LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
Class
AN INQUIRY
INTO
THE NATURAL GROUNDS OF RIGHT
TO
VENDIBLE PROPERTY,
OR
WEALTH.
POLITICAL ECONOMY.
AN
INQUIRY ,
INTO
THE NATURAL GROUNDS OF RIGHT
TO
VENDIBLE PROPERTY,
OR
WEALTH.
BY SAMUEL READ.
v- ' * ^ T r^v
OF 1 V,
UNIVERSITY 1
OF
EDINBURGH :
PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR;
AND SOLD BY
OLIVER & BOYD, EDINBURGH, AND SIMPKIN & MARSHALL,
LONDON.
1829.
GENERA
OLIVER & BOYD, PRINTERS.
PREFACE.
BY all who are acquainted with the most recent and most
noted works on Political Economy, it will be readily ad-
mitted that the science is at present in a very unsettled
and unsatisfactory state. There is indeed scarcely a single
doctrine if we except that of commercial freedom, as ex-
plained long since by the French economists upon which
there is a perfect and uniform, or even a general agreement,
among the numerous sects and schools into which this
science is now divided.
Almost all Dr Smith's doctrines have been controverted
and rejected separately by one or another, whilst every one
still assents and adheres to the greater part of them, and
whilst all still continue to bestow on their author the high-
est eulogiums. For although every different school and
sect finds a fault, and picks out a feature to condemn, in
the " Wealth of Nations," it so happens that where one
finds a deformity, another finds a beauty ; so that the greater
part of that work is still approved of by the majority, and
still it is deemed worthy of the highest commendations.
VI PREFACE.
Such notoriously is the present condition of this science ;*
and it is now at length beginning to be pretty generally felt
and acknowledged, that it has been chiefly owing to the ad-
mixture and addition of the dogmas and paradoxes of Mr
Ricardo and his followers with the plain and luminous doc-
trines of Dr Smith that the result described has been
brought about. Even the Edinburgh Review, which has
long lent its sanction and its powerful aid to propagate those
dogmas, seems at length inclined to look about upon them
with suspicion, and to show palpable symptoms of a dispo-
sition to retrace its steps, and to repudiate the misshapen and
unsightly brood it has been induced to foster. On the sub-
ject of poor-laws it has recanted downright,-)- and in the
last numberj it says, " There are so many crude and mis-
chievous theories afloat which are dignified with the name
of Political Economy, that the science is in no small dan-
ger of falling into disrepute with a large portion of the
world."
When I began the following work, although I was chief-
ly stimulated to undertake it from observing those nume-
rous new, and, as it appeared to me, false theories, which
were then first broached, it was my intention not to have
* If indeed that can deserve the name of science in which so many
discordant opinions and doctrines are so pertinaciously maintained.
t See No 94, article 2.
{ No 95, p. 170.
What crude theory is it that the Edinburgh Review has not borne
afloat and propagated, in reference to the subject alluded to, during the
last ten years ?
PREFACE, Vll
noticed or controverted them directly, but simply to have
expounded and set forth what appeared to me to be the
truth on the subjects to be treated, and so to have under-
mined and overturned them in the easiest manner. In the
progress of my work, however, I found it impossible to ad-
here to this resolution, or to avoid all contact or collision
with the authors and promulgators of those theories ; and
the reader will therefore find a considerable portion I be-
lieve about one third of the book of a controversial nature.
In thus departing from the plan I had originally chalked
out for my guidance, it was a great satisfaction, and a plea-
sure to me to find myself encouraged and supported, and
my apology on this head anticipated, by a very able writer
on Political Economy, whose work was published while I
was in the midst of these investigations.
" In the present state of Political Economy," says the
writer I allude to, " a critical reference to the doctrines of
preceding and contemporary economists cannot be avoided,
and ought not to be avoided if it could. A mere direct ex-
pository treatise would be of far inferior utility. However
true a doctrine may be, it is of little service until its rela-
tion to other doctrines, and its connexion with knowledge
already extant, has been shown. Embarrassed as the science
is with difficulties on which opinion is divided, it is of the
utmost importance for its further progress, not only to ex-
plain and establish correct principles, but to expose the de-
lusion which has formerly misled, to trace the process of
error, to mark the particular point where inquiry departed
from the right path, or where the unperceived fallacy, which
Vlll PBEFACE.
has vitiated a train of reasoning, first insinuated itself into
the argument. The science cannot yet be exhibited as a re-
gular and perfect structure. The rubbish must be removed,
the ground cleared, the scaffolding taken down, and all un-
necessary and cumbrous appendages must be discarded, be-
fore the building can rise upon the eye in that simple beauty
in which it is destined hereafter to appear."*
And further, the same author observes in the same place,
" From the defects here imputed to the science, it is evi-
dent that in any work, which professes to examine and re-
move them, the points discussed must be questions as to
* See the preface to " A Critical Dissertation on the Nature, Mea-
sures, and Causes of Value/' by the author of" Essays on the Forma-
tion and Publication of Opinions."
Notwithstanding the very high respect I entertain for this author,
it will be seen in the course of the following pages, that I find occa-
sion to differ from him very widely in his main positions in the ' ' Criti-
cal Dissertation." It appears to me that the fundamental error in that
work, and that from which all the others to be found in it flow, con-
sists in his treating of value as if it were a mere relation of commodi-
ties between themselves ; whereas it appears to me that the idea of
value in commodities cannot even be conceived without being mingled
with the idea of their relation to mankind and to human labour, of
which some portion must always be employed in producing or pro-
curing them originally.
Lord Lauderdale is quoted as an authority for saying, " We cannot
express value, or a variation of value, without a comparison of two
commodities," (see the work referred to, p. 4.) Now this is a mis-
take, for we can express it by a comparison with labour, which is not
a commodity.
PREFACE. IX
the use of terms, the distinction of ideas, the logical depen-
dence of arguments, rather than questions of fact or evi-
dence, and that its character will be essentially critical, and
even polemic. 1 "
But, although it may be true perhaps that this science
" cannot yet be exhibited as a regular and perfect structure, 1 "
and although in its present state the mere removal of " the
rubbish' 1 would be a service of no mean importance, still it
is hoped that something more than this is accomplished in
the following performance.
Political Economy has been hitherto designated as the
science which treats of the production and distribution of
wealth, and it has been totally overlooked that this in-
cludes the demonstration of the right to wealth. It is
here therefore, for the first time, treated as an investigation
concerning the right to wealth, (or property ;) and this
innovation, while it gives a more important and a more
definite object to the science, presents it under a new
and totally different aspect from that in which it has hither-
to appeared, and causes it to assume an entirely new shape.
Whether this be an improvement, or the contrary, it will be
for the readers, and for those impartial persons who are ac-
quainted with the subject, to decide.
liosuN, October, 1829.
To obviate an objection that may be taken to our Title, and
to the way in which the word Natural is used in it, I adduce the
following explanation of the meaning of that word, whence the sense
will appear in which it is here employed ;
" NATURAL may be opposed either to what is unusual, miraculous,
or artificial. In the two former senses, justice and property are un-
doubtedly natural." Hume ; Inquiry concerning the Principles of
Morals, Appendix 3, note.
" If self-love, if benevolence be natural to man ; if reason and fore-
thought be also natural ; then may the epithet be applied to justice,
order, fidelity, property, society. Men's inclination, their necessi-
ties, lead them to combine ; their understanding and experience tell
them that this combination is impossible, where each governs him-
self by no rule, and pays no regard to the possessions of others : and
from these passions and reflections conjoined, as soon as we observe
like passions and reflections in others, the sentiment of justice,
throughout all ages, has infallibly and certainly had place, to some
degree or other, in every individual of the human species. In so sa-
gacious an animal, what necessarily arises from the exertion of his in-
tellectual faculties, may justly be esteemed natural." Hume; Inquiry
concerning the Principles of Morals, Appendix 3.
A sense of justice and property is found, as will be shown in the
following work, even among savages ; and shall we deny that to be
natural to man which u has infallibly and certainly had place" in his
bosom, and influenced his conduct " throughout all ages ?"
ERRATA.
P. 374, line 1, for keep, read help.
46, last line but one, in note, for and read or.
CONTENTS.
Page
INTRODUCTION, ...xvii
BOOK I.
ON THE NATURAL GROUNDS OF RIGHT TO VENDIBLE PROPERTY
OR WEALTH, AS ARISING FROM THE MANNER IN WHICH IT IS
PRODUCED OR ACQUIRED ORIGINALLY, AND FROM THE CONDI-
TIONS NECESSARY TO ITS EXISTENCE IN ANY CONSIDERABLE
QUANTITY OR ABUNDANCE.
CHAPTER I.
Of Wealth, Property, and Value Wealth defined, 1
CHAPTER II.
Of the Matter and Forms of Wealth. Nature of Production, 12
SECT. I. The Nature of Production explained, ib.
II. The Matter and Forms of Wealth reviewed, 18
CHAPTER III.
Analysis and Classification of Wealth in reference to its different Uses
and Employments, 22
CHAPTER IV.
Of Productive and Unproductive Labour, 35
CHAPTER V.
Of the Class of Non-labourers ; or of those Persons who do not labour at
all, or need to labour, 42
Ill CONTENTS.
Page
SECT. I.- That the only Persons entitled to exemption from Labour, are
the Proprietors of Land and the Proprietors of Capital, 42
II. Of the Manner in which Capital improves the Condition of
the Labouring Class, 48
III. Conclusion of the Chapter, 56
CHAPTER VI.
Of the material Means or Instruments of Production, and that these are
the only original Sources of Wealth, 61
CHAPTER VII.
Of the Manner in which Capital contributes to Production, 65
SECT. I. Capital defined Its potent Agency in Production- Distinc-
tion of fixed and circulating Capitals The Acquisition or
Existence of both those Sorts of Capitals, or of Capital in
general, a Condition necessary to the Existence or Attain.
nient of the System of the Division of Labour, ib.
II. Of the Mode in which the Division of Labour produces its Ef-
fect of assisting and improving the Powers of Production,... 71
III. That the Acquisition or Existence of Capital is a Condition ne-
cessary to the Establishment or Existence of the Division of
Labour, ,80
IV. Conclusion of the Chapter. That all Wealth is not produced
by Labour alone, but by Labour and Capital together, 83
CHAPTER VIII.
The natural Grounds of Right to Property defined and enumerated, 89
CHAPTER IX.
The Three original Grounds of Right to Property traced to their Founda-
tion in the Principles of Human Nature, 94
SECT. I. Of the Right to Property founded on Labour, ib.
II. Of the Right to Land, 100
III. Of the Right to Capital in general, 118
CHAPTER X.
Of the Moral Causes of Production, 140
SECT. I. The Two grand Moral Causes of Production delineated, and
a highly-important concurrent Effect of these Causes
pointed out, 140
II. Of the First Moral Cause of Production, 143
CONTENTS. Xlli
Page
SICT. III. Of the Second Moral Cause of Production, 146
IV. Of the Effects of good Government, 154
BOOK II.
ON THE CAUSES WHICH, UNDER THE SYSTEM OF THE DIVISION OF LA-
BOUR, NATURALLY REGULATE THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH, AND
WHICH UNDER GOOD GOVERNMENT NECESSARILY DETERMINE THE
EXACT SHARE THAT EVERY DIFFERENT INDIVIDUAL IS ENTITLED
TO CONSUME, OR TO POSSESS AND COMMAND, IN STBICT ACCORD.
ANCE WITH THE NATURAL GROUNDS OF RIGHT TO IT, AS THESE
HAVE BEEN EXPLAINED IN THE PRECEDING BOOK.
CHAPTER I.
General Exposition of the Causes which naturally regulate the Distribu-
tion of Wealth under the System of the Division of Labour, and of
the Principle on which these Causes depend, 177
SECT. I. Demonstration of the Principle which naturally regulates the
Distribution of Wealth under the System of the Division
of Labour, ib.
II. General Statement of the Effects in regard to Distribution,
which the Principle explained in the foregoing Section is
naturally calculated to produce, 183
CHAPTER II.
Of the Instrument of Distribution, Money, 192
CHAPTER III.
That Labour is the only certain Measure of Value, 199
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III.
On the Nature of Value, 219
SECT. I. Introduction, ib.
II. Of the Puzzle founded on the Nature of Exchangeable Value,
and on the Notion of its being a mere Relation of Commo-
dities between themselves, 220
III. Of Absolute Value, 227
XIV CONTENTS.
Page
CHAPTER IV.
Of the Causes which regulate the Price of Commodities ; what consti-
tutes Cost of Production, and what the constituent Parts of Price
really are, 231
SECT. I. Of Natural and Market Price. Price denned, ib.
II. -That the Labour expended in Production regulates the Na-
tural Price of Commodities in the early Period of Society,
before the Labourer and Capitalist become distinct Per-
sons, and that the Capital expended regulates it after
that Period, 236
CHAPTER V.
The distinct Nature of the three different Denominations of Income or
Revenue, namely, Rent, Wages, and Profit or Interest, explained and
discriminated, 243
CHAPTER VI.
Of the Profit or Interest of Stock or Capital, 262
SECT. I. Profit of Stock defined, ib.
II. Of the Circumstances which regulate and determine the ordi-
nary and average, or natural Rate of Profit, at any particu-
lar Time and Place, ......273
CHAPTER VII.
Of the Rent of Land, ...292
SECT. I. Rent defined, ib.
II. Of the Circumstances which regulate the Amount of Rent at
any particular Time or Place, 297
III. Corollary from the preceding View of the Nature and Causes
of Rent That the Interest of the Land-Proprietors is
inseparably connected with the Interest of the Commu-
nity........ 302
CHAPTER VIII.
Of the Wages of Labour, 307
SECT. I. Of the Right to Wages Limits of that Right defined
Wages defined, ib.
II. Of the Circumstances which give occasion to a difference of
Wages in different Employments, , 314
III Of the Causes which regulate the natural Rate of Wages,.... 325
CONTENTS. XV
Page
CHAPTER IX.
Of Poor-Laws, 342
SECT. I. Introduction to the Chapter, ib.
II. The Poor-Laws of England ill-contrived and imperfect, con-
sidered as a System calculated for all Times and Circum-
stances Still worse administered. Possibility of a Legal
and Compulsory Provision for the Poor, without thereby
increasing their Numbers, 344
III. Right of the Poor to Support, 363
CHAPTER X.
Of Taxes and Public Debts, 376
SECT. I. Taxes defined That all three distinct Sorts of Revenue af-
ford Taxes, Wages as well as Profit and Rent, 376
II. Of Taxes and Public Debts as they affect the Condition of
the Labouring Classes of People, 383
APPENDIX to the last Chapter, 392
INTRODUCTION.
PART I.
THE rights and duties of men in society have reference to
three distinct objects ; to persons, to property, and to the
whole society or state ; and the science of politics, which
is the science of all that is right and wrong, and that
should, or should not, be established as compulsatory law,
in regard to those rights and duties, naturally divides itself
into three several parts, or branches, every one of which
grows, in time, to be treated and regarded as a separate and
distinct science by itself.
The peculiar object of each of these three several parts,
or branches, of political science may be stated as follows :
1. The first branch is that which is confined to the in-
vestigation and demonstration of all that is right and wrong,
and that should, or should not, be established as compulsa-
tory law, or " positive institution,""* in regard to those rights
and duties of men in society, which relate chiefly or exclu-
If I might be allowed to coin a word, which seems to me very
necessary here, I would say institutional, in the sense of established
and compulsatory law, and as opposed to, or distinct from, natural
law or right. Established or institutional law may be right or wrong ;
but natural law is the same thing with natural or real right itself.
b
XV111 INTRODUCTION.
sively to the person, its safety and liberty ; and which, al-
though it has not yet been distinguished (in so far at least
as I am aware) by any very appropriate, or generally recog-
nized appellation, has nevertheless been very amply and
ably treated, in all its details, by a numerous class of
writers.
II. The second branch of political science is that which
comprises the investigation and demonstration of all that is
right and wrong, and that should, or should not, be estab-
lished as compulsatory or institutional law, in regard to
those rights and duties of men in society which relate chiefly
or exclusively to property, i. e. transferable property or
wealth, and which has lately grown up into an extensive
and important separate science, under the name of " Poli-
tical Economy."*
* It might have been called, perhaps with greater propriety, the
science of Political Justice ; seeing that its chief object is to demon-
strate what is just or unjust, in all the most important and difficult
points relating to the production and distribution of property or
wealth ; property (i. e. vendible or transferable property) being the
chief, if not the only, subject of the virtue of justice. The terms just
and unjust are nearly, if not altogether, synonymous with those of
honest and dishonest; and are applied chiefly, if not exclusively, to
conduct or actions which have property for their subject ; and it will
be found that all the discussions in Political Economy are directly or
indirectly connected with the illustration of justice : as, for example,
those concerning free trade, monopolies, or restrictions, and other
regulations of commerce, go to show their justice or injustice, as in-
terfering, properly or improperly, with the production and distribu-
tion, and consequently with the possession or enjoyment, and conse-
quently with the right, to wealth or property.
I may add, that those discussions, and the science itself of Political
Economy, are chiefly, if not exclusively, valuable in proportion as
they tend to illustrate the subject of right or justice in regard to the
distribution, -or acquisition and possession, of property.
INTRODUCTION. xix
III. The third and last division of the science of politics
is that which includes all questions as to the rights and du-
ties of independent states, or as to all that is right and
wrong in their intercourse and treatment of one another,
and which is well enough designated and understood by the
title of " International Law."
These three divisions comprise the whole body of the
science of politics ; which is manifestly therefore the science
of natural or real right in regard to property, and to per-
sonal as well as national security and liberty : by natural
or real right being understood, such modes of conduct and
relations to persons and property as can be demonstrated
to be consistent with the general good of mankind, and the
best form of civil society, or with " those general principles
which," as has been observed by a writer of the highest class
and authority,* " ought to run through and be the founda-
tion of the laws of all nations."f
It will be observed from what has been now stated, that
political science takes cognizance of that class of rights and
duties only which fall to be guaranteed or regulated by in-
stitutional law and force, that is to say, the observance of
which must be compelled, when necessary, by the whole
force of the society excluding altogether from its view or
jurisdiction that other and perhaps still more numerous
class which are discretionary ; or which, although they may
be not less imperative than the former in point of moral ob-
ligation, must yet be left to the free will and judgment, or
conscience, of the obligant, as not being of that peculiar and
determinate character which should render them fit to be
enforced by compulsatory law.
* Dr Smith.
t Theory of Moral Sentiments, part 7, sec. 4, at the end.
XX INTRODUCTION.
With regard to the first and third branches of Political
Science, (taking them in the order in which they are set
down above,) we are to have nothing to do with them in the
following treatise ; and I have only mentioned them here
for the purpose of laying them expressly and distinctly aside,
and of circumscribing, by that means, the more perfectly
our field of inquiry,* which is to be entirely and strictly
confined to the second division above-mentioned, viz. Poli-
tical Economy or Political Justice.
