SECTION CCII.

HARMONY OF THE THREE BRANCHES OF INCOME.--NECESSITY OF THE FEELING OF A COMMON INTEREST.

Every class corresponding to a branch of the national income must live with the consciousness that its interests coincide with the economic interests of the whole nation. Whenever the entire national income increases, each branch of it may increase without any injury to the others, and, as a rule, does really increase.[202-1] But it is possible that the land owning class may be specially dependent on the prosperity of the whole people. How easy it is for workmen to emigrate; and how much easier yet for capital! England, to-day, can scarcely carry on a great war, in which it would not, at least at the beginning, have to fight English capital.[202-2] Where the treasure is, the heart is also! The land alone is immovable. It alone cannot be withdrawn from the pressure of taxation or from the distress of war. It alone cannot flee into foreign parts.[202-3] [202-4] At the same time, it cannot be denied that the possibility of being able to carry one's fortune out of a country in one's pocketbook and to be able to procure there with one's money the same conveniences, customs, etc., to which one was accustomed at home, is, under certain circumstances, an important element of political and religious freedom. Moreover, the bright side and the dark of every class of owners, especially the dread of all unnecessary and also of all necessary change, must be common to rent and interest. Hence, where there is a marked and well-defined separation of the branches of income, it will be always considered a difficult but unavoidable problem, how to enable mere labor to take an active part in the affairs of the state.[202-5]

In times when calm prevails (not, however, in transition-crises such as are referred to in § 24), there is a public opinion concerning merit and reward, we might say a public conscience, by which a definite relation of the three branches of income to one another is declared equitable. Every "fair-minded man" feels satisfied when this relation is realized, and this feeling of satisfaction is one of the principal conditions precedent to the prosperity of production; inasmuch as upon it depends the participation (Theilnahme) of all owners of funds and forces. Every deviation from this relation or proportion is, of course, a misfortune,[202-6] but never so great as when it takes place at the expense of the wages of labor. It should never be forgotten that rent is an appropriation of the gifts of nature, and that interest is a further fruit obtained by frugality from older labor already remunerated. Besides, the rate of wages when high, generally adds to the efficiency of labor, which cannot be claimed for interest or rent.[202-7] The best means to preserve the harmony of the three branches of income is, however, universal activity. "Rich or poor, strong or weak, the idler is a knave." (J. J. Rousseau.)

Related to this is the fact that, in Adam Smith's time, the new theory of rent remained almost unnoticed, but that after 1815, it became rapidly popular. In a similar way, the socialists of the present time are wont to charge the undertaking class with opposing their own interests to those of the whole people, meaning by the whole the majority. (§ 196 a.)]

I read, a short time ago, the life of a North-German noblemen who, in 1813, had fought bravely against the French, "although he was a man of large estates, and the enemy might therefore very easily have laid hands on them." If this "although" of his eulogist expressed the actual feeling of large landed proprietors, a great many old political institutions would have lost all foundation.

Ad. Müller was of opinion that the rights of primogeniture, etc., might be an obstacle in the way of the development of the net income of a nation's economy; but that they gave to the state and to the national life the warlike tone so necessary to them, etc. (Elemente, II, 90.)]