SECTION CCXIV.. Causes of an Increase of Production.

CAUSES OF AN INCREASE OF PRODUCTION.

Only when wants increase does production increase also.[214-1] The old maxim: Si quem volueris esse divitem, non est quod augeas divitias, sed minuas cupiditates (Seneca), would, if consistently carried out, have thwarted the advance of civilization and frustrated the improvement of man's condition. On the other hand, most political economists, without more ado, assume that individuals, and still more nations, are wont to extend the aggregate of their enjoyments just as far as there is a possibility of satisfying their wants. But they forget here how great a part is played in the world, as men are constituted, by the principle of inertia.[214-2] At the first blush, what seems more natural than that the less labor a people need employ to obtain the most indispensable means of subsistence, the more time and taste would remain to them to satisfy their more refined wants. According to this, we should expect to discover a more refined civilization, especially, in intellectual matters, in the earliest periods, when population is small, when land exists in excess and is not yet exhausted. But, in reality, precisely the reverse is the case. In the earliest stages of civilization accessible to our observation, we find materialism prevailing in its coarsest form, and life absorbed entirely by the lowest physical wants. (Tropical lands.) Where bread grows on the trees, and one needs only to reach out his hand and pluck it; where all one wants to cover his nakedness is a few palm leaves, ordinary souls find no incentive to an ant-like activity, or to a union among themselves for economic purposes.[214-3] When a Mexican countryman earns enough to keep himself and his family from absolute want by two days' labor in a week, he idles away the other five. It never occurs to him that he might devote his leisure time to putting his hut or his household furniture, etc., in better shape. The necessity of foresight even is almost unknown; and in the most luxuriantly fertile country in the world, a bad harvest immediately leads to the most frightful famine. Humboldt was assured that there was no hope of making the people more industrious except by the destruction of the banana plantations.[214-4] But, indeed, there would be little gained by such compulsory industry. To work for any other end than satiation, it is necessary that man should feel wants beyond the want created by mere hunger.[214-5] There are so many conditions precedent (and mutually limiting one another) to a general advance in civilization, that such an advance can, as a rule, take place only very gradually. Let us suppose, for instance, a single Indian in Mexico, perfectly willing to work six days in the week, and in this way to cultivate a piece of land three times as great as his fellow Indians. Where would he get the land? He would, for a time find no purchasers for his surplus, and therefore not be in a condition to pay the landlord as much as the latter hitherto received from the pasturage alone. Not until cities are built and offer the rural population the products of industry in exchange for theirs, can they be incited to, or become capable of effecting a better cultivation of the land. This incentive and this capacity, are inseparably connected with each other. Where the agricultural population produce no real surplus, but after the fashion of medieval times, produce everything they want themselves, and consume all their own products with the exception of the part paid to the state as a tax, there can scarcely be an industrial class, a commercial class, or a class devoted to science, art, etc. And, conversely, it is only the higher civilization which finds expression in the development of these classes, that, by a more skillful guidance of the national labor, can call forth its productiveness to an extent sufficient to yield a considerable surplus of agricultural commodities over and above the most immediate wants of the cultivators of the soil themselves. Hence, we find that precisely in those countries which are most advanced in the economic sense, there is relatively the smallest number of men engaged in agriculture, and relatively the largest number in production of a finer kind.[214-6] It is here as in private housekeeping: the poorer a man is, the greater is the portion of his income which he is wont to lay out for indispensable necessities.[214-7] [214-8]

=======================+========================================= | EXPENSES OF +--------------------+----------+--------- | a laborer's | family |a well- | family | of the |to-do Consumption Purpose. | in comfortable | middle |family. | circumstances. | class. | +----------+---------+----------+--------- | In | In | In | In |Belgium.|Saxony.|Saxony. |Saxony. | per | per | per | per | cent. | cent. | cent. | cent. -----------------------+----------+---------+----------+--------- Food, | 61 \ | 62 \ | 55 \ | 50 \ Clothing, | 15 } | 16 } 95 | 18 } 90 | 18 } 85 Shelter, | 10 } 95 | 12 } | 12 } | 12 } Heating and lighting, | 5 } | 5 / | 5 / | 5 / Utensils and tools, | 4 / | | | | | | | Education, instruction,| 2 \ | 2 \ | 3.5 \ | 5.5 \ Public security, | 1 } 5 | 1 } 5 | 2 } 10 | 3 } 15 Sanitary purposes, | 1 } | 1 } | 2 } | 3 } Personal services, | 1 / | 1 / | 2.5 / | 3.5 / =======================+==========+=========+==========+=========

Hence Engel thinks that when the articles of food, clothing, shelter, heating and lighting have become dearer by 50 per cent., and other wants have not, and it is desired to proportionately increase the salaries of officials, salaries of 300, 600 and 1,000 thalers should be raised to 427.5, 800 and 1,275 thalers respectively. (Preuss. Statist. Zeitschr., 1875.) E. Herrmann, Pricipien der Wirthsch., 106, estimates that in all Europe, 45.6 of all consumption is for food, 13.2 for clothing, 5.7 for shelter, 4.6 for furnishing, 5.3 for heating and lighting, 2.6 for tools and utensils, 13.3 for public security, 6.6 for purposes of recreation. Compare Leplay, Les Ouvriers Européens, 1855, and v. Prittwitz, Kunst reich zu werden, 487 ff. The expenses for shelter, service and sociability are specially apt to increase with an increase of income.]

The moderns have frequently inequitably neglected the doctrine of consumption. Thus it appears to be a very characteristic fact that in Adam Smith's great book, there is no division bearing the title "consumption," and in the Basel edition of 1801, that word does not occur in the index. Droz says that in reading the works of certain of his followers, one might think that products were not made for the sake of man, but man for their sake. But, on the other hand, there came a strong reaction with Lauderdale, Inquiry, ch. 5; Sismondi, N. Principes, L., II, passim; Ganilh, Dictionnaire Analytique, 93 ff., 159 ff.; but especially, and with important scientific discoveries, Malthus, Principles, B. II. St. Chamans, Nouvel Essai sur la Richesse des Nations, 1824, is an exaggerated caricature of the theory of consumption. For instance, he resolves the income of individuals into foreign demand or the demand of strangers (29); considers the first condition of public credit to lie in the making of outlay (32); and even calls entirely idle consumers productive, for the reason that they elevate by their demand a utilité possible, to the dignity of a utilité réelle (286 ff.) The view advocated by Mirabeau, and referred to above, again represented by E. Solly, Considerations on Political Economy, 1814, and by Weishaupt, Ueb. die Staatsausgaben und Auflagen, 1819. And so according to Carey, Principles, ch. 35, § 6, the real difficulty does not lie in production, but in finding a purchaser for the products. But he overlooks the fact here that only the possessor of other products can appear as a purchaser. From another side, most socialists think almost exclusively of the wants of men, and scarcely consider it worth their while to pay any attention to the means of satisfying them.]