Political Economy has, by most late writers, been de-
scribed as the science which investigates the " Laws*"*)-
which regulate the production and distribution (to which
* It appears to me to be essentkl to the improvement and perfec-
tion of the different branches of Political and Moral Science, to know
their precise nature, extent, and limits, their genealogy or affinities,
so to speak, and the place which they occupy in the field of human
knowledge ; and always to treat them after this manner, and to keep
in view those affinities, might greatly facilitate the work of one day
combining and exhibiting them as one connected, consentaneous, and
complete whole.
There is another rule which I will here notice as of the utmost im-
portance, and indeed altogether indispensable to any improvement in
the moral sciences, and that is to treat them always with a reference
to that great end for which alone all human science is or ought to
be cultivated, namely, the furthering of the happiness of the world,
or of mankind. Nothing is so well calculated to keep us from falling
into errors, or to bring us back into the right path, when we have
wandered from it, as to have this great end constantly in sight, and
to make constant reference to it when difficulties occur. This is the
golden rule for philosophizing, in this department, above all others.
f Meaning, of course, the natural laws, which are observed to re-
gulate the production and distribution of wealth under the system of
the division of labour, and of barter, or exchange, and where the
right to accumulate as well as to 'freely produce and exchange pro-
perty (which is an essential part of the system of the division of la-
bour) is guaranteed and maintained to every individual by the united
force of the whole society or government.
INTRODUCTION. XXI
some persons have added, very needlessly in my opinion,
the consumption) of wealth. But there is another and a
far more important and more interesting subject, upon
which the investigation of the laws which regulate the pro-
duction and distribution of wealth is calculated to throw a
new and clear light, and which it is now full time should be
introduced and shown forth as one of the chief objects of the
science of Political Economy, namely, upon the natural
grounds of right to it. For as the right to wealth or trans-
ferable property is acquired solely from the manner in which
it is produced and exchanged, or distributed, under the sys-
tem of the division of labour ; that system does in fact con-
sign it, as it were, to its proper owners ; or what comes to
the same thing, the natural laws which regulate barter or
exchange under that system, (where men are allowed to act
freely under them, without any undue or unnecessary con-
straint or restrictions,) cause it to fall necessarily into the
hands of those who have the proper or natural right to it.
Yet this most interesting and most important object of Po-
litical Economy has been entirely overlooked by preceding
writers ; and although it has necessarily happened that the
whole drift of their reasonings, and all the arguments em-
ployed by them, (where they have not deviated altogether
into paradox and absurdity,) have always had a tendency,
more or less apparent, to illustrate the question of right to
property,* they have never once mentioned that question
* It may indeed seem very obvious that the science of the produc-
tion and distribution of wealth or property the common definition
of Political Economy can be nothing else but the science of what
has been called the rights of property. If you explain correctly how
property is produced, and how it is properly or justly distributed,
you must of necessity show the natural grounds of right to it ; that
is, you must show who it is that, according to the natural and equit-
able laws of distribution, should possess and enjoy it that is, in
other words, who has the right to it.
XX11 INTRODUCTION.
as forming any part of their subject, and far less have they
ever thought of treating it, directly or expressly, as a lead-
ing point in their inquiries.
Nor ought this perhaps to be considered as altogether
so surprising a circumstance as at first sight it may appear
to be ; for it often happens in the infancy of the different
sciences, that all their usefulness, and all the subjects on
which they are destined to throw light, do not discover them-
selves at once, and frequently not until a considerable pro-
gress has been made in them. Still, however, it will be ad-
mitted that the want of a distinct perception of the chief
and ultimate object of our inquiries must form a serious ob-
struction to our successful prosecution of them ; and it is
probably much owing to this circumstance, that so little ad-
vance or improvement has been made in the science of Poli-
tical Economy since the time of Dr Smith, notwithstanding
the greatly increased attention which the subject has attracted
of late years, and the immense volume of disquisition that
has been published upon it.*
* It is true, that many of the questions in Political Economy have
received a more ample discussion, and some of its soundest doctrines
a fuller and more complete demonstration and development; but no
real or considerable advance or improvement, or any thing deserving
the name of discovery, has been made in the science since the period
mentioned in the text. On the contrary, the new theories which are
so much in vogue at present, appear to me to rest on a far too slender
and insufficient foundation of fact and argument to be accounted
such ; instead of advancing the science, they seem rather to have
thrown it back, and have given to the present inquiries respecting it
a totally erroneous and unprofitable bent ; and of this perhaps it may
be deemed no unequivocal indication or evidence^ that the late sup-
posed improvements, instead of reconciling contrary opinions, and
throwing a clear light upon its more abstruse questions, have totally
overclouded and involved them in a thicker darkness, and have intro-
duced many new points of difference which did not before exist,
INTRODUCTION. XX111
If, indeed, we go back to the period when Dr Smith
wrote, and to the state in which he found the science, it
will not appear at all extraordinary that the view of it here
explained should not have been taken, or rather should not
have been brought conspicuously or expressly forward by
him ; for, having the cue now given, it will not be difficult
to discover that all his disquisitions, and the whole drift and
tendency of his arguments, as has been already hinted, point
more or less obviously and unequivocally to this object.
But it was not then necessary to extend the view so far, or
perhaps even possible to treat the subject with advantage,
in the manner here proposed, until many preliminary topics
and extensive questions were previously discussed and settled.
After the publication of the " Wealth of Nations," however,
this view of the subject was brought comparatively near ;
and had Dr Smith lived to proceed farther in that great
work, the design of which he has recorded at the conclusion
of his " Theory of Moral Sentiments,"* or rather, had he
found the science of political economy in the advanced
state in which he left it, and come to the farther consider-
ation of the subject with unexhausted vigour, it is not to be
doubted but that the view here given would have opened
upon him, and that he would have carried his inquiries to a
degree of perfection which would have left little now to wish
for or to add. But be this as it may, it seems to me now
to be absolutely necessary to the further progress of the
science, that it should be treated in this manner ; that it
should be well understood, and explicitly set down in the
front of , the discussion, that the great object of political eco-
nomy is to point out and demonstrate the natural grounds
of right upon which the great laws of property are or ought
* See likewise the advertisement prefixed to that work.
XXIV INTRODUCTION.
to be founded, and upon which they must ultimately rest
for their justification and stability.
As to what the institutional or established law actually is
or has been, at any period of time, or in any particular
country, we shall have nothing to do with that question in
the following investigations, that is a subject of inquiry
which belongs properly to the lawyers and judges of the
time and place, whose business and office it is to propound,
declare, and administer the laws whatever they may be.
Our subject, on the contrary, is to demonstrate and deter-
mine what the established law should be in all matters re-
lating to wealth or property, at all times and in all coun-
tries, without knowing or caring what it is in any.
The established laws, indeed, in countries which have a
code approaching in any reasonable degree to common sense
or justice, will of course coincide generally with the natural
law, and consequently legal with natural right. But in no
country will this coincidence be found universal or com-
plete, since all the world knows that, even in countries
where the institutions are the least imperfect, what is called
a legal right is not unfrequently a natural and moral
wrong.*
* It is not, of course, insinuated that absolute perfection is to be at-
tained in the laws or government of any state, any more than in the
human character itself, or affairs in general ; but if there is any one
department of law which, more than any other, may be expected to
approach perfection, it is that which relates to property and justice ;
and if absolute perfection should be unattainable even here, still it is
allowable (I hope laudable) to endeavour to advance as near to it as we
can. And it will not now, I trust, be considered as any improbable or
unwarranted position to hold, that, by investigation, discussion, and
reasoning, the laws may be improved in all countries, and legal and
moral rights be made to approximate more nearly to one another than
they yet do in any country, or under any government, even the best
that exists ; for the case with regard to improvement (it can never be
INTRODUCTION. XX V
And yet it has been asserted by an author of no mean
consideration or authority, that the only foundation of our
right to property is " the law of the land, 1 '* as if just
grounds in reason could not be shown why certain rules or
relations, and modes of conduct, in regard to property,
should be " the law of the land ;" or as if one set of such
rules, or relations, and modes of conduct, could not be
shown to be better, or more consistent with the general
good of mankind, than another ; which to assert would be
to contend, that there was no such thing as right or wrong
antecedent to " positive institution,"" and consequently no
too frequently repeated) is essentially altered now from what it was
in times past, in consequence of that important event, the invention of
printing, by means of which the experience and discoveries of every
passing age are preserved, treasured up, and diffused so effectually,
that right becomes ultimately so plain and obvious that it must be
acted upon.
* Dr Paley, Moral and Political Philosophy, book iii. part i. chap
4. It is in reference to property in land more especially that this au-
thor has applied the assertion alluded to in the text, viz. that " the
real foundation of our right is the law of the land ;" but what is most
extraordinary is, that Dr Paley had no sooner pronounced this ' ' ex-
traordinary aphorism," than, as if altogether forgetful of what he had
just said, he proceeds immediately to adduce reasons why the institu-
tion of which he speaks should be " the law of the land ;" and else-
where he states many reasons to account for the institution of pro-
perty in general, endeavouring to deduce from them the important
fact, that, " with a few exceptions, even the poorest and the worst
provided, in countries where property and the consequences of pro-
perty prevail, are in a better situation with respect to food, raiment,
houses, and what are called the necessaries of life, than any are in
places where most things remain in common," (p. 82,) a fact which,
it is hoped, will be made fully apparent in the course of the following
work ; and which should be sufficient to justify the institution of pro-
perty on better and more enduring grounds than the mere fact that
such institution exists.
XXVI INTRODUCTION.
such thing as good or evil, happiness or misery, pain or
pleasure, in the world.
But there is no law or institution relating to property,
(especially the more important or fundamental laws,) whose
effects will not be either good or bad, useful or detrimental,
and consistent or inconsistent with the general good of man-
kind, and which may not therefore be shown to be so ; that
is, be shown to be right or wrong, and consequently proper
or improper to be established. And although this may ap-
pear somewhat difficult whilst we are unused to such inves-
tigations, it can only be really so in very unimportant in-
stances ; for we need not by any means despair of discover-
ing moral as well as physical truth, if the same freedom be
allowed, the same methods pursued, and the same ardour
and perseverance exhibited in the investigation of the one
as of the other.
In their notions concerning right to property, the great
bulk of mankind seldom give place to any idea beyond the
legal rights, or actual tenures, by which it is held. Nor
ought this to call forth any surprise, seeing that these are
the only effectual rights for the time being, and those alone
which immediately affect men's interests, a consideration
which necessity too often compels the greater number to be
so much concerned about, as to leave them but little either
of leisure or inclination to attend to matters so remotely af-
fecting them, and so far removed out of the beaten track,
as the grounds on which they have been instituted. But
what is indeed to be wondered at is, that we so very
frequently observe a like ignorance or inattention where it
has no proper excuse ; that we observe every day men, and
even legislators, pretending to reason concerning political
justice and the general principles of law, as if there were no
such distinction as that which has been here pointed out,
and who seem to have scarcely the most distant comprehen-
INTRODUCTION. XXVU
sion that there is a natural code discoverable by the light
of reason, to which alone reference ought to be had when
any law, or project of law, is brought into question either
for the purpose of enactment or repeal. Instead of reason-
ing like legislators, such persons merely contend as lawyers;
they but inquire what is, or what has been, not what ought
to be ; and, provided they can find a precedent, think they
have no need to trouble themselves with any farther inves-
tigation as to right or wrong. They pronounce the two ca-
balistic words, " vested right," and think themselves at
once intrenched behind an impregnable fortress, without
considering it as at all incumbent upon them to show that
the investiture is consistent with real and natural right.
But the actual tenures, or legal rights, whereby property
is held, may be " vested" either according to or contrary
to real right ; that is to say, either, first, under authority
of established law founded upon and coinciding with real
right or justice, when they will, of course, be perfectly un-
exceptionable ; or, secondly, under authority of established
law alone, in opposition to real right and justice ; in which
case it will be not right but wrong that they should con-
tinue to be " vested" or established law.* And this is the
* When, however, we would repeal or alter any established law af-
fecting property which is found to be wrong, it is, I trust, almost un-
necessary to observe, that it must be done with a due regard to the
interests of present incumbents, or those who repose under the imme-
diate sanction of legal rights. The laws must of course be obeyed
while they continue to be laws, (so long at least as they are not alto-
gether oppressive and intolerable,) and the happiness or misery of hu-
man creatures must not be wantonly sported with ; only we must not
on this pretence endeavour to perpetuate abuses, or to consecrate
wrong, as if we could convert it into right. Our denunciation is
against the claim of perpetuity for error ; and all we would desire is,
that right should be gradually and deliberately introduced, when it is
XXV1U INTRODUCTION.
sole question as respects the lawgiver, or those inquirers
who would investigate the principles of natural right with a
view to the improvement of established law.
If those persons, therefore, who advocate the authority of
" vested rights," would say any thing to the purpose in
then: favour, they must show, not only that they are, but
that they should be " vested ;" they must be able to advance
reasons why they should be vested ; they must, in a word,
show that they are right in the proper sense of the term ;
namely, that they are calculated to promote the general in-
terest and advantage or happiness of mankind.
I shall conclude this part of the introductory observations
I have to advance with affirming, that what has been esta-
blished by human authority may be altered by human au-
thority, if found to be wrong ; but what is sanctioned by
reason, and established in the nature of things, is right at
all times, and in every region, and cannot be justly, nor, in
enlightened times, safely or permanently contravened or
contradicted by human institutions.
PART II.
IF we examine with attention the questions and disputes
which so much divide and agitate the different classes of
men in society, and in this country at present, in reference
to property, it will be easy to discover that the most serious
of all is the conflicting claims and pretensions of labour and
made undeniably apparent and familiar to the eyes and understandings
of mankind.
INTRODUCTION. XXIX
capital to the wealth which is produced by the use of the
one and the exertion of the other. This question, how-
ever it may be disguised, is really at the bottom of most
others of a general kind relating to property ; and it will
never be ended or settled until the subject be thoroughly
investigated and probed to the bottom, and until either
party be convinced, on grounds of argument and reason,
that full justice is done to them.
Although it seems to be one of the most obvious things
imaginable, that, in all advanced periods of society, capital
is at least as potent in its effects as labour in the production
of wealth ; yet the labourers have been flattered and
persuaded that they produce all ;* whilst the capitalists,
on the other hand, not contented with their proper and just
advantages, as being the possessors and proprietors of capi-
tal, and with the profit naturally and fairly arising from it,
have combined and established laws of preference and fa-
vour laws of restriction, monopoly, and exclusion which
increase that profit beyond its legitimate bounds, and really
trench upon the rights of the labourers, not only as limiting
unnecessarily and partially, and consequently unjustly, the
* The Ricardo economists maintain that " labour is the only
source of wealth !" (See Macculloch's Principles of Political Eco-
nomy.) " The labour of the country/' says Mr Ricardo himself, in
his pamphlet on Protection to Agriculture, " constitutes its only real
source of wealth ;" and the whole of the first chapter of his Princi-
ples of Political Economy consists of an elaborate, though indirect
attempt to prove that labour produces all, as if capital produced no-
thing, and was not a " real" source of wealth also ! It is truly as-
tonishing that this doctrine should have been maintained till this time
of day in a country where the effects of capital are so remarkably
conspicuous. This most mischievous and fundamental error will, it
is hoped, be found fully refuted in the following work. See in par-
ticular upon this subject chap. v. sec. 2, chap. vii. sec. 4, and chap,
ix. sec. 3, of the First Book.
XXX INTRODUCTION.
field for their exertions, but in various other ways prevent-
ing those exertions from being crowned with that ample and
adequate remuneration which would naturally and necessa-
rily reward them under a different and juster system.
Practical politicians are accustomed to treat this question
with much contempt, and think they do enough when they
" put down" its overt results. But it is not in this manner
it will ever be finally or satisfactorily settled. The labour-
ers are too numerous and powerful a body to be dealt un-
justly by when they are made fully aware of their rights ;
and their means of information, and consequently their
power, are increasing much too rapidly to give room for
any hopes that they will allow the question to rest unre-
solved, or that they will be satisfied without full and com-
plete justice.
" The improved education of the labouring classes," says a
very able writer* and advocate of the labourers, " ought, in
the present question, to have great weight with statesmen,
and with the community at large. The schools, which are
everywhere established, or are establishing, for their in-
struction, make it impossible for the greatest visionary to sup-
pose that any class of men can much longer be kept in ignor-
ance of the PRINCIPLES on which societies are formed and
governed. Mechanics' Institutions will teach men the moral
as well as the physical sciences. They excite a disposition to
probe all things to the bottom^ and supply the means of car-
rying research into every branch of knowledge. He must be
a very blind statesman who does not see, in this, indications
of a more extensive change in the frame of society than has
ever yet been made. This change will not be effected by
violence, and cannot be counteracted by force. No Holy Al-
liance can put down the quiet insurrection by which know-
* A writer, however, whom we shall have occasion strongly to con-
trovert in the following work, (see chap. ix. sect. 3, of Book i.) but
whom, nevertheless, we perfectly agree with here.
INTRODUCTION.
ledge will subvert whatever is not founded in justice and
truth. The interest of the different classes of labourers who
are now first beginning to think and act as a body, in oppo-
sition to the other classes among whom, with themselves, the
produce of the earth is distributed, and who are now only for
the first time beginning to acquire as extensive a knowledge
of the principles of government as those who rule, is too
deeply implicated by these principles to allow them to stop
short in their career of inquiry. They may care nothing
about the curious researches of the geologist, or the elaborate
classification of the botanist, but they will assuredly ascertain
WHY they only, of all the classes of society, have always been
involved in poverty and distress. They will not stop short of
any ultimate truth ; and they have experienced too few of the
advantages of society to make them feel satisfied with the
present order of things. The mind is rather invigorated
than enfeebled by the labour of the hands ; and they will
carry forward their investigations undelayed by the pedantry
of learning, and undiverted by the fastidiousness of taste.
By casting aside the prejudices which fetter the minds of
those who have benefited by their degradation, they have
every thing to hope. On the other hand, they are the suffer-
ers by these prejudices, and have every thing to dread from
their continuance. Having no reason to love those institu-
tions which limit the reward of labour, whatever may be its
produce, to a bare subsistence, they will not spare them,
whenever they see the hollowness of the claims made on their
respect. As the labourers acquire knowledge, the foundations
of the social edifice will be dug up from the deep beds into
which they were laid in times past, they will be curiously
handled and closely examined, and they will not be restored
unless they were originally laid in justice, and unless justice
commands their preservation."*
* Labour defended against the Claims of Capital, &c., by a La-
bourer, pp. 30, 31. (London, 1825.)
XXXli INTRODUCTION.
