CHAPTER II.. Luxury.

LUXURY.

SECTION CCXXIV.

LUXURY IN GENERAL.

The idea conveyed by the word luxury is an essentially relative one. Every individual calls all consumption with which he can dispense himself, and every class that which seems not indispensable to themselves, luxury. The same is true of every age and nation. Just as young people ridicule every old fashion as pedantry, every new fashion is censured by old people as luxury.[224-1]

But (§ I) a higher civilization always finds expression in an increased number and an increased urgency of satisfied wants. Yet, there is a limit at which new or intensified wants cease to be an element of higher civilization, and become elements of demoralization. Every immoral and every unwise want exceeds this limit.[224-2] Immoral wants are not only those the satisfaction of which wounds the conscience, but also those in which the necessities of the soul are postponed to the affording of superfluities to the body; and where the enjoyment of the few is purchased at the expense of the wretchedness of the many. And not only those are unwise or imprudent for which the voluntary outlay is greater than one's income, but those also where the indispensable is made to suffer for the dispensable.

Thus it was in Athens, in the time of Demosthenes, when the festivities of the year cost more than the maintenance of the fleet; when Euripides' tragedies came dearer to the people than the Persian war in former times. There was even a law passed (Ol. 107,4) prohibiting the application of the dramatic fund to purposes of war under pain of death.[224-3]

In the history of any individual people, it may be shown with approximate certainty at what point luxury exceeded its salutary limits. But in the case of two different nations, it is quite possible that what was criminal prodigality with the one, may have been a salutary enjoyment of life with the other; in case their economic (wirthschaftlichen) powers are different. Precisely as in the case of individuals, where for instance, the daily drinking of table wine may be simplicity in the rich and immoral luxury in the case of a poor father of a family.[224-4] Healthy reason has this peculiarity, that where people will not listen to it, it never hesitates to make itself felt. (Benjamin Franklin.)[224-5]

However, the luxury of a period always throws itself, by way of preference, on those branches of commodities which are cheapest.

The reasons and counter-reasons advanced by those writers apply not only to luxury but to the lights and shades of high civilization in general. When a political economist declares for or against luxury in general, he resembles a doctor who should declare for or against the nerves in general. There has been luxury in every country and in every age. Among a healthy people, luxury is also healthy, an essential element in the general health of the nation. Among an unhealthy people luxury is a disease, and disease-engendering.

For an impartial examination of the question, see Ferguson, History of Civil Society, towards the end; see also Beckmann, in Justis' Grundsätzen der Polizei, 1782, § 308; Rau, Ueber den Luxus, 1817; Roscher, Ueber den Luxus, in the Archiv der Politischen Oekonomie, 1843, and in his Ansichten der Volkswirthschaft, 1861, 399 ff.]