “supply” it, the most experienced and far-sighted
producer often fails.
What is legitimate consumption? Is there any measure by which the
world’s market could be regulated? No measure is needed. Our mistake
here is due to continually seeking to govern production by an arbitrary
system of payment. On the theory that a man will not work except for
pay, it follows that his work will be strictly adjusted to the pay; and
thus the tendency to a constantly increased productivity is held rigidly
in check by our existing means of payment. Commodity money adds the last
straw to this heap of folly.
Men will work only for pay.
Pay must be money.
Money must be gold.
So the amount of human productivity must be measured not by the muscular
power, brain power, and machine power of society; nor even by the amount
of corn and wool, wine and oil, wood and stone, and other necessaries;
but by the amount of one particular metal. It is fortunate we have not
elected to measure human production by radium!
It was bad enough to try to check our vast output by an arbitrary
equivalent in goods; but it is so much worse to squeeze and strain it
through this tiny gauge that it does seem as if we might have seen our
foolishness long since. But that is where the power of a concept is so
much greater than that of a fact. As a matter of fact, the bulk of the
world’s business is done on credit; and its material vehicle is paper-a
mere matter of record of transaction; but in our minds we still deal
only in gold; and every once in a while we must interrupt the course of
production and distribution to see if all accounts can be balanced in
gold. As the business is necessarily in advance of the gold—always and
always—we have to exert ourselves to get more gold—even if we must go to
war for it.
Try the imagination again—see the consequence, if gold suddenly grew
common as dirt—and lost its supposed “purchasing power.” Talk of “fiat
money”—never was any fiat more purely arbitrary than this solemn
assumption of ours that a hungry world cannot eat—a strong world cannot
work—a vast and intricate organism in full swing of vigorous life cannot
perform its functions—without every act of mutual service being measured
in gold. The vital facts in the case have no more connection with gold
than with wampum. Production and consumption go on as conditions of our
organic life; distribution facilitates both; and we, governed by this
Punch and Judy troupe of primitive ideas, check and pervert all these
great functions.
What are the facts in true social economics as concerning this question?
They are these. The earth furnishes us with the raw materials for
living. Civilised man is able to combine those materials in consumable
form, and to distribute them to all, with increasing facility. Even
under all our obstructions, the rate of production and distribution
increases with rapid strides; if free—it is impossible to estimate the
gain.
Put it something like this:
A primitive man can obtain the necessities of life by giving all his
time to it. A civilised man of our day can produce his share of all the
necessities of life, in say one-tenth of his time. In the other
nine-tenths he can produce comforts, luxuries, all the higher products
of human life. Under right conditions, civilised man could produce the
necessities in a hundredth part of his time, and could so grow and
improve as to lift all the higher products to a far more advanced stage.
Fully supplied with all he needs of this social wealth, the producing
power of civilised man is far beyond his needs. “His needs” brings us
again to the question, “What is legitimate consumption?”
We assume that, unless rigidly kept down by arbitrary forces, man would
riotously consume in unending profusion; that he could not possibly
supply enough for general consumption; and that since the supply is
limited, it should be rigidly confined to those who can pay for it. This
is an unwarranted claim. Normal consumption does not increase in any
such wild way.
The normal demands of the whole human race for food can be met by the
materials at hand. Observe that they are in some measure met now; our
millions do live, do eat, even under present conditions. They might live
better, have a more improving diet, under better conditions. But if,
like Mr. Bounderby, we assume that everyone will wish “to be fed on
turtle soup with a gold spoon”—we are wrong. “Have some truffles!” urges
Mr. Newrich. “I don’t care for any,” answers Mr. Bornrich. “Not care for
truffles?” cries Mr. Newrich; “why, they cost five dollars!” “What of
that?” says Mr. Bornrich; “I don’t like ’em!” “Conspicuous consumption”
is a feature of leisure-class culture, of illegitimate wealth founded on
illegitimate poverty. With consumption on a natural basis, there would
be no great demand for nightingales’ tongues.
Observe the existing facts in any department of social supply we have
made free to all. Our highroads are free—but we do not therefore run
continually up and down on them, just because we can. We travel as we
have need of it, that is all. Free roads facilitate normal traffic and
promote civilisation. Yet, when it is urged that free railroad travel is
a necessity to-day, there is a horrified dissent. “What? let people
travel on the railroad without paying for it? Why, they would travel all
the time!” You see we do use our imaginations a good deal. These
objectors imagine that mankind would desert both business and pleasure,
forego the joys of home and the attractions of both city and country, to
spend their days in the discomforts of a railroad train, and their
nights in those culture tubes of all bacilli, the sleeping cars,—just
because travel was free!