Dr Smith himself was not, it must be admitted^ wholly
free from error in his treatment of the question between the
labourers and capitalists. He does not indeed treat that
question directly, but, speaking of " the circumstances of
the lower ranks of the people," of " servants, labourers,
and workmen of different kinds, 1 ' he says incidentally, " it
is but equity that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the
whole body of the people should have such a share of the
produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably
well fed, clothed, and lodged ;*" meaning evidently, from
the context, that the labourers alone feed, clothe, and lodge
" the whole body of the people," an error which, though
incidental, (and the position maintained therefore not pro-
bably deliberately or well considered,) is not the less likely,
if unnoticed, to be attended with bad effects, and is by far
the most important oversight that is to be discovered in the
Wealth of Nations. For this position would seem to
imply that capital is of no use, and affords no assistance in
the work of feeding, clothing, and lodging the people ! a
position which, if put in this shape, would at once have
shown the importance of the fallacy which lurked in that
apparently harmless sentence ; and Dr Smith would at once
have granted that the present generation of labourers could
not FEED the people as well as they are now fed, if no capital
had been expended and accumulated upon the land, or no
farm-buildings, no fences, no drains, or other improvements,
calculated to assist the labourer and increase the produce, had
been made upon it previously to the present day. He would
have granted that the existing generation of labourers could
not CLOTHE the people as well as they are now clothed, if there
were no cotton-mills, weaving-looms, or other machinery of
any kind in existence : and, lastly, he would have granted
* Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. 8.
INTRODUCTION. XXX111
that the existing generation of labourers could not LODGE the
people as well as they are now lodged, if no houses had been
built in former times, and left to the present proprietors and
occupiers, or if, just when the present labourers came to be
able to work, all the towns, villages, and houses through-
out the country had been swept into ruins ! And yet to
admit these obvious truths is wholly to give up the portent-
ous doctrine that the labourers alone feed, clothe, and
lodge the whole body of the people, and at once to destroy
the inference which must otherwise have been founded upon
it, to the prejudice of the capitalists. To talk of equity as
demanding that the labourers should receive a " share of
the produce of their own labour" will never be satisfactory;
why should they not receive the whole of its produce ?
The error lies in supposing that labour produces all, that
the whole of the produce of labour and capital arises from
the exertions of the labourers, independently of the capital
with which they work, and are assisted.
The capitalists have indeed always appeared to decline
looking into the bottom of this question, as if afraid they
should discover in it nothing to their advantage ; but there
are, in truth, no real grounds for any apprehensions on this
head ; and they will never enjoy their wealth in confidence
and quiet till they discard this slavish and groundless fear,
and meet their adversaries, as they may very safely do, on
the fair field of argument and reason.
The labourers must be informed, and made to under-
stand, that they do not produce all wherever they take the
assistance of capital ; and the capitalists lending that assist-
ance must be equally instructed that whilst each should be
free to demand what he pleases for his particular contribu-
tion or portion of capital, no individual, or body of men,
can have right to exclude or interdict others from coming
forward with their portions or capitals also, in open and
b
XXXIV INTRODUCTION.
equal competition, or to attempt to enhance their gains by
means which are unjust and injurious to their neighbours.
In the following work an attempt is made to elucidate
this question with the views that have been stated, and with
an equal and impartial regard to the rights and just inter-
ests of the parties concerned ; and if it is not discussed in
its utmost extent, or with all that minuteness and fulness of
detail which its importance demands, still it is hoped that
such hints are given, and such a train laid, as may serve for
the groundwork of a full discussion of it, and as may lead
to a permanent and satisfactory adjustment of all the claims
and interests involved in that discussion, upon the only prin-
ciples that can be either satisfactory or permanent those of
equity and justice.
AN INQUIRY, &c.
BOOK I.
ON THE NATURAL GROUNDS OF RIGHT TO VENDIBLE
PROPERTY OR WEALTH, AS ARISING FROM THE
MANNER IN WHICH IT IS PRODUCED OR ACQUIRED
ORIGINALLY, AND FROM THE CONDITIONS NECES-
SARY TO ITS EXISTENCE IN ANY CONSIDERABLE
QUANTITY OR ABUNDANCE.
CHAPTER I.
OF WEALTH, PROPERTY, AND VALUE. WEALTH DEFINED.
THAT sort of property or wealth, the protection and secu-
rity of which forms the second grand object of law and
government, and consequently of political science, the pro-
tection and security of persons forming the first, may be
defined in two words, vendible property. More particu-
larly wealth may be denned as follows : Those external
material objects, necessary, useful, or agreeable to mankind,
which it costs some considerable exertion of human labour
or industry to produce or acquire originally, and which,
when once acquired, can be transferred from one to
another appropriated or alienated.
1. Those things which nature provides in such abundance
Z WEALTH DEFINED. LOOK I.
as to exceed the desires or wants of mankind, as common
air, the light and heat of the sun, See., as they cannot be
exclusively appropriated, and require not to be purchased
by labour or industry, are not wealth ; at least they are not
that sort of wealth which requires to be protected or gua-
ranteed to the possessor or proprietor by law and force, and
consequently not that sort which can form any object of po-
litical science. Such things no person needs to buy, or will
buy, and such things no person can sell. They are not ven-
dible property.
2. Again, those things which are inherent and inalienable,
however valuable they may be, and however limited in
quantity, as the organs and members of our bodies, as well
as our natural and acquired talents or abilities, though
necessary, useful, and indispensable as the, means or instru-
ments of acquiring wealth, are not wealth themselves. Such
things cannot be transferred from one to another, and they
are therefore not wealth or vendible property. Vigorous
and robust limbs and organs, or corporeal powers, as well
as art or skill in professions and employments, with many
other natural and acquired talents or abilities, may increase
the quantity or improve the quality of our labour ; but la-
bour is not wealth, but a part of the means only of producing
or procuring it. For although wealth may arise from la-
bour when it is employed in particular ways, none can arise
from it till it be exerted ; and man himself, unless where he
is a slave and the property of another, is not actual wealth,
but one of the instruments by which it is produced.
3. But those things necessary, useful, or agreeable to
mankind, which can be appropriated or alienated, and which
are only to be procured by the assistance and industry of
man himself, as corn, cloth, houses, &c., as they require to
be protected and guaranteed to the possessor or proprietor by
law and force, so they are necessarily the objects of politi-
cal science in general, and they constitute exclusively that
(HAP. I. WEALTH DEFINED. 3
sort of wealth which is the peculiar subject of justice and of
political economy.
The foregoing definition admits of being divided into two
separate and distinct affirmative propositions, each of which
may be illustrated by itself as follows :
I. That sort of wealth which is the object of political
science, or of political economy, must require some con-
siderable exertion of human labour to produce or procure
it originally, and must be capable of being exclusively
appropriated.
1. There are some things which never are, or can be,
wealth or vendible property, under any circumstances ; be-
cause under no circumstances can they ever be exclusively
appropriated, nor can they ever require any portion of la-
bour or industry to produce or procure them. Such are
those things first mentioned above, namely, the air, which
surrounds us at all times, and the light and heat of the sun,
which are rayed out upon us gratuitously. Such things
never can become the objects of political science ; because
the interposition or assistance of society, or of law and force,
can never be required to guarantee the possession of them ;
all men being at full liberty to use and enjoy as much as
they please of those first and most indispensable of all ne-
cessaries, at all times, without price, and without challenge
or charge.
2. Again, there are some things which are wealth in one
situation and not in another, because it requires labour or
industry to procure them in the one and not in the other.
Such things are common sand and water.
Thus, sand upon the seashore, and water in a great river,
are not wealth, because in those situations they can be
procured with small and inconsiderable labour, viz. with so
much merely as is necessary to lift them from the place where
they lie ; but let them be carried to a distance where the
4 WEALTH DEFINED. BOOK I.
are wanted, and where they cannot be brought without con-
siderable labour, and immediately they become wealth and
vendible property. Let the sand, for example, be carried to
any considerable distance, where it is wanted to be mixed
with lime for building, and it then becomes wealth. Here
it is brought with considerable exertion of labour or industry ;
and this circumstance it is, combined with the demand for
it, that is, with the desire of mankind to possess it under
such circumstances, which at once confers upon it the char-
acter of wealth. In like manner, water in a great river,
where it can be had at will in unlimited quantity, and with
no more labour than is merely required to lift it from the
stream, is not wealth ; at least it is not that sort of wealth
which falls to be treated or considered in the science of
Political Economy. But let the same element be brought
to a distance, let a part of the same river be carried, either
by the labour of men directly, or by means of a canal or
aqueduct, (in the construction and maintenance of which
human labour is necessarily required,) to a neighbouring city,
and then and there it instantly becomes wealth. It is not
wealth at the river-side, where it can be had with small and
inconsiderable exertion ; but when by labour and industry
it is brought where it is wanted, and where it is not other-
wise to be had, then, and not before, it becomes wealth. If
you could take the city, and place it by the river-side, or if
it had been originally seated there, water, being in abundance,
would never have become wealth, unless the extension of
streets and houses were such as to require considerable la-
bour and industry to bring an article so indispensable to its
farthest parts.
But perhaps it may be said and objected, that even sand
upon the seashore, and water in a great river, are wealth
and property, as belonging to the proprietor of the adjoin-
ing land, who is not obliged to part with them, and might
nnf rlinns:p fn rln so Vint, for somp
CHAP. I. WEALTH DEFINED. 5
knowledgment. In general, however, he does part with them
under such circumstances without exacting any price ; but
if he should demand a price for such articles, and should
succeed in obtaining any other vendible commodity in ex-
change for them, they would immediately acquire the cha-
racter of wealth.
It may perhaps be thought and advanced as a farther
objection to this part of our definition, that land was ac-
quired at first without either labour or industry ; but then,
being free to all as air and water, and exceeding the desires
or wants of mankind, it was not at that time wealth any
more than air or water is now. Land was not then wealth,
although its produce, which required labour and industry
to gather and secure it, must still have retained that cha-
racter. A tribe of shepherds who traversed the breadth of
Tartary neither bought nor sold the land, nor considered it
any part of then: wealth ; but their cattle, and the fodder
which they gathered and stored up for them against winter,
as well as the other articles of food or clothing for them-
selves, which they gathered from the land, must always
have constituted a part of their wealth. Land may indeed,
even now, be gotten in the uninhabited and unappropriated
parts of the earth for nothing, or for the taking ; but there
it is hardly worth the taking, and its produce only where
this is the case can be accounted wealth ; but the moment
the land is appropriated, and is not to be gotten for nothing,
it acquires this character : and this is necessarily the state and
condition of the land in all civilized and populous countries ;
because individual possession or appropriation of the land is a
condition necessary to its being fully or highly cultivated and
improved, a condition without which neither population
nor wealth could ever increase to any extent worth mention-
ing. In such countries therefore, and in such condition of
the land, it must always be purchased by labour and in-
dustry, or, what comes to the same thing, by what has been
procured or produced originally by labour and industry.
WEALTH DEFINED. BOOK I.
It is true, that in this condition of the land it may hap-
pen, and indeed often does happen, that particular parts of
it increase in value without any labour at all being bestowed
upon them, from the increase of wealth and population, and
the expenditure of labour and capital on the parts adja-
cent; and if this should be thought an exception to the
universality of the proposition above stated, or an objection
of sufficient weight, our definition might easily be modified
so as to obviate this objection, by the addition of the words,
" land under particular conditions and circumstances." But
the truth appears to be, that this seeming exception, even
if it were more than seeming, is at all events so slight and
inconsiderable, as hardly to deserve or require more particu-
lar notice.*
This, then, it appears, we may set down as one distin-
guishing characteristic of wealth, that those objects whereof
it consists, are only to be produced or procured originally
by the help of human labour.
In its most enlarged sense, the term wealth may perhaps
be understood to signify abundance of every good thing, and
may thus be allowed to include the free bounties of nature ;
but, as it is the object of political science, and of political
justice, or of law and government, it must be confined to
those good things which are bought with a price, which
price must consist, either wholly or in part? of the labour
and sweat of mankind themselves.
II. That sort of wealth which is the object of political
science, must be capable of being alienated or transferred
from one to another.
* It will not, however, be lost sight of hereafter, when occasion
may require our attention to it.
CHAP. I. PROPERTY. 7
The word property, it may be remarked, is commonly
used by men of business and of the world to designate
those things precisely which are meant to be understood by
the term wealth, as explained by political economisjafin
the law courts, for example, we always hear the word pro-
perty, never wealth ; and in common discourse it is much
the same : we hear the one word ten times for once the
other. But what sort of property is it we are to understand
when we hear the word in our courts of law, or observe it
used in the reports of law-proceedings ? Or in common dis-
course when we hear such expressions as the following :
A man of large property much property was destroyed
by that fire, or lost in that shipwreck, or the like ? What
sort of property is it, I say, we are here to understand ?
Vendible property undoubtedly, and vendible property
only.
Property is a word of very extensive signification ; as
explained in our dictionaries, it denotes quality, disposition,
or attribute, right of possession, as well as things possessed.
In reference to things possessed, property may be divided
into two kinds, the alienable and inalienable ; the former of
which only can be wealth.
My eyes, my ears, and my limbs, are my property, but they
are not wealth, I cannot part with them. All the members
and organs of my body, as well as my natural and acquired
talents or abilities, are properties belonging to me ; but I
cannot call them wealth, because they are inalienable.
These things are more exclusively and unequivocally my
property than any external or foreign object can be ; but
they are not wealth. They cannot be sold, they cannot be
appreciated. They are not so abundant either as to be in
excess, and they are in the very highest degree useful, de-
sirable, and necessary, and yet they are not wealth, because
they are inalienable.
8 PROPERTY.
BOOK I.
Could the eye be sold to the blind, or a limb to him who
wants it, what price might they not command ? Or rather
I might say, what price should be sufficient to purchase
them ?
Again, the air I breathe, the light which glads my sight,
and the heat which nourishes me, these things also are my
property, at least so much of them as I actually consume.
And nothing can be conceived more useful or more neces-
sary ; but they are not wealth, because they can neither be
exclusively appropriated, nor do they require to be purchased
by labour or industry. Of these things every man may
consume, as was said before, as much as he pleases, without
challenge and without charge. What he does consume of
them he cannot alienate, and what is over his consumption
he cannot appropriate. These things, therefore, are not,
and never can be, vendible commodities.
This then, it appears, also, may be set down as another
distinguishing characteristic of wealth, that it must be ca-
pable of being transferred from one to another, appropriated
and alienated.
Dr Smith, indeed, in describing \hefixed capital of a
country, states as a part of it, " the acquired and useful
abilities of all the inhabitants or members of the society."*
But in this he is inconsistent with himself, and at va-
riance with his own uniform idea of wealth, which he con-
stantly designates as " the produce of land and labour ;" ac-
cording to which brief but comprehensive description of it, it
is the produce only of those acquired and useful abilities that
must be held to be wealth, not the qualities or capacities
themselves. It is true, indeed, that a country which con-
Wealth of Nations, book ii. chap. i.
CHAP. I.
VALUE.
9
tains an intelligent and industrious population, and multi-
tudes of skilled or instructed labourers, having " acquired
and useful abilities," possesses a great power of producing
wealth, because, as was before observed, such abilities in-
crease the quantity or improve the quality of our labour.
But neither the persons nor qualities of a people, though
the objects by which and for which all wealth exists, make
any part of that wealth themselves ; and all laws directly
affecting them belong to a perfectly distinct department of
political science, viz. to that branch of politics which relates
to the protection and security of persons, and which we
have already alluded to as forming the first grand object of
law and government.
Before concluding the chapter, it will be proper to ad-
vert, though but shortly in this place, to the subject of
value,* and to consider the two different meanings of that
term, as resting upon the same grounds with those of the
words already explained.
The word value, like the words property and wealth, has
an enlarged and a limited signification. In its most extensive
sense, it regards solely the utility of objects, or their ne-
cessity and subservience to human existence or well-being.
Absolute value in any object is unquestionably in propor-
tion to its utility or necessity, first to the existence, and se-
condly to the happiness of human creatures. Those things,
however, which are furnished by nature in exhaustless pro-
fusion, however valuable they may be, and however neces-
sary and indispensable to human existence, as air, water, &c.,
men trouble not themselves about ; nor is there any reason
why they should, when without trouble they have them.
See this subject discussed more fully in appendix to chapter 3d
of the second book.
10
VALUE.
BOOK I.
Value in this sense forms no object of political science, or
of political regulation, government or law.
In its more confined sense, value relates entirely to the
intensity of vendible quality in objects which fall short of
the desires and necessities of mankind ; in other words, to
the quantity of one article which can be procured in ex-
change for another, or for labour, by voluntary consent of
the proprietors, by treaty and agreement in the open market,
that is, wherever commodities are bought and sold. Value
in this sense is the same thing with price, which consists in
the relative vendible power of commodities, and is generally
proportioned to the quantity of labour and commodities, or
capital expended in producing them ; that is, to the cost
of their production, which constitutes their real price, or, in
other words, that price which is the indispensable condition
or cause of their existence, and to which (though they may
occasionally or temporarily depart from it,) they must al-
ways again return, and must continually gravitate towards
it as to the " centre of repose and continuance. 1 "*
This twofold sense of the term value, here explained, is
thus briefly and distinctly stated by Dr Smith : " The
word value" says he, " it is to be observed, has two different
meanings, and sometimes expresses the utility of some parti-
cular object, and sometimes the power of purchasing other
goods which the possession of that object conveys. The one
may be called ' value in use,' the other f value in exchange/
The things which have the greatest value in use have fre-
quently little or no value in exchange ; and, on the contrary,
those which have the greatest value in exchange have fre-
quently little or no value in use. Nothing is more useful
than water ; but it will purchase scarce any thing, scarce any
thing can be had in exchange for it. A diamond, on the con-
* Words of Dr Smith : Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. 7.
CHAP. I. VALUE. 11
trary, has scarce any value in use ; but a very great quantity
of other goods may frequently be had in exchange for it."*
Thus, then, we perceive, that the words wealth, property,
value, have all a more general and a limited signification,
the confused and indiscriminate use of which must neces-
sarily occasion endless misunderstandings, contradiction, and
error, in the doctrines and reasonings of political economists,
until they are properly defined and settled, and restricted to
one sense. In the dictionary of our language, the sense of
these words must of course continue to be retained and ex-
pounded in its full extent ; but, as admitted into the voca-
bulary of Political Economy, they must be rigidly confined
to their more limited signification, as defined and explained
in the preceding pages. The word value must always be
restricted to the meaning of exchangeable value ; and the
words property and wealth, whilst they are to be uniformly
understood as synonymous between themselves, are at the
same time equally to be understood as equivalent to the ex-
pression or definition given of the latter term vendible
property.-f*
* Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. 4.
t This chapter was written immediately after the publication of
Mr Malthus's volume (in 1819) on the Principles of Political Econo-
my, and long before Colonel Torrens's publication (in 1821) on the
Production of Wealth, in which he defines wealth as follows:
" Wealth," he says, " considered as the object of economical science,
consists of those material articles which are useful or desirable to
man, and which it requires some portion of voluntary exertion to pro-
cure or preserve ;" (page 1 ;) which essentially agrees in its main par-
ticulars with that which we have here endeavoured to establish. But
this very able economist endeavours to lay down a distinction between
wealth and exchangeable value, and even maintains that it would be
inaccurate to define wealth " to consist in articles possessing ex-
changeable value," (Essay on the Production of Wealth, chap. i. p.
41.,) which is nearly equivalent to our " vendible property." His
NATURE OF PRODUCTION. BOOK I.
CHAPTER II.
OF THE MATTER AND FORMS OF WEALTH. NATURE OF
PRODUCTION.
SECTION I.
THE NATURE OF PRODUCTION EXPLAINED.
EXCEPTING the land and its natural productions, all wealth
is the produce of human labour and capital ; and stock or
reasons are shortly as follow: (l.) Because two savages returning
from the chase, both being successful, and having acquired food and
other things necessary to supply their wants, would possess wealth
without the desire to exchange it (2.) Because a single family shut
out from all intercourse with the rest of mankind, cultivating the
ground, and preparing its produce for use, would possess wealth which
would not be exchanged. (3.) Because, in a country where the divi-
sions of labour were unestablished, and every man combined in his
own person a variety of employments, and produced for his family
whatever articles they consumed, or in a society where a community
of goods were established, " there would be neither buyers nor sellers,
neither exchanges nor value in exchange." (Essay on the Production
of Wealth, chap. i. p. 14.)
To these arguments I answer, first, that it is perhaps overlooked
that things may be vendible which are not actually sold or exchanged.
The produce consumed by a farmer in his family and on his farm,
the corn he gives to his horses, and the potatoes he uses at his table,
are vendible commodities as much as those he carries to market, al-
though they are neither sold nor exchanged ; and probably in the
case of the two savages above mentioned, if one of them offered the
whole or the greater part of the spoils he had brought home for a single
arrow, or something of comparatively insignificant value, the other
might agree to the exchange with the view of supplying himself, and
pampering his appetite with the rarer and preferable pieces of flesh.
But, secondly, if there were a community of goods, and no such
thing as barter, sale, or exchanges, or private property ; or if wealth
CHAP. II. NATURE OF PRODUCTION. 13
capital which is saved and stored, or accumulated wealth, is
simply the effects of antecedent labour, or of antecedent la-
existed under any of the circumstances supposed by Colonel Torrens
in the above cases, which are indeed partly unusual, and of little con-
sequence, and partly improbable or imaginary, I say, in such event,
and under such circumstances, there being no coercive laws or regu-
lar government, there could hardly be any occasion for a definition of
wealth at all, or for the cultivation of the science of Political Econo-
my, the chief use of which is to improve the laws, and to show what
is right and what is wrong in every circumstance which influences the
distribution of wealth under the system of the division of labour
and of private property. All the arts of production might be very
well known without reducing them to the shape of science, if indeed
they could assume that shape at all, under the supposed circum-
stances.
Colonel Torrens adds, that exchangeable value is not an essential
quality of wealth, u inhering" in the articles whereof it consists, " but
an accident belonging to it only, under those particular circumstances
in which the divisions of labour and private property exist." (Essay on
the Production of Wealth, chap, i., p. 16.) But it is believed that, with-
out the existence of private property in wealth, it never can be accumu-
lated to any considerable extent or abundance, and that this accident
must attend it therefore wherever it can become the object of political
science. Although, therefore, under rare and unusual circumstances,
wealth should neither be exchanged nor exchangeable, this does not
appear a good reason for rejecting a convenient and useful definition,
founded on an accident attending the thing defined, in every situation
where a definition of it can be required, and one which is equally
correct under such circumstances, and perhaps more concise and con-
venient than any other which could be founded on an essential quality
" inhering in it."
There is another circumstance or " accident" attending wealth,
which has been noticed all along in the chapter just concluded, and
on which I may here observe, that still another correct definition
might probably be founded, namely, that it requires to be protected
and guaranteed to the possessor or proprietor by law and force. I
give the following '.Those external material objects, necessary, useful,
14 NATURE OF PRODUCTION. HOOK I.
bour and capital, fixed and realized in certain material ob-
jects or vendible commodities.
Stock or capital has been described and considered as ac-
cumulated labour. But this is incorrect; and although
the expression is of course to be taken in a metaphorical
sense, still it conveys a very false idea, and leads to most
erroneous and contradictory conclusions. For, besides that
labour cannot be accumulated, it is to be observed, that,
except in the very origin of society, capital comes in for a
distinct and separate share, both of the effects produced
and of the wealth or profits accruing ; and in every advan-
ced period it will be found, that the accumulations which ex-
ist have all been made with the assistance of previous ac-
cumulations or capital. These previous accumulations were
not labour, nor even the effects of labour, after the first
employment of capital ; and to call them so is to sink the
or agreeable to mankind, of which the possession or enjoyment requires
to be guaranteed and secured to the possessor or proprietor by law and
force ; and this, if I mistake not, denotes those objects, precisely and
exclusively, which can be made the ground of an action at law in civil
cases. For it may be observed, that when those objects appear, at
first sight, the farthest removed from any connexion with the idea of
wealth, as in cases of defamation, crim. con., &c., the satisfaction
sought must still take the form of wealth, or pecuniary damages,
without which the action could not be maintained. As to this parti-
cular, however, I offer it with some hesitation and diffidence for the
consideration and under correction of the lawyers.
I will take the present opportunity of adding, that there are four
other forms of words or expressions hitherto unnoticed, which are
nearly synonymous with the definition vendible property ; these are
(1.) Transferable Property ; (2.) Exchangeable Property ; (3.) Alien-
able Property j (4.) Vendible Commodities. These expressions are all
evidently much to the same purpose, and may be all used indiscrimi-
nately and indifferently when occasion requires ; but vendible property
I consider upon the whole as generally preferable to any of these, and
as more universally and unexceptionably applicable and convenient.
GHAP. II.
NATURE OF PRODUCTION.
15
effect of capital altogether, and to involve ourselves in con-
tradiction and absurdity, when we come to treat of distribu-
tion and the different grounds of right to wealth ; for then
we must allow a share to be due to the capitalist, while we
deny the efficacy of his contribution to the process of pro-
duction ; and while, at the same time, nothing can be more
absurd in itself or more false than such denial.
Accumulated wealth, then, we say, is not accumulated
labour, but the effects of labour sometimes alone, but more
generally of labour and capital together, fixed and realized
or impressed upon matter ; and the process of production
consists of certain effects, or changes of form, combination,
or position, made upon material objects, by means either of
labour* singly, or of labour and capital united, which endure
for some time after the labour itself is past, and which make
some addition to the exchangeable value of those objects.
But labour itself, which is simply a movement or exertion
of the human body and faculties, cannot be accumulated or
retained in existence one moment beyond that in which the
exertion is made. All labour perishes in the very instant
of its performance ; but the objects on which labour is be-
stowed may be preserved, and its effects be made to endure
for a longer or shorter period in the forms and modifications
which it impresses upon them.
Thus, when a house is built, the labour employed passes
into non-existence as the work proceeds, and when the
building is completed the labour exists no more ; but its
effects continue to exist in the fabric it has raised, fixed and
realized in the new form it has given to the stones and other
materials of which the structure is composed, and which
* When we use the word labour, we always of course mean human
labour ; for the labour of other animals belongs to the head of capital,
as do likewise the animals themselves, however employed by man
for his purposes.
16 NATURE OF PRODUCTION. BOOK I.
may endure for many years, and sometimes for many gene-
rations.
When labour is employed in sowing and tilling the ground,
its effects appear in due time in the crop which follows ; but
the labour itself remains not in existence one moment be-
yond that in which it was performed.
When labour is employed in fabricating a web, or in
fashioning a coat or a shirt, it still becomes extinct the very
moment succeeding to that which gave it birth ; but it also
still leaves behind it effects which are more or less perma-
nent and perceptible, in the new forms and properties with
which it invests the cotton, or wool, or flax, or other mate-
rials on which it is bestowed. Those materials have all them-
selves been procured by means of labour, or of labour and
capital, either immediately from the earth, or from the ani-
mals the earth sustains ; and these and all other materials
are formed and prepared in the same manner into commo-
dities fit for use, by means of many capitals (necessarily ac-
cumulated by saving and privation) as well as by many
efforts and operations of labour and painful industry, every
one of which, while it gives a new form or modification to the
material substance, increases its value, and brings it still
nearer, through every step of the process, to the end and ob-
ject aimed at, until it issues at length in a perfect production
fit for human use, and thus it is that wealth is produced.
It is perfectly true, as has been remarked by M. Say
and others, that in this process of production there is no
creation of matter. But there is a modification of it ; and
always either a change and new arrangement of particles and
of parts, or a new form, or new position, given to the mass ;
and there is generally an augmentation or diminution of the
quantity under operation, though not certainly of matter in
the universe. But there is a creation of modes and forms,
though not of matter. Nothing indeed can be more certain
CHAP. IT. NATURE OF PRODUCTION. l*J
or undoubted, than that matter can neither be created nor
annihilated by man ; but its forms may be varied by him,
and portions of it under his hands may be varied in quantity,
increased or diminished.
Still in every variation of quantity which any portion of
matter under the hands of the workman is made to undergo,
whatever is added to it or abstracted from it, is all taken
from or given back to the ultimate receptacle of all organiz-
ed and all factitious forms the boundless and all-contain-
ing " ocean of matter." The parings of a shoe, or refuse
materials of a manufactory, are thrown all back to augment
the source whence they were at first derived ; and even the
perfect products themselves, after being used and worn till
they are no longer serviceable for their temporary purpose,
are returned to the dunghill, and equally consigned to the
same common destiny. By decomposition, the different
particles of which they consist are set free, and either enter
immediately into new combinations fit for human use, or
fly to augment the vast and illimitable reservoirs of their
homogeneous and kindred substances.
The particles which compose the present crop existed all,
it is probable, in the earth, and in the atmosphere or heavens,
before they took the present form of wheat, oats, &c. It is
merely a change of combination or position they have under-
gone ; to the effecting of which (if we consider narrowly) the
industry of man has been but in a small degree subservient.
He threw the seed into the ground perhaps, and prepared
its bed, but nature did all the mysterious work of causing
it to grow and to produce, " some thirty, some sixty, and
some an hundred fold." In the gathering of the fruits of
the earth, and in the preparing and disposing of them for
use, the effects of human labour are more distinctly seen ;
still, however, it does nothing but move, form, new-model,
and arrange, those material products which nature bestows.
Labour creates them not ; although it must be confessed,
18 MATTER AND FORMS BOOK I.
that in producing wealth it varies and determines their
modes of existence. Yet still labour is an indispensable
ingredient in the production or procuration even of the fruits
of the earth, and of the matter of wealth, or what is called
rude or raw produce generally ; which cannot be obtained
without it, at least in any considerable quantity, or in such
abundance as to supply liberally the wants and necessities
of human existence, scarcely even those of a single savage
or family in the state of nature, and far less of a numerous
people in the civilized state.
SECTION II.
THE MATTER AND FORMS OF WEALTH REVIEWED.
HAVING thus briefly explained the meaning of the term
production, and unfolded the nature of wealth in its ele-
ments, I shall now proceed to consider the whole wealth of
a country in the mass, as it is found to exist in an extensive
civilized and opulent community, by a summary statement
or review of the principal objects or items of which it con-
sists.
This, it is hoped, will serve to confirm our foregoing rea-
sonings, as well as to elucidate those which are to follow.
It will also serve to assist the student in endeavouring to
acquire a distinct and definite conception of the aggregate
quantity of vendible property at any time existing within a
country ; what that aggregate entirely and exclusively con-
sists of; and the comparative amount of its different parts.
It is not our object, it may be observed here, to inquire
into the actual state of wealth at any particular time or in
any one country, but to present the reader with a general
sketch or outline of its principal features, or of those objects
it will always be found to consist of at all times and in all
CHAP. IT. OF WEALTH REVIEWED. 19
countries, wherever it has increased to any considerable
magnitude.
In this statement, also, it is to be observed, that we pay
no attention to classification as regards the employment of
wealth, but endeavour to take a general and comprehensive
view of it in J5he most natural order. Having done this, we
shall in the following chapter apply ourselves to classify and
analyze it in reference to its various uses and employments.
The following then I would set down as a general
SUMMARY OF WEALTH.
THE wealth of a country, or of any separate portion of man-
kind or community, consists, in the first place, of the country
itself, that is, of the land or territory possessed by them,
and all that is naturally borne upon its surface, or contained
in its bowels within the reach of man ; or in the waters and
other elements bordering upon it, or enclosed within its
boundaries ; which form and comprise the first great division,
or items of wealth, and the subject upon which the art and
industry and labour of mankind fall to be exerted, in order
to produce every other article of wealth besides. This head
includes mines, the natural productions of the land and of
the waters, fisheries, corn, and cattle, except in so far as any
of these inferior items are improved or augmented by hu-
man industry, art, or labour.
Secondly, in connexion with the land must be stated as a
part of wealth, those improvements made upon it, which
either facilitate and abridge, or render more effective the
operations of agriculture, as enclosures, drains, and all me-
liorations of the soil, the effect of culture and human labour,
which make its produce permanently more abundant, or more
easily obtained.
Thirdly, I enumerate, as having an inseparable connex-
7
20 MATTER AND
BOOK I.
ion with the land, the houses, and other immoveable struc-
tures built or formed upon it for the use of man, whether
they be calculated for accommodation and enjoyment merely,
or for business and production ; as roads, canals, harbours,
docks, water-works, or arcs for water-wheels, dam-heads, &c. ;
all houses of every description, as dwelling-houses, public
buildings for national or for local purposes, churches, cha-
pels, theatres, arsenals, and all works and buildings neces-
sary for manufactories, as founderies, potteries, glass-works,
salt-works, coal-works or mines, corn-mills, cotton-mills, &c. ;
or for mercantile purposes, as warehouses, granaries, &c. ; -
or for agricultural purposes, as barns, storehouses, &c.
These, it may be observed, and the two foregoing classes of
wealth, except the natural productions of the land and waters,
are all fixed property, stock or capital immoveable and in-
separable from the land or territory.
Fourthly, I shall state, as a distinct portion of wealth, all
useful machines and engines, or instruments of trade, to-
gether with all implements and utensils of every description,
and for whatever purpose wanted or used, as water-wheels,
steam-engines, cranes, wind-mills, thrashing-mills, ploughs,
weaving-looms, washing-mills, beetling-engines, fulling-mills,
paper-mills, printing-presses, types, anvils, hammers, planes,
saws, augers, axes, tools ; as also tables, chairs, beds, po-
kers, tongs, fire-irons, pots and pans. These, again, we
observe, are all moveable property, except, perhaps, water-
wheels,* which cannot, in general, be taken down and re-
moved without almost their entire destruction, or at least
without such expense, injury, and diminution of value, as
would amount to the resolution of them into the original
materials ; that is, into the value of the wood and iron where-
of they were made, or of such parts of those materials as
should remain applicable to any new purpose.
* A singular exception perhaps it may be thought.
CHAP. II. OF WEALTH REVIEWED. 21
Fifthly and lastly, I state generally, that wealth consists
of the productions of agriculture, manufactures, and com-
merce, that is, of rude produce and wrought goods, whether
adapted for the purposes of trade or for immediate use or
enjoyment ; as corn, cattle, sugar, wine, tobacco, coffee, tea,
beef, bread, meal, flour, wool, cotton, silk, leather, cloth,
household furniture, musical instruments, paintings, maps,
books, wood, iron, silver, gold, pots and pans ; money, goods,
wares, and merchandises of all sorts ; ships, carriages, wag-
gons, carts, and coaches. These also, it is evident, are all
moveable property.
The foregoing and all other material objects, the produce
of every art and occupation, which require labour or indus-
try to collect, arrange, fashion, and form, or to fit and pre-
pare them for the use, accommodation, or enjoyment of man,
compose the wealth and capital or stock of a country.
These are all vendible property ; and they are all of that
limited quality that law and force are necessarily required
to secure them to the possessors or proprietors. And if we
scrutinize the whole, and try every article, we shall find that
all wealth comes either immediately from the land, or from
the hands of productive labour ; and that capital (together
with all the benefits which it will be shown in the sequel to
confer upon mankind) owes its existence entirely to human
providence, foresight, and parsimony. All wealth therefore
is wholly derived from the united powers of nature and
human industry assisted by capital, shortly expressed by the
terms land and labour. The elements and matter of wealth
exist in the earth and in the heavens ; human labour is ne-
cessary to collect, fashion, and dispose them for the use of
man.
22 ANALYSIS OF WEALTH.
BOOK I.
CHAPTER III.
ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION OF WEALTH IN REFER-
ENCE TO ITS DIFFERENT USES AND EMPLOYMENTS.
ALTHOUGH all wealth is employed either productively or
unproductively ; that is, either, first, in supplying and grati-
fying the wants and desires of mankind, without any other
return than the support of their bodies and enjoyment of
their lives ; or, secondly, in supplying and gratifying the
same wants and desires, accompanied with the production,
or return of a quantity of new wealth, greater or less, or
equal to that which is consumed ; yet a small examination
will be sufficient to convince us that it cannot be divided into
two simple sorts, or be classed entirely and distinctly under
the two different heads of productive and unproductive.
It is true, there are a great many items of wealth which
can only be employed productively, as a plough, a weaving-
loom, &c. ; and others which can only be employed unpro-
ductively, as a piano-forte, a sideboard, &c. ; but there is a
third sort, and great amount of wealth, which can be employ-
ed either the one way or the other, as corn, cloth, Sec. accord-
ing to the employment of the persons whom it maintains.
All wealth consists of objects either immediately applic-
able to the satisfaction of the wants and desires of mankind,
as bread, wine, cloth, houses, household furniture, musical
instruments, paintings, maps, books, &c., or of such as assist
in producing them, as a plough, a wine-press, a weaving-
loom, a printing-press, axes, planes, saws, and other tools,
&c. The first sort may be distinguished when occasion re-
quires, as wealth immediately consumable ; the second as
wealth not immediately consumable. The latter sort, or
CHAP. III. ANALYSIS OP WEALTH. 23
wealth not immediately consumable, can be employed only
in one way, and that is productively. Of the former sort,
or wealth immediately consumable, a part can be employed
only in one way, and that is unproductively, as instruments
of music,* paintings, maps, books, &c. ; but another, and by
far the greatest part, may be employed either productively
or unproductively, as bread, cloth, &c. according to the em-
ployment of the persons who consume it. For as wealth
immediately consumable, or food, clothing, and shelter of
some sort or other, is necessary to the support of our bodies
and to our very existence, and as human labour is abso-
lutely necessary, in a greater or less degree, to the production
of every article of wealth, that which is employed in main-
taining productive labourers is alone productive of new
wealth ; while that which is employed in maintaining every
other description of persons is not followed by any such re-
sult. This part of wealth, therefore, is productive or unpro-
ductive according to the way in which it is employed, or to
the description of persons whom it maintains.