Have we never seen the plain and common fact that free provision of
anything reduces the demand to the normal at once? Things “common” are
not wanted, unless they are _really_ wanted. All artificial demand drops
off. There is no pride, no element of “conspicuous waste” in having what
everyone can have, in doing what everyone can do. But the normal demand
goes on, and the world is enriched, all progress is promoted, by the
gratification of that need.
Sometimes people do things merely because they cost money,—to show
financial superiority,—but they do not do things merely because they do
not cost money. Free consumption would not increase any legitimate human
demand, but it would increase our power, and skill, and so our wealth.
Recognising that human production is conditioned upon previous supply,
upon right inheritance, right education, right environment of all sorts,
it follows that the more fully and freely we supply that environment,
the more we produce.
Against this clear sequence stand, like a range of mountains, our
theories of property rights—of personal ownership. Personal ownership,
private property; we believe in these things as we believe in God,—and a
good deal more so. These we hold to be basic principles, they underlie
all else, nothing can shake them. Whoso questions or criticises them
“strikes at the foundations of Society.”
It is not the first time that Society has been challenged in what it
held to be foundation principles, has been led to change those
principles—and has still survived. Cautiously, and gently, not to jar or
strain our unused brain areas too much, let us draw near this mighty
pile and see on what it rests. Bear steadily in mind the history of
human life and of all life behind it. See all the ages of pre-human
evolution going on in their majestic work without any dream of such a
thing as property, or ownership. See humanity in its slow beginning,
developing the extra-personal medium of life, the garment, shelter,
tool. See how these things, detached, yet essential, exchangeable
because human, yet had to be connected with the holder for his personal
good and social efficiency.
Here, as we have shown in the preceding chapter, arises the true law of
ownership, and ownership as natural as that of the beast of his teeth
and claws, a true social law. It has no individual basis. Individuals
carry their property on their bodies, it grows there. Society evolves
detachable material adjuncts, the made things, the social medium. So far
as this social medium is usable by all, it should be free to all. So far
as it is peculiar to the specialised social functionary, it must be
guaranteed to him. Society must guarantee to the individual those things
which are essential to his social service. The civilised man has given
up his power of caring for himself in order the better to serve Society.
Society, to profit by this service, must insure right provision for the
individual. In a clumsy, unjust, ill-managed way, it already does so,
has always done so, it could not live else. But it has not done so
fairly, or well, and, therefore, it is ill served, it suffers and
sickens, and in repeated instances has died.
Again and again in history we may see the process: the nascent society
developing, growing more and more specialised and interdependent, that
development reducing the power of individual constituents to take care
of themselves, self-interest weakening in the mass as social interest
became increasingly necessary; and then the most primitive members of
Society, those still most actuated by pre-social instincts, the
surviving savages in civilisation, taking advantage of the immense
social productivity, and claiming for themselves the social wealth.
They are not the world’s best servants. Their power is not the power of
highly specialised talent or genius. It is a truism that the more
ability a man has to serve Society in its advanced needs, as in the arts
and sciences, the less ability he has to “make money,” as we call the
process of individual absorption.
The gold miners and the mint “make money,” all productive labour makes
wealth; but those who secure the most of it for themselves are of quite
another class. The verb “to make” and the verb “to take” have not the
same root.
This illegitimate development of ownership is injurious to Society.
Wealth, in normal circulation, is productive, is a social advantage.
Wealth, in abnormal secretion, is not only unproductive of good, but
absolutely evil in its influence. Yet, the whole process, with all its
mischievous results, is conditioned upon our false concept as to
personal property and the right of ownership. Its glaring heights of
evil are most conspicuous; but the mischief lies not in the special
extreme instance, but in the general condition.
See the effect of a belief in unchecked polygamy. Under economic
pressure, the mass of the people have but one wife, and so are saved the
worst effects. But the crowded harems of the great show most shameful
results—sensuality, cruelty, idleness, physical deterioration,
conspiracy, murder. Are we then to blame the polygamist in proportion to
the number of his wives; or merely to recognise the principle as
wrong,—and the one-wived believer as much in error as Solomon? It is our
common concept of ownership that is to blame, not Carnegie and
Rockefeller.
See how the true principle would work out. Society is a unit, we are but
parts. Social life develops the power to make things—the things which
are essential to social life. Increase in these things is increase in
social wealth and social power—a ceaseless line of development. The good
of Society requires the best development of all its parts—that they may
so produce more. The best development of all the parts requires the full
supply of social goods.
The social goods belong to Society, are made by Society, for Society;
and should be distributed to Society as widely, swiftly, and freely as
possible; so adding to the social good. Now this line of talk, to the
general mind, means a wallowing sea of communism. We see visions of a
flat and uniform world, of no ambition, no distinction, no privacy, no
private property, and therefore no life worth having. This is because we
do not know what private property really is.