" There is one sort of labour/' says Dr Smith, a which adds
to the value of the subject upon which it is bestowed ; there
is another which has no such effect. The former, as it pro-
duces a value, may be called productive ; the latter, unpro-
ductive labour. Thus the labour of a manufacturer adds ge-
nerally to the value of the materials which he works upon,
that of his own maintenance and of his master's profit. The
labour of a menial servant, on the contrary, adds to the value
* It may perhaps be thought that musical instruments and even
household furniture, when they are employed by teachers or boarding-
house-keepers for hire, and the gaining of a livelihood, are employed
productively ; but it is to be recollected that no new wealth is ever
produced in this way, and that that which supports both the teachers
and taught must be drawn ultimately from some productive source.
Vide Dr Smith on this subject, W. of N. b. ii. c. 1. vol. i. p. 441,
Buchanan's edition.
24 ANALYSIS OF WEALTH. BOOK t.
of nothing. Though the manufacturer has his wages advan-
ced to him by his master, he in reality costs him no expense,
the value of those wages being generally restored, together
with a profit, in the improved value of the subject upon which
his labour is bestowed. But the maintenance of a menial
servant never is restored. A man grows rich by employing
a multitude of manufacturers ; he grows poor by maintaining
a multitude of menial servants. The labour of the latter,
however, has its value, and deserves its reward as well as that
of the former. But the labour of the manufacturer fixes and
realizes itself in some particular subject or vendible commo-
dity, which lasts for some time at least after that labour is
past. It is, as it were, a certain quantity of labour stocked
and stored up, to be employed, if necessary, upon some other
occasion. That subject, or, what is the same thing, the price
of that subject, can afterwards, if necessary, put into motion
a quantity of labour equal to that which had originally pro-
duced it. The labour of the menial servant, on the contrary,
does not fix or realize itself in any particular subject or ven-
dible commodity. His services generally perish in the very
instant of their performance, and seldom leave any trace of
value behind them, for which an equal quantity of service
could afterwards be procured."*
To return to our analysis and classification, and to be as
distinct as possible upon this subject, wealth, with regard to
its uses and employments, must be classed under three dif-
ferent heads ; namely, first, that which is necessarily pro-
ductive ; second, that which is necessarily unproductive ;
and, third, that which may be either the one or the other,
according to the way in which it is employed.
I. If we cast our eyes backwards upon the various items
or sorts of wealth described and enumerated in the state-
ment or summary contained in the preceding chapter, it
* Wealth of Nations, book ii. chap. 3. See the subject of produc-
tive and unproductive labour treated more fully in the next chapter.
CHAP. III. ANALYSIS OF WEALTH. 25
will be apparent that some of them are calculated for imme-
diate use, consumption, or enjoyment ; that is, for the sa-
tisfaction of the immediate, natural, and necessary wants or
desires of mankind, as bread, wine, &c., while others are
calculated merely to assist in producing such articles, and
cannot themselves be converted to any such immediate pur-
pose of consumption, as a plough, a wine-press, &c. Of
this last-mentioned sort, or wealth which cannot be applied
to any purpose of immediate enjoyment, but must necessa-
rily be applied to productive purposes, is the land, and the
meliorations made upon it, as enclosures, drains, &c.,
roads, canals, harbours, docks, water-works, or arcs for wa-
ter-wheels, dam-heads, and all works and buildings necessary
for every different manufacture or mechanic art, as blast-
furnaces in founderies, kilns in potteries and glass-works,
and all structures of a similar kind, which cannot be applied
to the immediate satisfaction of our natural wants, or con-
verted to any other use or purpose but that for which they
were originally and expressly designed. These must be con-
sidered altogether or chiefly as productive wealth. Of this
sort likewise may be reckoned steam-engines, cranes, water-
wheels, windmills, thrashing-machines, ships, &c., and ge-
nerally all those items of wealth which are subservient to
production, and cannot be applied without very great loss
and depreciation to any other purpose.
It is true, the proprietor of a piece of land, or of a ship,
or of a steam-engine, or of a pottery or a glass-work, or of a
share in a canal, road, See., may sell any of these properties,
and apply the proceeds to the purpose of immediate con-
sumption or enjoyment, or to any other purpose he pleases ;
that is, he can exchange any of these properties for money,
which he can employ in any way he pleases. He may
either set labourers to work in some other department of
productive industry; in which case his stock, if applied
with common judgment and common fortune, will return to
26 ANALYSIS OF WEALTH. BOOK 1.
him after a certain lapse of time with some augmentation ;
namely, with the ordinary profit and wages, or remuneration
for his trouble and risk in so employing it ; or he may lay
out the money wholly in procuring immediate enjoyment ;
as, for example, in treats and amusements, in eating and
drinking and making merry ; in which case it will not re-
turn to him again, nor will the articles consumed be re-
placed by any certain or equal quantity of new wealth, but
will be destroyed and annihilated as wealth altogether.
But the canal, road, &c., the share of which this person
sold, will not be in the smallest degree affected, altered, or
injured by such disposal. Not a stone of their fabrics will
be moved ; but they will continue, as before, to be applied
to their destined purposes just as if no such transfer had
happened.
There are some portions of wealth, therefore, which must
always be employed in the work of production, so long as
they continue to retain the character of wealth ; and, in re-
gard to those just mentioned, that will be until they either
go into decay or disrepair themselves, or until the decay of
the country, or of trade in the place where they are situated,
and on which their employment or utility depends. Ma-
chines, whilst a demand subsists for the articles they are
calculated to produce, must be so employed; a canal, a
dock, a harbour, must be so employed, and can only cease
to be productive wealth in consequence of the decay of the
country, or of trade in the place where they happen to be
situated, and which no longer requires or can maintain such
expensive items or means of production.
It is also true, that some of those items of wealth here
set down as mainly and necessarily productive, may, to a
limited extent, or in a constrained sense, be applied to im-
mediate consumption or enjoyment ; as a walk for recrea-
tion may be taken in the fields, or upon a road ; which last,
as well as a canal, may be used for the transport of a plea-
CHAP. III. ANALYSIS OF WEALTH. 27
sure-party ; and the steam-engine, which was heretofore ex-
clusively confined to productive purposes, is now exten-
sively applied to navigation, a very considerable part of
which is devoted to pleasure or amusement. Yet still their
utility or productive capacity continues to constitute the
chief end and purpose of this class of objects ; that of a
road or canal to facilitate business and the transport of goods
or commodities, and that of a steam-engine to propel ma-
chinery employed to increase the productive powers of la-
bour ; and, generally speaking, therefore, they must be al-
lowed to derive their character from this predominant qua-
lity, and must be set down as stock or capital essentially
productive.
There are other items of wealth which are also strictly
productive, but which may be converted, though but par-
tially, and not without considerable loss and reduction of
value, into purposes of mere enjoyment and consumption.
Such are cotton-mills, corn-mills, granaries, work-shops, &c.,
which might be converted into dwelling-houses, churches,
theatres, &c. (which are objects of barren consumption) ;
but to a very limited extent, and evidently not without con-
siderable expense and a very material sacrifice of value.
For although a granary or an extensive work-shop, Sec.,
might, at a certain expense and sacrifice of capital, be con-
verted into dwelling-houses, or even into a church or a
theatre, yet this could not be done in many instances, or to
any considerable extent, because granaries and work-shops
must be had, as well as dwelling-houses, churches, and
theatres, in proportion to the business and population to be
accommodated ; while it is evident the original destination
of granaries, work-shops, &c., could not be changed to any
considerable extent in a country requiring an additional num-
ber of dwelling-houses, or even in one which barely kept up
a fixed and stationary number. This is evident, because the
demand for dwelling-houses cannot increase or continue the
28 ANALYSIS OF WEALTH. BOOK I.
same without the increase or continuance of the general
wealth and population of the country, and then the demand
for granaries, work-shops, &c., must increase or remain un-
diminished at the same time ; and whilst the one class of
buildings receives an addition to its number, or continues
undiminished, so must the other. It is evident, therefore,
that the buildings of either description could not be con-
verted to the contrary purposes mentioned to any extent of
consequence ; as, likewise, it is plain, that in every ad-
vanced country there must always be a very great amount
of wealth, stock, or capital, invested in productive build-
ings, or houses, which cannot be converted from their pro-
per use to purposes of consumption and enjoyment ; but
must continue to be applied to productive purposes, and
to retain the character of productive wealth until their
own decay, or until the decay of the trade, population, and
general wealth of the country or place where they are situ-
ated.
II. Again, there are other articles which are altogether
confined to enjoyment, and cannot be applied at all to pro-
ductive purposes. Such are instruments of music, paint-
ings, maps, books, &c. Those things can only serve for
pleasure and amusement, or for instruction ; and, however
much they may contribute to increase production indirectly,
by improving the capacity and skill of the producer, as well
as by rewarding and stimulating his exertions, they cannot
be accounted productive wealth. They may be the most
excellent things in the whole circle of nature or catalogue of
wealth, but they cannot be applied directly to the work of
production. These articles, indeed, being vendible commo-
dities, may be sold, and the proceeds applied to productive
purposes, but the articles themselves never can, but must
still be applied to their proper and unalterable uses, and
must continue unchangeably to amuse, delight, and instruct
mankind, into whatever hands they may fall.
CHAP. III. ANALYSIS OF WEALTH. 29
All household furniture is strictly unproductive wealth,
and properly belongs to this class, which cannot be converted
to any other purpose than that of consumption or enjoyment ;
as tables, chairs, beds, sideboards, china, stoneware, crys-
tal, &c. Other household articles, indeed, as those form-
ed of the metals, may, some with a greater, some with a
less sacrifice of value, be converted and applied to produc-
tive purposes ; as, for instance, pots and pans might be
forged into other useful articles, and pokers and spits
might, with perhaps still less loss, be made into nails. Yet
a slight consideration will be sufficient to demonstrate that
this could only be done to a very limited extent ; because
pots and pans, and pokers, Sec., must be had to serve their
purposes as well as nails, or any other articles of wealth
into which those utensils could be converted ; the one sort
being wanted as well as the other, in proportion to the ex-
tent, wealth, and population of a country.
III. The third and last sort of wealth is that which may
be applied indifferently either to productive or unproductive
purposes, and consists of all articles or goods which are im-
mediately consumable, or such as are necessary to the sub-
sistence of the labourer or of mankind, whose industry may
be applied either productively or unproductively. Such are
corn, cloth, houses, &c., which may be employed either the
one way or the other.
For example : Any person having the command of a
quantity of corn, cloth, and other articles necessary to the
subsistence of the labourer, equal, suppose, to the mainte-
nance of a hundred or a thousand men for a year, or any
other given amount, may employ it in either of the two dif-
ferent ways following :
First, he may employ it in any of the three general de-
partments of productive industry, agriculture, manufac-
tures, or commerce ; that is to say, he may employ it in
raising or producing corn, cloth, or other vendible commo-
30 ANALYSIS OF WEALTH. BOOK I,
dities, by setting labourers to work in any of those depart-
ments ; in which case, as the corn, cloth, &c., the subsist-
ence of the labourer, disappears, other wealth, corn, cloth,
&c., will arise under their hands, and if their labour has
been directed and applied with ordinary skill and judgment,
and with ordinary good fortune, the quantity of wealth pro-
duced will exceed the original quantity which has been con-
sumed, and replace the capital expended, with the addition
of the ordinary profit of stock in such employments ; that
is, the ordinary remuneration or reward to the proprietor for
the trouble and risk he subjects himself to in that particular
application and employment of his labour and stock. Se-
condly, the person having possession of such stock or capi-
tal may use it in keeping hounds and hunting-horses, and
grooms, and menial servants, or other unproductive labour-
ers ; or he may give it away for nothing to persons who do
not labour at all ; in which case, as the corn, cloth, &c.,
the subsistence of the hounds and horses, and of the unpro-
ductive labourers, or of the non-labourers, disappears, no
new wealth will arise therefrom, nor will the original capital
be replaced by such expenditure and consumption, which
must be supplied, if repeated, from some other source alto-
gether independent of such application of stock, whereby the
whole is spent and annihilated as wealth, without any return
or reproduction of property equivalent thereto.
In the first of these two cases, goods of equal or greater
value arise from the consumption of goods already in exist-
ence ; in the second, such consumption is not followed by
any return of equivalent goods ; and as in both cases wealth
or vendible commodities are equally consumed, viz. the sub-
sistence of the labourer, or non-labourer, and are reproduced
in the one case and not in the other, it is apparent that this
sort of wealth becomes productive or unproductive according
to the way in which it is employed ; in other words, accord-
ing as it is expended in maintaining persons who are occu-
CHAP. III. ANALYSIS OF WEALTH. 31
pied in the one or in the other of the different ways de-
scribed.
It depends, therefore, entirely and exclusively on the way
in which this sort of wealth is employed whether it be pro-
ductive or unproductive, and whether an equal, or a greater,
or a less quantity of wealth, or no wealth at all, arise from
its consumption. And hence it follows, that wealth in ge-
neral cannot be distinctly classed and confined to the two
simple sorts or species of productive and unproductive ; so
very considerable a portion of it, namely, almost all that
is immediately consumable, being applicable both ways, and
taking the character of productive or unproductive, not from
any modifications under which it exists, or from any quali-
ties inherent in or constantly attending it, but simply from
the way in which it is employed ; that character depend-
ing entirely on the employment of the persons or labourers
which this species of wealth is expended in maintaining.
And this conclusion leads directly to the consideration of
the much-controverted question of productive or unproduc-
tive labour, a subject which I shall endeavour fully to dis-
cuss in the two next chapters.
It has been already noticed (pp. 26, 27,) that among those
items of wealth which belong generally to the class of pro-
ductive, there are some which may, to a limited extent, be
applied to unproductive purposes ; as a canal and a steam-
boat may be employed to convey a pleasure-party, and a
walk for pleasure may be taken in the fields (which are the
land) or upon a road. It has been shown, in like manner,
(pp. 27, 28,) that there are items of wealth which general-
ly belong to the class of unproductive, which may also, in
a limited degree, be turned to productive uses; as a
dwelling-house may be converted into a work-shop, granary,
or the like ; and we have explained the causes which control
and restrain the application of those items to any consider-
32 ANALYSIS OF WEALTH. BOOK I,
able extent, the one way or the other, contrary to their ori-
ginal and proper destination. But it may not be wholly
useless or unnecessary to add, that, in a certain constrained
sense, all wealth may be applied, at the pleasure of the pos-
sessor or proprietor, either to productive or unproductive
purposes ; as, for instance, a canal, which is chiefly used in
a productive way, may not only, as already mentioned, be
applied to the unproductive purpose of transporting a plea-
sure-party, but it may be applied productively in a way
quite distinct from that of its ordinary and proper use,
should the decay of a country or of trade render it useless
for the purpose of navigation ; as the stones which confine
its banks, or those of its locks or aqueducts, might be taken
to build a house or a bridge ; and, under similar circum-
stances, a road might be turned to tillage ; and this might
be called applying the canal and road to productive pur-
poses. On the other hand, sideboards and tables, paint-
ings, maps, books, &c., which are strictly unproductive
wealth, might be employed to keep up the fire of a steam-
engine, or other furnace used in a productive way, as the
numerous volumes of the Alexandrian library actually were
employed to heat the baths ; and this might be called ap-
plying those articles productively. But I believe every
reader will readily allow that such a construction or strained
application of terms as to call such a use of those articles a
productive one, would be altogether extravagant and inad-
missible. Nor could any cavil or objection founded on such
a forced construction and use of language be considered as
an obstacle, or be allowed to stand in the way of a more
perfect classification of the different kinds of wealth than we
have been able, consistently with truth, to exhibit. And
this much, at least, the reader must have seen, that it is not
on account of such obstacles that we cannot divide the
whole mass of wealth into the two simple kinds of productive
and unproductive. It is because so great a proportion of it
CHAP. III. ANALYSIS OF WEALTH. 33
can be applied as we have shown, either the one way or the
other, that this distinction holds not universally, and cannot
be so laid down. It is sufficient for us to have endeavoured
to found our analysis upon the different properties and dis-
tinguishing characteristics which really belong to the differ-
ent sorts of wealth, without pretending or attempting a more
exact or more perfect and simple classification of them than
the things themselves will really allow.
But although we cannot lay down an unqualified and
universal distinction on this subject, still the analysis we
have attempted is not to be considered as useless or unpro-
fitable. Nor will our attention be found to have been use-
lessly or unprofitably employed upon it. A very great pro-
portion of the general mass of wealth falls distinctly to be
classed under the two simple heads of productive and un-
productive ; and we have learned, at least, in the course of
our investigations, what portions or items can and what can-
not be so classed. We have, besides, it is to be hoped,
gotten to the bottom of our subject, and gained a more per-
fect knowledge of the different uses and employments of
wealth than we could have acquired otherwise, as well as a
more perfect view of the distinguishing characters of its dif-
ferent items, and a cue to refer every distinct sort to its
proper place in our conception of the whole.
We may observe, then, as the result of our inquiries
here, that there axe jive different circumstances attending
wealth, or accidents affecting it, relatively to its different
uses and employments, which belong to and characterize its
various parts and items, with a greater or less degree of dis-
tinctness.
First, we have seen (p. 25) that among the various items
of wealth there are some which must be applied altogether
and invariably to productive purposes, so long as they re-
tain the character of wealth themselves, as ploughs, wine-
34 ANALYSIS OF WEALTH. BOOK I.
i
presses, water-wheels, steam-engines, weaving-looms, and
the like.
Secondly, we have seen (p. 28) that there are other items
which can only be applied to unproductive purposes, as
instruments of music, paintings, maps, books, and things
of the like nature.
Thirdly, there is another sort of wealth or items which
approach to the character of the first, but which may, in a
certain degree and to a limited extent, be applied as the
second, as the buildings of cotton-mills, cornmills, &c.,
which might be partially converted into dwelling-houses.
(See pp. 27, 28.)
Fourthly, there is a sort approaching to the character of
the second, but which may be partially converted to the
purposes of the first, as pots, and pans, and pokers, which
might be manufactured into nails, &c. (See p. 29.)
Fifthly and lastly, there is a sort of wealth or items which
may be applied indifferently either as the first or second ;
that is, equally to productive and to unproductive purposes,
and to an indefinite extent in either way, as corn, cloth,
&c., (see p. 29,) there being no impediment to the applica-
tion or employment of the whole of this sort of wealth in
pure unproductive consumption or enjoyment, except that
which arises from the private interests of the possessors of
capital, which teaches them to reflect, that if those items, or
their individual portions of them, should be so consumed,
they must be reduced to the condition of labourers, or, if
incapable of labour, to that of a total dependence or destitu-
tion.
CHAP. IV. LABOUR PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE. 35
CHAPTER IV.
OF PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE LABOUR.
PRODUCTIVE labour is that which is directly employed in
the production of wealth or vendible property, and of which
the effects remain apparent after the labour itself is past,
fixed and realized in some material object or commodity.
Such are the labours of the husbandman, the manufacturer,
and the merchant, and of all whose industry is necessary in
the processes of production, as the term has been explained
in the foregoing chapters. Not only those whose industry
is confined to mere manual labour, but those also who are
employed in superintending and directing that labour ;
not only the ploughman and gatherer-in of the harvest, but
the master-farmer also, who orders their work, and directs
and superintends the employment of a stock or capital either
of his own or some other person's in the business of agricul-
ture ; not only the shopmen and porters of the merchant,
but the merchant himself, with his clerks and assistants*
who are equally necessary to the conducting of his business
with those who are occupied in the moving or transporting
of his goods from one place to another, as carters, porters,
sailors, &c. ; and, in one word, all are productive labourers
whose industry is useful, necessary, or advantageous, in
every office and department of the processes of production.
Unproductive labour is that which is employed, not in
the actual production of wealth, but in offices of another
description, and of which the effects commonly perish along
with it, and are no longer visible after the labour itself is
past, or, if permanent and visible, they are not communi-
cated to any object that can be turned to account in the
way of sale, or voluntary exchange of equivalent values.
36 LABOUR PRODUCTIVE BOOK I.
Such is the labour of all the officers and administrators of
government and of the law, public functionaries of every de-
scription, ministers of state, judges and officers of justice,
clergy, army and navy. Such also is the labour of menial
servants, stage-players, Sec., and generally of all whose ex-
ertion or industry is not immediately subservient to the
work of production, but is yet notwithstanding necessarily
or usefully employed in ministering to our convenience or
well-being ; or to our enjoyment in any way of our share
of the goods which the other sort of labour has produced.
It will be at once apparent to the reader, from these de-
finitions, that unproductive labour is no less necessary to
the existence and production of wealth (wherever it is to be
found in any considerable quantity) than productive labour.
And not only is it necessary to this end, but to others equal-
ly important ; namely, to the security of persons as well
as property, to liberty, and even to the very existence of
any extensive or civilized society. For it is by unproductive
labour that a civilized people are protected in their persons
as well as in then* properties, and of course that the pro-
ductive labourer is secured of the fruits of his industry, and
allowed to pursue his occupation and objects unmolested.
It is by unproductive labour that wealth is secured to the
individual possessors or proprietors thereof; that the forcible
transfer or violent invasion of it is prevented ; and that its
equitable distribution is secured agreeably to the only just
mode according to which such distribution can take placej
viz. by voluntary exchange, by treaty or compact. In short,
without the constant vigilance and protecting agency of this
class of labourers, rapine would stalk abroad over the land,
production would cease, and population fail ; industry would
be extinguished, and wealth annihilated, or reduced at least
and confined to nearly that small and unbought quantity
which the earth spontaneously produces.
On the other hand 5 it is by productive labour that wealth
CHAP. IV. AND UNPRODUCTIVE. 37
is gathered together and accumulated, and that the unpro-
ductive labourers as well as the whole community are pro-
vided with subsistence ; and as all men are consumers of
wealth, it is abundantly demonstrable, or rather I should
say, it is self-evident, that if none were engaged in the work
of production, the whole stock which is at any time in the
world would be speedily exhausted, and, as in the other case,
nothing would remain after a short interval but that com-
paratively small and inconsiderable quantity which the earth
without culture should continue gratuitously to afford.
Productive and unproductive labourers then we see are
both necessary, and equally necessary, to the existence of
wealth as well as to the existence of society itself, and,
where the government is well constituted, they are all equal-
ly employed in useful labour, each in his proper sphere
contributing his mite of industry to the necessary and mul-
tifarious business of the commonwealth. But it is not there^
fore to be imagined that this is a useless or unnecessary dis-
tinction. On the contrary, it is one of the most important
and most necessary in the whole science of political econo-
my, and lies indeed at the foundation of all utility in the
objects and application of that science ; for, without an in-
timate acquaintance with this distinction, it is not possible
perfectly to comprehend the effects of an undue or unne-
cessary increase of the unproductive class, or clearly to per-
ceive the injustice and injury of appointing and maintaining
a greater number in the department of government, than is
required to conduct public affairs in the best manner,
The following brief analysis of unproductive labour will
render this more apparent.
Unproductive labour is of two sorts : First, that which
is employed in the administration of public affairs ; and,
secondly, that which is required in domestic and other oc-
cupations and professions by individuals in their private
capacity.
00 LABOUR PROPUCTIVE BOOK I.
Persons engaged in the first sort of unproductive labour
are installed into their offices and appointments by a part of
society acting for the whole. Those employed in the second
are engaged to their work and offices, or appointments, by
every individual for himself, that is, by treaty and agree-
ment, conducted, settled, and assented to by both the par-
ties or persons concerned. A few persons appoint all the
public functionaries, the ministers of state, judges, officers
of justice, army and navy, for the whole community ; but
every individual engages his own servants, and determines
for himself when he shall see a play or other amusement,
and calls to his aid the advice and assistance of a physician
or a lawyer when he sees fit.
There is no danger therefore to be dreaded that the
number of people employed in the second sort of unproduc-
tive labour should become over-great or excessive, because
it possesses a perfect principle of self-regulation and correc-
tion. For the labourers in this sort being all engaged, and
their wages, salary, or fees, settled and determined by volun-
tary consent fully given, no one is obliged to employ or pay
more of them than he pleases ; and if it happens that any
body does engage or employ more than he can well afford at
one time, he must necessarily confine himself to the use of
fewer at another. The numbers and employment therefore
of this sort of unproductive labourers is entirely a matter of
private prudence and economy ; and a superabundance of
hands or applicants, in any class or profession in this depart-
ment, is only felt as an inconvenience to those classes or ap-
plicants themselves, but by no means to the rest of the com-
munity, or the public in general. The numbers and employ-
ment of this sort of unproductive labourers, therefore, belongs
not to legislative regulation or interference, nor demands the
public attention or solicitude, but may safely be left, and
can only be safely confided, to the determination and direc-
tion of private judgment and discretion.
CHAP. IV. AND UNPRODUCTIVE. 39
But it is not so with the first sort of unproductive la-
bourers above described. Here the regulating principle is
not perfect ; for the amount of salary or remuneration, as
well as the appointment of the labourers in this sort, being
determined by a part (and a very small part indeed) of the
society acting for the whole, there is the greatest reason im-
aginable to dread that if the consent and suffrage of the
general body, who sustain the charge of those appointments,
be not required to control them, or if such consent or suff-
rage be very imperfectly or partially given or required, both
too many will be employed, and they will be paid too much
for their labour. This indeed is a result as certain and con-
fidently to be expected as any that can be derived from ex-
perience of the principles of human conduct. This depart-
ment therefore requires the utmost attention and vigilance
of the public, first, in framing with due care the original
rules, or fundamental laws of government, according to which
those appointments and suffrages are to take place, and
afterwards in watching and superintending their practical
operation.
It is almost unnecessary to remark, that there is no dan-
ger to be apprehended of the numbers of the productive
class being increased too much, because in proportion to
their numbers, with equal skill in the arts of production,
they will only have to labour so much the less, or enjoy the
greater plenty. The greater their number, therefore, the
better must it be for all those requiring their commodities ;
that is, for themselves and every body else.
It is obvious to remark, and has been noticed by Dr
Smith in treating this subject, that the most honourable as
well as the meanest offices and employments belong to the
department of unproductive labour, an observation that im-
ports nothing farther than the recognition of a simple fact
in the development of science, and brings neither disgrace
to the persons engaged in this, nor honour to those employ-
40 LABOUR PRODUCTIVE BOOK T.
ed in the other. All of them, as is likewise remarked by
the same great moralist, deserve their rewards, or wages,
as well as the productive class ; provided always, I should
add, that they be not unnecessarily multiplied, so as not
to have real duties to perform equivalent to those rewards
which they receive as recompense. That this will not
be the case with regard to one distinct sort of the unpro-
ductive labourers there is always a sufficient security, as
we have already shown, arising from the private interest of
those who employ that sort ; and the same motives of pri-
vate interest can be easily rendered available for the like
purpose of security against any undue increase of the other
sort of unproductive labourers, or those who are employed
in a public capacity, by the simple expedient of extending
the right of suffrage or control over their appointments to
those who bear the charges of their support and mainte-
nance, this principle of regulation, or check, founded on the
feeling of private interest, being the natural and obvious,
as it is the only effectual ground of security and reliance
against abuse or injustice in all affairs between man and man
which fall to be regulated by political constitutions or codes
of law.
All those, then, who are employed in the necessary business
of the society we call labourers, whether they be engaged
in the productive or unproductive departments of useful la-
bour ; and both classes have been shown to be equally use-
ful and equally necessary.* The necessity of the one class
* It will be obvious to the reader that both productive and unpro-
ductive labourers belong to " the industrious classes ;" and, according
to our notions, a minister of state, a judge or lawyer, accountant, &<%
may be as industrious as well as useful as any productive labourer
whatever. I shall add here, that the general interest of all labour-
ers, productive and unproductive, is the same in regard to preventing
any great or undue increase of that portion of the unproductive class
CHAP. IV. AND UNPRODUCTIVE. 41
arises from the scanty and inadequate provision, or means
of subsistence and enjoyment, which the earth unassisted
affords, or what may be reckoned the imperfection of ex-
ternal nature ; the necessity of the other arises from the
imperfection of human nature itself, from the violence of
passion, which provokes to injustice, and the cloudiness of
reason, which but feebly and inadequately supplies a remedy.
which is employed in the administration of government, because, as
that portion is increased, the productive class must be diminished to
the same extent, and must consequently work longer or harder than
before ; and so likewise must the unproductive class, by the principle
of competition, in all those departments where that principle is allowed
to operate.
Sir Walter Scott, in an introductory discourse to one of his novels,
has the following shrewd observations on the subject of productive
and unproductive labour :
ff I do say it," says Sir Walter, u in spite of Adam Smith and his
followers, that a successful author is a productive labourer, and that
his works constitute as effectual a part of the public wealth as that
which is created by any other manufacture. If a new commodity,
having an actually intrinsic and commercial value, be the result of the
operation, why are the author's bales of books to be esteemed a less
profitable part of the public stock than the goods of any other manu-
facturer?" Fortunes of Nigel, Introductory Epistle, pp. 33, 34.
Now this doctrine of Sir Walter Scott agrees entirely, it is plain,
with that which is advanced in this inquiry, namely, that all are pro-
ductive labourers who are engaged directly in the production of wealth
or vendible commodities, and an author, consequently, who produces a
book that will sell, (to the booksellers or others) is necessarily, according
to our notions, a productive labourer. Nor are the doctrines of Smith,
when carefully examined into, really different. It is true indeed, that in
one place Dr Smith says, that in the class of unproductive labourers
" must be ranked men of letters of all kinds ;" but he had just before
stated as the criterion by which an unproductive labourer is distin-
guished, that his labour " does not fix and realize itself in any per-
manent subject or vendible commodity ;" and it is to be recollected
that in Dr Smith's time, literary labours were but rarely or very in-
42 CLASS OF NON-LABOURERS. BOOK I.
CHAPTER V.
OF THE CLASS OF NON-LABOURERS ; OR OF THOSE PERSONS
WHO DO NOT LABOUR AT ALL, OR NEED TO LABOUR.
SECTION I.
THAT THE ONLY PERSONS ENTITLED TO EXEMPTION FROM
LABOUR ARE THE PROPRIETORS OF LAND AND THE
PROPRIETORS OF CAPITAL.*
BUT, besides the two classes of labourers described in the
preceding chapter, and distinguished according to their dif-
ferent sorts of industry, there is a third class of persons to
be found in every civilized community who do not labour at
all, or need to labour, but are at liberty to pursue (solely
if they please,) their own private pleasure and amusement.
This class consists of those persons who derive their revenue
from their land or capital, and who may be considered as
adequately rewarded. But here, in the case supposed by Sir Walter
Scott, the labour of " the man of letters" fixes and realizes itself in
the form of a book or manuscript, which proves to be vendible, and
consequently brings the author, according to Dr Smith's own rule,
within the description and denomination of a productive labourer.
* Land, it will be said, is capital ; and so indeed it is in every coun-
try where wealth and population have increased to that degree that
it has become vendible property ; but then it is capital of so distinct
and peculiar a kind, and the revenue or rent arising from it is regu-
lated or influenced in regard to its increase and decrease by circum-
stances so very different and even opposite from those which regulate
and influence the increase and decrease of the revenue, or profit, aris-
ing from other sorts of capital, that it becomes absolutely necessary to
distinguish them in order to their being treated of, and always to give
the land its appropriate name almost as often as we speak of it.
CHAP. V. CLASS OF NON-LABOURERS. 43
having been emancipated or exempted from all obligation or
necessity to labour by their own or their father's industry
and parsimony, or good fortune, which enabled them to
amass, or to produce that capital or store of wealth, which
continues, if preserved from dissipation, in all future time,
to be a source of revenue without requiring the performance
of any labour on the part of its possessors, save that which
is necessary to preserve it, or to invest and secure it in the
best manner.
This class must be carefully distinguished from the la-
bourers, productive and unproductive. It is composed en-
tirely of land-holders and capitalists ; and perhaps the
latter appellation might be used singly (as frequently it is
used) to designate both. But it will be necessary to dis-
tinguish this class still farther, when occasion requires, by the
name of non-labourers. Not that the individuals of this
class are precluded or debarred by their social condition and
just privileges from the exertion of their industry in any
way that they think fit ; nor is it intended to say that they
are morally exempted from the general obligation incumbent
upon all men to employ their time, their labour, and then-
talents, in the best manner they are able, with a view to the
production of the greatest sum of good, or of human hap-
piness, although it be left entirely to their own choice and
discretion to determine what they should do, or in what
manner they should contribute towards this end ; neither
is it meant to be insinuated that this order of men are more
remiss in their duties or less strenuous in their labours and
endeavours to contribute to the public happiness or prosper-
ity than any other class of men whatsoever. All that is in-
tended by the term non-labourers, as applied to designate
this class, is merely to recognise their right and privilege,
and to distinguish them from those who must necessarily
labour ; for the only persons entitled to the privilege im-
plied by this term are the proprietors of land and the pro-
CLASS OF NON-LABOURERS. BOOK I.
prietors of capital. All others must labour ; or, if they do
not, and live, they must either be supported by the free
bounty of others, or maintain themselves by robbery, or by
fraud or artifice of some sort or other.
It is very far indeed from my intention to deny that the
individuals of this class labour frequently as assiduously
and as diligently as any other members of the community,
though not always, it must be confessed, in the walks of pro-
fitable or self-interested industry. They oftener work for
nothing than any other class ; and that this should be the
case might very naturally be expected, because they are bet-
ter able to do so than the others, and many of them have no
other object in the pursuit of which they choose to occupy
themselves, or in which they so much delight, as in seeking
how they may best promote the good of then* neighbours or
of their country. Still, however, whether they labour or
not, they are entitled to consume wealth to the extent of
their income derived from land or capital ; or, even if they
please, the whole amount and value of their land and capital
itself. And by so much as they consume above what
they produce by their labour, by so much are they non-la-
bourers. Their capital stands in the place of the labour of
their hands, and may be conceived as labouring for them,
as it assists the labourer in the work of production, and
thereby creates a fund to which no labourer or borrower of
capital has any right, but which falls due to the proprietors
of the capital as the proper inducement or reward for its
preservation and increase.
Probably there is not and never was in the world, any
individual who was absolutely and altogether a non-labourer,
in the full sense of the word, during his whole life ; or who
never, upon any occasion, or in any manner of way, by ac-
cident or design, performed one single act of useful labour.
Every person, it is probable, has done some things which
must have furthered the business of mankind in some way
CHAP. V. CLASS OF NON-LABOURERS. 45
or other ; for even the most helpless invalid, confined his
whole life to a single posture, might yet have done many
things which had such an effect. But all men are non-la-
bourers during a part of their lives. They are so during
the period of infancy at least, when they are supported by
the willing bounty of parents, and generally some time like-
wise in old age, when children have again the privilege of
paying back the sacred duty of gratitude and affection.
Besides, during periods of sickness, recreation, and acciden-
tal intervals of employment, men are occasionally non-la-
bourers, when the wealth which they consume must either
be derived from their land or capital,* or must be acquired
from other people, in whatever manner.
In general, however, it may be affirmed, that most men
of all ranks and classes are engaged during the greater part
of their lives in useful labour of some sort or other, and
either do something which contributes to production directly,
or assist in the administration of public affairs of justice
and government ; which last-mentioned occupation is indeed
peculiarly the province of this third class of persons, a great
proportion of whom is always found employed in this way;
nor is any thing more usual than to observe the individuals
of this class emulating all others in assiduous industry, re-
linquishing all ease and indulgence, or exclusive pursuit of
private pleasure, and giving up their time, and their labour,
and their talents to the calls of public duty, sometimes
honourably, for a just and adequate remuneration or reward ;
and in other cases gratuitously, without fee or recompense,
save that which they derive from the consciousness of their
own virtuous conduct.-)-
* Their own previous savings, it is to be remembered, come under
the denomination of capital as well as the accumulations inherited or
derived from others.
t In what is here said I would not be understood as alluding to
46 CLASS OF NON-LABOURERS. BOOK I.
And certainly no class of persons can have a higher in-
terest, or more cogent motives to promote, by every means
in their power, the public prosperity than this class ; and
more particularly the landlords, seeing that every increase
of wealth and population increases the value of their posses-
sions. The landlords are indeed the natural nobles and
magistrates of the country ; and all offices of a public na-
ture, as well as the cultivation of the arts and sciences,
though free to all in a free country, belong in a more espe-
cial manner to the class of capitalists who can command the
leisure and other means so conducive, and even, generally
speaking, indispensable to the successful or advantageous
prosecution of such avocations. Nor are those to be con-
demned who follow none of these pursuits. They injure
no one who, possessing the means, seek only in an innocent
manner to attain happiness; and if they arrive at their
object without any other particular employments, they will
by no means be unprofitable members of the community.
They will not have lived in vain. Nay, as it is human hap-
piness which is the great end and aim of all our earthly la-
bours, and as the happiness of the community is made up
of the happiness of individuals, it follows as a necessary
consequence, that such members or persons as arrive at that
end by the shortest road are, as members of the community
simply taken, the most profitable of all.
This will perhaps be the more readily admitted when it is
understood that the direct benefits accruing from capital, in
the " unpaid magistracy of England," or as approving of or recom-
mending that system ; on the contrary, I think that the evil conse-
quences of it are but too apparent. The judges and administrators of
puhlic justice ought to be paid for their trouble from the highest to
the lowest ; but there are thousands of other ways in which the in-
dustry and self-devotedness of the landlords and capitalists may find
scope and opportunity to display itself.