Legitimate private property includes all that the individual needs to
consume. All the food he needs, all the clothes he needs, all the
education he needs, all the tools he needs; to each person what he
separately needs, and to each group what they separately need of the
great fund of social advantages. Is not that property enough? All that a
man can legitimately consume is his own, but not what he produces. That
is his return to Society. What he produces is of no use to him, his
dentistry, or surgery, or masonry, his teaching or acting, his
manufacturing or transporting,—this belongs to Society.
We have erred in attaching the claim of ownership to the goods produced.
It belongs only to the goods consumed. The property rights of the
individual to his own food, his own shelter, his own clothing, his own
tools of production,—be they paint brushes, books, or chisels,—need
never be questioned. So fast as production becomes collective, the means
of production become collective. Where a separate weaver had a right to
own the separate loom with which he produced cloth, now the group of
operators, from “hand” to “head,” have a right to own the mill with
which they produce cloth, but not the cloth.
To whom then does the cloth belong, if not the maker? To the wearer, of
course. Cloth, as we have shown before, is a social tissue, it is
evolved for social advantage. It has to be worn by members of Society.
We recognise this so clearly as to have laws commanding people to wear
clothes, punishing them if they do not. Such laws might be justly
applied to silkworms, but hardly to human beings, unless their clothes
are also provided. No doubt a position like this seems impossible to our
minds, so used are we to the other, to the present belief that a man
owns what he produces, and no one has a right to it; but that he has no
right whatever to the necessities of life—to the means of production.
Let us think fairly and courageously about it. Here is a man born. This
product of his is yet potential, he cannot produce until he is grown.
What he produces when he is grown, in kind and quantity, depends on what
he consumes as a baby, boy, and youth. Now since Society needs his
product,—not _he_, mind you, he has no use for the bricks or the books
he will make,—since Society needs his product, and since that product is
conditioned upon his previous consumption of previous product, Society,
in its own interests, must see that he is supplied with all proper
provision,—he has a right to it.
“A right” means an essential condition. Human rights are all social,
conferred by social consent, and resting upon the social good. The right
to individual liberty, the right to justice, any right of any time rests
on the general acceptance of social benefit involved in those rights. We
have seen long ago that the good of Society rested on the best human
productivity; but because we believed that productivity to be
conditioned upon subsequent reward, instead of previous supply, we
defined our rights accordingly.
Our position was like this: Society needs our best product. Man will not
produce, except to gratify his own wants. What he produces is his own,
because it is essential to the gratification of his wants. Therefore,
Society must guarantee to each man the product of his own labour.
The effect of the position is this: Conceiving ourselves to be
independent units, conceiving our end to be the gratification of our
wants, conceiving our product to be a personal possession, and only
produced in order to gratify wants—we necessarily seek to limit the
output of our work to the measure of our wants. The consuming capacity
of the man is made the measure of his production, and under such a
standard we see no way to increase production, except by increasing the
consuming capacity, the wants. This is held by our existing economists
to work well, but they overlook certain essential elements in the
position.
The free production of the world is obviously not that of the persons
who want the most or who get the most. No one can show that a man’s
social value depends on his greediness. To want all things, to want them
intensely, to want them continually, to want them to be of the
best,—this does not add to a man’s industry, or intelligence, to his
skill, ability, talent, or genius. The best and most work comes from
those who have the most ability and inclination to work, though they may
be, and often are, the most modest of consumers. But—and here is the
neglected element in the case—if production is not free—if productive
labour is under any compulsion, then truly those who want the most will,
if they have the power, _compel other men to work the most_. That is, if
you do not make things, but merely take them, it is obvious that the
more you want the more you will take.
To recur to the status of slave labour. In this system productivity is
under direct compulsion. It is proportioned to punishment. The owner of
the slave labour, if he wanted things, took from the slaves the product
of their labour, and the more he wanted the more he took. In this case
the greediness of the owner is productive, his slaves produce more
because he wants more. But if their labour were really free, his wants
would not affect their productivity.
Again, in wage labour, we have the employer and the employee. What is an
employer? He is one who “owns” what other men want. They cannot get what
they want unless he gives it to them. Since these things which they want
are the necessities of life, they must work for pay, they are not free.
The employer, if he wants things, takes from the employee the product of
his labour; and, as before, the more he wants the more he takes. Since
he must, in order to gratify his wants, keep these men alive and
productive, he must return them something; but the action of his wants
upon their labour tends to keep their share at a minimum. This we call
the “iron law of wages.” We hold that it stands to reason that a man
will give as little as he can to get what he wants. This is quite true,
want does not promote productivity.