9
CHAP. V. CLASS OF NON-LABOURERS. 47
the shape of profit or interest to the proprietors, do not
comprise or exhaust the whole of the advantages which flow
from it ; but that, on the contrary, a great part of those ad-
vantages is reaped in an indirect manner by the whole com-
munity, and by every individual in it from the highest to
the lowest, in consequence of that diminution in the cost of
production, and consequently in the price of commodities,
which must always arise from every new increase and new
investment of capital. For, besides that every addition to
capital necessarily creates and establishes a new and addi-
tional fund, in the shape of profit or interest for the main-
tenance of non-labourers, it also enables those who employ
it and pay that interest to carry on their business to better
advantage, and to bring their commodities either better or
cheaper to market ; that is, it enables them to make greater
gains themselves, and to supply the market with cheaper
goods, than they could have done without its assistance, at
the same time that it enables them to pay also the stipulated
interest. But, as this is a point of the very highest and vi-
tal importance in the standing controversy between capital
and labour, or in regard to the effects or services of the one
and the other in the work of production, and as the illus-
tration of it, therefore, forms one of the leading objects of
the present work, it will be proper in this place to endea-
vour to go to the bottom of that question ; this, there-
fore, I shall endeavour to do with all brevity in the fol-
lowing section, leaving the fuller discussion of it to other
opportunities which will occur hereafter, and where the
further illustrations may be introduced with greater advan-
tage. Before concluding the present section, however, I
should still farther observe, in connexion with the preceding
statements, that every increase of capital, whilst it produces
all the effects that have been stated, increases at the same
time the rent of land by diminishing the difficulty or ex-
pense of cultivation, and bringing into tillage the inferior
48 CLASS OF NON-LABOURERS. BOOK I.
soils or portions of land more inconveniently situated with
regard to the market, or more inaccessible to the great
masses of the population, than those which could previously
have been cultivated. For it is by the increase of capital,
and not, as has been erroneously and absurdly maintained, by
the degradation of the labourer, that cultivation and im-
provement is naturally extended to the inferior soils and
more distant parts of the country.*
And thus it will be found, that every increase of capital,
whilst it benefits the non-labourer directly by maintaining
him at his ease without labour, benefits at the same time all
the other classes of the community indirectly, the land-
proprietors by increasing the rent of then- land, and the
labourers by reducing the cost and price of commodities,
which all persons must necessarily consume and purchase.
SECTION II.
OF THE MANNER IN WHICH CAPITAL IMPROVES THE CON-
DITION OF THE LABOURING CLASS.
THE utility of capital, and the advantages which arise from
it to the country in which it abounds, are obvious, and are
* It is easy to see how the increase of capital, and its investment in
the shape of a canal, road, or the like, should ultimately produce an
addition to the rent of land. For although, at first, by lowering the
cost and price of corn in the most populous places or great markets,
it might take as much from the rent of the contiguous lands as it
should add to those at a distance, still, ultimately, the former would
necessarily regain what they had lost as soon as the price of corn
should rise to nearly its former level, which it would speedily do in
consequence of the increase of population which would naturally fol-
CHAP. V. CLASS OF NON-LABOURERS. 49
indeed almost universally acknowledged ; but the manner in
which the labouring classes of people, and the whole com-
munity, including both those who are and those who are
not endowed with any portion of capital themselves, are
made to participate indirectly in the wealth which capital
creates, is not so apparent, and has never yet been dis-
tinctly shown, or even so much as directly noticed, in so far
as I am acquainted, by any foregoing writer. Yet it is by
means of capitals which they do not themselves possess, and
by their effects in diminishing the price and increasing the
abundance of goods, that the poorest individual or labourer
that lives in a wealthy, and populous, and civilized or well-
governed country, is commonly supplied with comforts, con-
veniences, and necessaries, which surpass, in a measure
which is altogether incalculable, any thing which his own
unassisted efforts could obtain for him, 'though he were al-
low upon the low price ; and then the whole rent paid for the latter
(that is, for the more distant lands) would be a clear addition to the
aggregate fund of rent. And the truth is, that every increase of ca-
pital has a tendency to produce the effect stated in the text, however
invested, although the manner in which that effect is produced is not
always so apparent or obvious as in the case of a road or canal.
In regard to the utility or desirableness of an increase of rent, I shall
only remark here, that where it is brought about by the increase of
capital, and not by the degradation of the labourer, it is clearly a
good ; as, without bearing injuriously on any persons, it creates an
addition to the fund for the maintenance of non-labourers.
The appropriation or individual possession of the land, it is always
to be remembered, is a condition which is evidently and absolutely
indispensable to its proper cultivation or improvement as well as to the
increase or accumulation of capital upon it and tke rent, which al-
ways increases and can alone increase with increasing wealth and po-
pulation, is the effect, not the cause, of a high price of corn, as has been
demonstrated by Dr Smith, and by many persons after him j all which
will be more particularly explained hereafter in the proper place.
See chap. vii. of the 2d Book.
50 CLASS OF NON-LABOURERS. BOOK I.
lowed the whole earth as a field for his exertions. For it is
to be understood that he must then labour without the as-
sistance of any capital worthy of the name, without com-
bination, and without any of the advantages which are de-
rived from the system of the division of labour, that sys-
tem whereby different individuals follow different employ-
ments, and exchange their productions with one another,
a system from which so many advantages arise, but which,
as I shall show hereafter, cannot for a moment be supported
or established without capital.
That capital must necessarily be advantageous to some
persons is a certainty which no argument can be required to
prove. To the capitalists themselves it must evidently be
so to the amount at least of the profit or interest which they
derive from it. This advantage is direct and manifest, but
exclusive, being confined entirely to the capitalists them-
selves. But that the same persons are benefited still far-
ther, though indirectly, along with every individual mem-
ber of the same community, in consequence of the effect
essential to capital of diminishing the cost of production, and
by that means increasing the abundance of commodities and
lowering their price, is also a truth which will, it is hoped,
be made fully apparent in the course of this work.
It has sometimes been thought and maintained that the
shares cf the capitalists, or the direct advantages enjoyed by
them in the shape of profit or interest, form a deduction
pro tanto from the wages of the labourers ; whereas, so far
from this being really the case, it will be demonstrated, that
the enjoyment of those shares or advantages by the capital-
ists is a necessary, preliminary, and indispensable condition to
the attainment of really high wages on the part of the la-
bourers ; and that the shares or wages of the latter, where
capital and labour are both employed to assist each other in
the work of production, (and where consequently a share in
the shape of profit or interest is always paid to the former,)
CHAP. V. CLASS OF NON-LABOURERS. 51
are always necessarily greater than they can be where la-
bour alone is employed, although in this case the labourer
has of course the whole produce to himself. Nay the ag-r
gregate produce, where both capital and labour are jointly
employed, is always so much greater than where the latter
is employed singly, that it not only affords the profit or in-
terest of the capitalist, and also a far greater share to the
labourer /rr<- metaphysics, this principle or desire
may he traced still lii.|irr, and reduced to ;i principle still
.simpler and more -eneral, namely, the desire of enjoying
plea.Mire ;i.nd of avoiding pain, yet still this is the highest
point we find it necessary to ascend to in the science before
mentioned, or first principle to which we have occasion to
refer in tracing the laws which regulate the production, ;ic-
rumulation, and distribution of wealth.
SMITION in.
01 TIM SKCONO MOUAI. CAUSK OK I'RO DI1CTION.
BUT it unfortunately happens that the principle just ex-
plained, the desire of bettering our condition, though ex
cccdinjdy ;ictive wherever it has opportunity to exert its in-
fluence, and thoii";h ever ready to be excited in the human
breattt, is yet of itself comparatively powerless and unavail-
ing, and can produce but little effect without the conjunct
existence and co operation of the other moral cause of pro
dllCtion, that IK to Kay, without the institution of govern-
ment, law, and justice, or the association of men for the de-
fencc and protection of their persons and property.
Without the protection of government, and a certain
measure of justice and security to persons and property, it
is (|uite obvious that m.mkind could never effectually or
considerably better their condition, or increase their wealth
to any large amount ; and, as was before observed, wlial.cver
desire they might feel to do HO, must necessarily remain a
dormant and inoperative principle.
(HAP. X. 01- I'HOIHK TION. 147
Without SOUK- sort of government ;mtl some degree of
justice, or some sort of protection to pcrHOHB and property,
Wealth could never indeed have increased above the iinrne
di;ite, daily, and most pressing wants of mankind ; :ind the
species could never have emerged from the lowest state of
barbarism. Where (lie " right of the strongest" was the
only law which an appeal could he made to, no individual
could ever think of accumulating wealth, hccause no one
could he sure of possessing or enjoying wliut he. might pro
duce beyond the existing moment. All idr.-i of :i.ny con
siderahle provision for the future would lie necessarily
abandoned, and the motive to accumulate being taken away,
pratent enjoyment would he the only object which could be
desired or sought after. Kvcry one would merely strive to
live, and to consume or enjoy, as fast as he could, whatever
chance or his good fortune might throw in his way, lest by
any delay he should run the ha/ard of being deprived of
the fruit of bin labour altogether.
Such, however, is the promptitude and elasticity of the
first exciting cause of production, that it rcquircH but small
encouragement to draw it into activity ; and under very in-
different government, and imperfect, laws, the endeavour of
the people to better their condition will show itself, and will
often astonish the observer by the pertinacity of its efforts,
and the unconquerable perseverance with which it will work,
and maintain the conflict against untoward circumstance,;
but it is under 'H
148 SECOND MORAL CAUSE BOOK I.
Dr Smith , "which has so often been ascribed to those laws,*
may very, easily be accounted for by other causes. That
security which the laws in Great Britain give to every man
that he shall enjoy the fruits of his own labour is alone suf-
ficient to make any country flourish, notwithstanding these
and twenty other absurd regulations of commerce ; and this
security was perfected by the Revolution much about the
same time that the bounty was established. The natural effort
of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered
to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a
principle, that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only
capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity,
but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with
which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its opera-
tions ; though the effect of these obstructions is always more
or less either to encroach upon its freedom or to diminish its
security. In Great Britain industry is perfectly secure ; and
though it is far from being perfectly free, it is as free or freer
than in any other part of Europe." t
" Order and good government," says the same author in
another place, " and along with them the liberty and security
of individuals, were in this manner established in cities, at a
time when the occupiers of land in the country were exposed
to every sort of violence. But men in this defenceless state
naturally content themselves with their necessary subsistence,
because to acquire more might only tempt the injustice of
their oppressors. On the contrary, when they are secure of
enjoying the fruits of their industry, they naturally exert it
to better their condition, and to acquire not only the necessa-
ries, but the conveniences and elegancies of life. That indus-
try, therefore, which aims at something more than necessary
subsistence, was established in cities long before it was com-
* Meaning the system of laws which was connected with a bounty
on the exportation of corn formerly in existence,
f Wealth of Nations, book iv. chap 5.
CHAP. X. OF PRODUCTION. 149
monly practised by the occupiers of land in the country. If,
in the hands of a poor cultivator, oppressed with the servitude
of villanage, some little stock should accumulate, he would
naturally conceal it with great care from his master, to whom
it would otherwise have belonged, and take the first oppor-
tunity of running away to a town. The law was at that time
so indulgent to the inhabitants of towns, and so desirous of
diminishing the authority of the lords over those of the coun-
try, that if he could conceal himself there from the pursuit of
his lord for a year, he was free for ever. Whatever stock,
therefore, accumulated in the hands of the industrious part
of the inhabitants of the country naturally took refuge in
cities, as the only sanctuaries in which it could be secure to
the person that acquired it."*
And further :
" Commerce and manufactures gradually introduced order
and good government, and with them the liberty and security
of individuals, among the inhabitants of the country, who
had before lived almost in a continual state of war with their
neighbours, and of servile dependency upon their superiors.
This, though it has been the least observed, is by far the
most important of all their effects. Mr Hume is the only
writer who, so far as I know, has hitherto taken notice of it."t
Still farther in another place the same author observes,
" In all countries where there is tolerable security, every
man of common understanding will endeavour to employ
whatever stock he can command in procuring either present
enjoyment or future profit. If it is employed in procuring
present enjoyment, it is a stock reserved for immediate con-
sumption. If it is employed in procuring future profit, it
must procure this profit, either by staying with him, or by
going from him. In the one case it is a fixed, in the other it
is a circulating capital. A man must be perfectly crazy who,
where there is tolerable security, does not employ all the stock
* Wealth of Nations, book iii. chap. 3.
t Ibid, book iii. chap. iv.
150 SECOND MORAL CAUSE UOOK I.
\vhich he commands, whether it be his own or borrowed of
other people, in some one or other of those three ways.
t( In those unfortunate countries, indeed, where men are
continually afraid of the violence of their superiors, they fre-
quently bury and conceal a great part of their stock, in order
to have it always at hand to carry with them to some place of
safety, in case of their being threatened with any of those
disasters to which they consider themselves as at all times ex-
posed. This is said to be a common practice in Turkey, in
Indostan, and I believe in most other governments of Asia.
It seems to have been a common practice among our ances-
tors during the violence of the feudal government. Treasure-
trove was in those times considered as no contemptible part
of the revenue of the greatest sovereigns in Europe. It con-
sisted in such treasure as was found concealed in the earth,
and to which no particular person could prove any right.
Tfcis was regarded in those times as so important an object,
that it was always considered as belonging to the sovereign,
and neither to the finder nor to the proprietor of the land,
unless the right to it had been conveyed to the latter by an
express clause in his charter. It was put upon the same foot-
ing with gold and silver mines, which, without a special
clause in the charter, were never supposed to be comprehend-
ed in the general grant of the lands, though mines of lead,
copper, tin, and coal were, as things of smaller consequence."*
On the same subject Mr Malthus writes as follows :
" The fundamental cause of the low state of population in
Turkey," says he, " compared with its extent of territory, is
undoubtedly the nature of the government. Its tyranny, its
feebleness, its bad laws and worse administration of them, to-
gether with the consequent insecurity of property, throw such
obstacles in the way of agriculture that the means of subsist-
ence are necessarily decreasing yearly, and with them, of
course, the number of people. The miri, or general land-tax
* Wealth of Nations, book ii. chap. 1.
CHAP. X. OF PRODUCTION. 151
paid to the sultan, is in itself moderate ; but by abuses in-
herent in the Turkish government the pachas and their agents
have found out the means of rendering it ruinous. Though
they cannot absolutely alter the impost which has been es-
tablished by the sultan, they have introduced a multitude of
changes, which without the name produce all the effects of an
augmentation. In Syria, according to Volney, having the
greatest part of the land at their disposal, they clog their con-
cessions with burdensome conditions, and exact the half and
sometimes even two-thirds of the crop. When the harvest is
over, they cavil about losses, and as they have the power in
their hands, they carry off what they think proper. If the
season fail, they still exact the same sum, and expose every
thing that the poor peasant possesses to sale. To these con-
stant oppressions are added a thousand accidental extortions.
Sometimes a whole village is laid under contribution for some
real or imaginary offence. Arbitrary presents are exacted on
the accession of each governor ; grass, barley, and straw are
demanded for his horses ; and commissions are multiplied,
that the soldiers who carry the orders may live upon the starv-
ing peasants, whom they treat with the most brutal insolence
and injustice.
" The consequence of these depredations is, that the poorer
class of inhabitants ruined, and unable any longer to pay the
miri, become a burden to the village, or fly into the cities ;
but the miri is unalterable, and the sum to be levied must be
found somewhere. The portion of those who are thus driven
from their homes falls on the remaining inhabitants, whose
burden, though at first light, now becomes insupportable. If
they should be visited by two years of drought and famine
the whole village is ruined and abandoned, and the tax which
it should have paid is levied on the neighbouring lands.
" The same mode of proceeding takes place with regard to
the tax on the Christians, which has been raised by these means
from three, five, and eleven piastres, at which it was first fix-
ed, to thirty- five and forty, which absolutely impoverishes
those on whom it is levied, and obliges them to leave the
country. It has been remarked, that these exactions have
152 SECOND MORAL CAUSE BOOK I.
made a rapid progress during the last forty years ; from which
time are dated the decline of agriculture, the depopulation of
the country, and the diminution in the quantity of specie
carried into Constantinople.
" The food of the peasants is almost everywhere reduced to
a little flat cake of barley or doura, onions, lentils, and water.
Not to lose any part of their corn, they leave in it all sorts of
wild grain, which often produce bad consequences. In the
mountains of Lebanon and Nablous, in time of dearth, they
gather the acorns from the oaks, which they eat after boiling
or roasting them on the ashes.
" By a natural consequence of this misery, the art of culti-
vation is in the most deplorable state. The husbandman is
almost without instruments, and those he has are very bad.
His plough is frequently no more than the branch of a tree
cut below a fork, and used without wheels. The ground is
tilled by asses and cows, rarely by oxen, which would be-
speak too much riches. In the districts exposed to the Arabs,
as in Palestine, the countryman must sow with his musket in
his hand ; and scarcely does the corn turn yellow before it is
reaped, and concealed in subterraneous caverns. As little as
possible is employed for seed-corn, because the peasants sow
no more than is barely necessary for their subsistence. Their
whole industry is limited to a supply of their immediate
wants ; and to procure a little bread, a few onions, a blue
shirt, and a bit of woollen, much labour is not necessary.
The peasant lives therefore in distress ; but at least he does
not enrich his tyrants, and the avarice of despotism is its own
punishment.
" This picture, which is drawn by Volney, in describing
the state of the peasants in Syria, seems to be confirmed by
all other travellers in these countries ; and, according to Eton,
it represents very nearly the condition of the peasants in the
greatest part of the Turkish dominions. Universally, the
offices of every denomination are set up to public sale ; and in
the intrigues of the seraglio, by which the disposal of all
places is regulated, every thing is done by means of bribes.
The pachas, in consequence, who are sent into the provinces,
CHAP. X. OF PRODUCTION. 153
exert to the utmost their power of extortion ; but are always
outdone by the officers immediately below them, who, in
their turn, leave room for their subordinate agents.
" The pacha must raise money to pay the tribute, and also
to indemnify himself for the purchase of his office, support
his dignity, and make a provision in case of accidents ; and
as all power, both military and civil, centres in his person
from his representing the sultan, the means are at his discre-
tion, and the quickest are invariably considered as the best.
Uncertain of to-morrow, he treats his province as a mere
transient possession, and endeavours to reap, if possible, in
dne day the fruit of many years, without the smallest regard
to his successor, or the injury that he may do to the per-
manent revenue."*
Again :
" Some tribes, from the nature of the deserts in which they
live, seem to be necessarily condemned to a pastoral life ; but
even those which inhabit soils proper for agriculture, have
but little temptation to practise this art while surrounded by
marauding neighbours. The peasants of the frontier provin-
ces of Syria, Persia, and Siberia, exposed, as they are, to the
constant incursions of a devastating enemy, do not lead a life
that is to be envied by the wandering Tartar or Arab. A
certain degree of security is perhaps still more necessary than
richness of soil to encourage the change from the pastoral to
the agricultural state ; and where this cannot be attained, the
sedentary labourer is more exposed to the vicissitudes of for-
tune than he who leads a wandering life, and carries all his
property with him. Under the feeble, yet oppressive govern-
ment of the Turks, it is not uncommon for peasants to desert
their villages and betake themselves to a pastoral state, in
which they expect to be better able to escape from the plun-
der of their Turkish masters and Arab neighbours."t
And universally throughout his Essay on Population, as
* Essay on Population, book i. chap. 10.
t Ibid, book i. chap- 7.
154 EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. BOOK I.
well as in his " Principles of Political Economy," Mr Mal-
thus acknowledges and enforces this important truth, that
the numbers, condition, and habits of the people depend in
the greatest degree on the character of the government un-
der which ftiey live.
This, then, is our second moral cause of production, po-
litical justice, law, and government ; or protection and se-
curity to person and property, which, it evidently appears,
are absolutely indispensable requisites to the accumulation
or existence of wealth in any considerable quantity or abun-
dance ; and such is a specimen of the facts or examples
which demonstrate the importance of the quality of this
second moral cause ; that is to say, of the goodness or bad-
ness, perfection or imperfection of the laws and government.
Such examples show that if the government be very bad, as
in the instance of Turkey, it becomes itself the great rob-
ber of its subjects, and prevents, after a small and com-
paratively inconsiderable accumulation, all farther advance
in wealth or improvement. Protection and security are
then required against the acts and rapaciousness of the
government itself; and no effectual way of securing this
object has yet been discovered but that which is afforded
by the intervention of an assembly of representatives chosen
by the governed.
SECTION IV.
OF THE EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. f
SUCH then, as they have now been explained, are the two
grand moral causes of production, and of improvement in
general of every description, the greatness or smallness of
whose effects depends entirely upon the quality of the second
moral cause, government ; viz. upon its being good or bad.
CHAP. X. EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. 155
Under bad government the desire felt by mankind to better
their condition, can only produce partial and comparatively
inconsiderable effects ; but under good government it be-
comes a steady and universally-operating principle of action,
producing a continual and indefinite improvement in the
conduct and condition of mankind, and especially of the
labouring classes. Wealth is made continually and inde-
finitely to increase, and wages and population also at the
same time ; though of course, as a country approaches the
limits of its resources, at a continually diminishing rate of
increase. The means of education and intelligence are
brought within the reach of the lower classes of people, who,
in consequence of this circumstance, joined to the security
which they enjoy, acquire higher and constantly-improving
notions of what is necessary to their creditable and comfort-
able subsistence ; which improved notions necessarily affect
the amount of provision they are disposed to make for their
establishment in marriage ; and, without any express resolu-
tion or intention on their part of restraining their numbers
in order to raise wages, their numbers actually are restrain-
ed, and confined within the limits required to raise wages to
that precise point which enables them to make such pro-
vision as they have resolved not to do without,* and to live
in such improved manner as their newly-acquired ideas and
habits have brought them to consider as indispensable to
existence.
What Dr Smith calls the custom of the country is con-
stantly improving ; and what were deemed luxuries before
are constantly passing into the state, and acquiring the
character of necessaries.
" By necessaries/' says Dr Smith, " I understand not only
the commodities which are indispensably necessary for the
This of course includes the meaning not to marry without.
156 EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. BOOK I.
support of life, but whatever the custom of the country ren-
ders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest or-
der, to be without. A linen shirt, for example, is, strictly
speaking, not a necessary of life. The Greeks and Romans
lived, I suppose, very comfortably, though they had no linen.
But, in the present times, through the greater part of Europe,
a creditable daylabourer would be ashamed to appear in
public without a linen shirt, the want of which would be sup-
posed to denote that disgraceful degree of poverty which it
is presumed nobody can well fall into without extreme bad
conduct. Custom, in the same manner, has rendered leather
shoes a necessary of life in England. The poorest creditable
person of either sex would be ashamed to appear in public
without them. In Scotland, custom has rendered them a
necessary of life to the lowest order of men ; but not to the
same order of women, who may, without any discredit, walk
about barefooted. In France they are necessaries neither to
men nor to women ; the lowest rank of both sexes appearing
there publicly without any discredit, sometimes in wooden
shoes, and sometimes barefooted. Under necessaries, there-
fore, I comprehend not only those things which nature, but
those things which the established rules of decency have
rendered necessary to the lowest rank of people. All other
things I call luxuries ; without meaning by this appellation
to throw the smallest degree of reproach upon the temperate
use of them. Beer and ale, for example, in Great Britain, and
wine, even in the wine-countries, I call luxuries. A man of
any rank may, without any reproach, abstain totally from
tasting such liquors. Nature does not render them necessary
for the support of life ; and custom nowhere renders it inde-
cent to live without them."*
Under very good government continued for a length of
time, where justice is well administered, where industry is
free, and not extravagantly loaded with heavy taxes or debt,
Wealth of Nations, book v. chap. 2.
CHAP. X. EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. 157
and where no impolitic or unjust restrictions are imposed on
the objects of commerce including land, this " custom of
the country," or, in other words, the habits and modes of
subsistence of the people, must necessarily, constantly, and
indefinitely improve from the principles of human nature
and the endeavours of individuals to better their condition.
This consequence I say, must necessarily fall out, because,
under such circumstances, " the principle of frugality will
not only predominate, but predominate very greatly ;" and
the bad conduct, profusion, and imprudence of some will be
compensated, and far more than compensated, by the pru-
dence, frugality, and good conduct of the great and pre-
ponderating majority.
And hence this subject, when properly considered, will be
found to furnish a complete refutation of Mr Malthus's
Theory of Human Misery, which ascribes to " the prin-
ciple of population" that extreme general poverty among
the lower classes of people, which, wherever it exists, is real-
ly occasioned by " ignorance and bad government."
A certain degree of poverty indeed, or limited command
and possession of wealth, is necessarily entailed upon men
who are the heirs of labour ; but not extreme poverty, or
such deficiency of the necessaries of life as should be posi-
tively injurious to the health or happiness of any class of
people even the lowest ; for such deficiency or poverty
never could be general or exist extensively under long-con-
tinued good government.' And it will readily be allowed,
that that poverty and misery which can be obviated or re-
moved by institutions which men themselves are capable to
establish, never can, with any show of justice or veracity, be
charged to an inherent principle of their nature as its ne-
cessary and inevitable consequence. Even if mankind were
a race without the necessity or power of propagation, and
the waste of human life were supplied in a manner quite dif-
ferent, although the chief sources of their happiness would
158 EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. BOOK I.
be dried up, their poverty and misery would not thereby be
abated or removed so long as they must labour in order to
eat and live. It is in vain, therefore, that Mr Malthus
would ascribe the poverty and misery of the lower classes of
people to " the principle of population," in any other sense
than as that principle is the cause of their existence.
But Mr Malthus maintains the most contradictory pro-
positions and doctrines. In one place and another he in
effect tells us that low wages, low habits and modes of life,
and extreme poverty, are chiefly occasioned by " ignorance
and bad government," and again in other places he re-
presents "human institutions" as having little or no in-
fluence on the condition of the lower classes of people, but
every thing as depending on their own conduct. He de-
monstrates that without good government the lower classes
of people cannot possibly acquire that character of prudence
and forethought, or those comparatively elevated notions
and habits and modes of life, which he acknowledges to be
necessary to enable them to improve their condition, or to
" limit the supplies of labour," so as to raise wages ; and
yet he continues, with a most singular and perverse incon-
sistency, to charge their poverty and misery upon them-
selves and upon "the principle of population," and peremp-
torily maintains this his favourite and indispensable dogma,
while he gives up the whole of the argument on which it
should rest.
Mr Malthus admits that there is " a standard of wretch-
edness, a point below which the lower classes of people will
not continue to marry and propagate their species."* He
admits that this " standard" is raised by " liberty, security
of property, the diffusion of knowledge and a taste for the
* Essay on Population, book iv. chap. 9.
CHAP. X. EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. 159
conveniences and comforts of life,"* and that it is depress-
ed by " despotism and ignorance."*f He admits, in short,
that the amount of real wages depends upon the habits and
modes of life at any time existent among the labourers, and
that those habits and modes of life depend again upon good
and bad government ; and yet he continues to charge their
poverty and misery upon the people themselves, not be-
cause they have the power of changing or improving their
political institutions, but because they should withhold from
the market the supplies of labour !
His words are,
" If we be really serious in what appears to be the object
of such general research, the mode of essentially and perma-
nently bettering the condition of the poor, we must explain
to them the true nature of their situation, and show them,
that the withholding of the supplies of labour is the only pos-
sible way of really raising its price ; and that they themselves,
being the possessors of this commodity, have alone the power
to do this.":}:
Now in what sense, I ask, does Mr Malthus mean that
" they themselves have the power to do this ?" If in a
mere physical sense, nothing can well be conceived more
futile, or more inapplicable to the support of his doctrine ;
but if in a moral sense, the assertion is equally at variance
with truth and with his own reiterated arguments ; accord-
ing to which it is only under particular circumstances,
namely, under good government, that the lower classes
can have the power to withhold the supplies of labour.
" The first grand requisite," says Mr Malthus, " to the
growth of prudential habits is the perfect security of proper-
ty ; and the next perhaps is that respectability and impor-
tance which are given to the lower classes by equal laws, and
* Essay on Population, book iv. chap. 9. t Ibid.
J Ibid, book iv. chap. 3.
160 EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. BOOK I.
the possession of some influence in the framing of them. The
more excellent therefore is the government, the more does it
tend to generate that prudence and elevation of sentiment, by
which alone in the present state of our being poverty can be
avoided."*
But Mr Malthus does not advise the lower classes of
people (or any other persons for them) to endeavour to im-
prove their government as the one thing needful to give
them liberty, security, education, without which he knows
it would be in vain for them to expect or attempt any con-
siderable improvement in their condition, or any permanent
rise of wages ; but he advises them not to marry, and cool-
ly requires them to withhold the supplies of labour, while
he knows it at the same time to be a moral impossibility for
them to do this, except by the acquisition of such improved
habits and modes of life as he is well aware can only be
generated or retained under good government.
Mr Malthus knows that " ignorance and despotism seem to
have no tendency to destroy the passion which prompts to
increase; but they effectually destroy the checks to it from
reason and foresight. The improvident barbarian, who thinks
only of his present wants, or the miserable peasant, who, from
his political situation, feels little security of reaping what he
has sown, will seldom be deterred from gratifying his passions
by the prospect of inconveniences, which cannot be expected
to press on him under three or four years. But though this
want of foresight, which is fostered by ignorance and despot-
ism, tends thus rather to encourage the procreation of chil-
dren, it is absolutely fatal to the industry which is to support
them. Industry cannot exist without foresight and security ."t
He knows that " the foundations of that passion on which
our preservation depends, (he means here the passion of self-
preservation as contradistinguished from that of benevo-
* Essay on Population, book iv. chap. C.
t Ibid, book iii. chap. 1 4.
CHAP. X. EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. 161
lence,) are fixed so deeply in our nature that no reasonings
or addresses to the feelings can essentially disturb it ;"* and
he cannot be ignorant that the same thing may be affirmed
of another passion on which, not indeed the preservation
of individuals already born into the world, but the preser-
vation or continuation of the human race itself depends.
And how then can he call upon the people to withhold the
supplies of labour without restriction or qualification of cir-
cumstances, when he sees so plainly and avowedly that the
obstacles to that restraint which should enable them to ac-
complish the object he recommends are necessarily incident
to and inseparable from the* condition in which they are
most generally placed ? or how can he maintain that the
people themselves are able to do this, while he shows by his
own arguments that the obstacles just alluded to can alone
be removed, and the restraint he recommends practised un-
der certain peculiar circumstances which they cannot always
command ? Above all, how can he expect to produce the
eifect he proposes by any " explanations" which he would
make to the lower classes of " the true nature of their situa-
tion," when it appears so evidently from his own statements
that their conduct must ever mainly depend, not upon ab-
stract " reasonings or addresses to the feelings," but on the
circumstances in which they are actually placed with regard
to good and bad government ?
Yet he says, "We cannot justly accuse the common people
of improvidence and want of industry, till they act as they
do now, after it has been brought home to their comprehen-
sions that they are themselves the cause of their own pover-
ty ; that the means of redress are in their own hands, and in
the hands of no other persons whatever ; and that the society
in which they live, and the government which presides over
it, are without any direct power in this respect."t
* Essay on Population, Appendix. f Ibid, book iv. chap. 3.
L
162
EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. BOOK I.
It is remarkable that Mr Malthus has put the word direct
in the above passage in italics, as being conscious that the
indirect power of government was equally undeniable as it
is important. But of what consequence is it whether the
power of government in improving the condition of the
people be direct or indirect, provided only that it be real and
effectual ?
But let us attend for a moment, and inquire a little more
particularly what it is that Mr Malthus expects or desires
the lower classes of people to do. He advises them not to
marry in order to limit the supplies of labour and raise its
price in the market. Now it" is plain that the effect to be
produced upon wages by any man's abstaining from marriage
with a view to raise them, cannot take place till after the
lapse of eighteen or twenty years. That such abstinence
could produce no immediate effect upon wages is manifest ;
and unless it were general it could never produce any effect
at all. But is it possible to believe that any persons in their
senses are ever to be actuated by such motives, or that such
abstinence is ever to become general from such distant and
uncertain prospect of advantage ? Is it not manifest, on
the contrary, from what has been already quoted in the
present chapter, even from Mr Malthus himself, that such
abstinence can alone become general by the elevation of the
popular character, by means of education, security, liberty,
and good government ?
When, therefore, Mr Malthus calls upon the " common
people"" to withhold the supplies of labour with a view to raise
wages, what is it but to require them to marry, not for their
own advantage or happiness, but for the advantage of other
people ? not from a consideration of their own particular
circumstances, or singly with a view to their own individual
happiness, but from a disinterested regard to the general
good of mankind ? What is it but to tell them that they
should marry for the good of their neighbours, or of the
CHAP. X. EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. 163
class of labourers to which they belong ; and that they should
abstain from marriage, not in order to increase their own
wages immediately, (for that effect could not possibly be
produced by such abstinence,) but in order to increase the
wages of other people some eighteen or twenty years after-
wards ? not in order to raise wages to their own children,
(for if they follow Mr Malthus's advice they will have none,)
but to raise them, at the distance of eighteen or twenty years,
to the children of other people !
It is the consideration of his own particular situation and
of his own private advantage or happiness, (or, at the utmost,
of his very nearest relations,) which ever must and ought in
general to direct every person in their resolutions with re-
gard to marriage ; and to expect or imagine that the common
run of mankind should be influenced in regard to this mat-
ter in the smallest degree by any consideration so very re-
mote from their immediate interest as the regulation of the
wages of labour at the distance of eighteen or twenty years,
evinces so total a dereliction of common sense, not to say
of fact or experience as applied to human conduct, as can
only be accounted for in the present instance, by ascribing
it to that almost wilful blindness and obliquity of intellect
which is not unfrequently produced by too fond an attach-
ment to a favourite preconceived theory or opinion.
It may certainly have been that men may have married
in particular instances, not solely from private or personal
considerations, but from additional motives of public utility.
Perhaps Napoleon Buonaparte divorced one wife and mar-
ried another partly with the view to consolidate an empire
and establish a dynasty ; and still more recently, perhaps,
some of our own princes were induced to marry from motives
somewhat similar. Even private persons possessed of large
properties may sometimes, perhaps, have been determined
in regard to this matter by the wish to continue the line of
an ancient family. But to imagine that mankind in general
164 EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. BOOK I.
should be governed in their resolutions to marry or not to
marry by any other motives than the consideration of their
own private advantage or interest, or that the lower classes,
in particular, should be influenced in this respect by any
abstract speculation as to the general rate of wages, or by
so remote an advantage as they could propose to themselves
as the hope of raising that rate after the lapse of twenty
years, must be allowed to be a notion as extravagant and
chimerical and absurd as was ever yet maintained by reason-
able men.
Even in the worst of times and most unfortunate of coun-
tries, where work is difficult to be got, wages falling, and
multitudes of people thrown out of employment, it will in-
variably happen, that the far greater number will continue
to receive employment, and that some individuals from the
accidents of their situation, and of the particular trades in
which they are engaged, will find themselves well rewarded
for their labour, and in circumstances to marry with better
prospects and provision than ordinary,* or than had been
usual among their neighbours or equals. Now how, I should
beg to ask of Mr Malthus, ought these people to act in re-
gard to marriage ? Ought they to proceed upon the con-
sideration of their own particular situations, or have regard
to the general rate of wages before they took such a step ?
Ought they to say to themselves, " It is true we have good
wages at present, and the reasonable prospect of then* con-
tinuance, but wages in general are low and declining, and
if we marry, we shall probably increase the number of la-
* The least reflection will convince any one that the case here sup-
posed must have been a very common one in all the late fluctuations and
revulsions of prices and of trade in this country ; and any one who
has had actual experience or acquaintance with the situation of the
labouring classes must know it to have been so.
CHAP. X. EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVEBNMENT. 165
bourers and depress wages still farther some eighteen or
twenty years hence; it is our duty therefore to abstain
from marriage, notwithstanding the accidental circumstance
of our own good fortune, and the prospect we have of being
happy with the object of our choice and of our dearest re-
gard on earth : could such sacrifices be expected or de-
sired ; or if made, is it certain that they would be really
useful ?
But, perhaps, it may be answered, that such sacrifices are
neither desired nor expected : let but those who are in bad
circumstances abstain, and the desired object will be attain-
ed. And does not this then bring us back to the only ra-
tional view of the question, that men are to have regard to
their own particular situation alone in forming their resolu-
tions on this subject ?
It is in vain then that Mr Malthus would pretend to im-
prove the condition of the lower classes of people, by simply
calling upon them to withhold the supplies of labour, or by
lecturing them on " the true nature of their situation,"" and
dissuading them from marriage. It is in vain that he would
" be disposed to lay considerable stress on the frequent ex-
planation of the real state of the lower classes, as affected
by the principle of population, and their consequent depen-
dence upon themselves for the chief part of their happiness
and misery."* Even if Mr Malthus could succeed in bring-
ing it distinctly to the view of the labouring classes, that the
heightening of wages depends immediately upon the limita-
tion of their numbers, (and few are, I believe, so ignorant as
not to know this,) still their conduct in regard to marriage
could never be regulated by any regard whatever to this
consideration, but altogether by the consideration of their
individual circumstances, combined with " the custom of
on Population, book iv. chap. 9.
166 EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. BOOK I.
the country," or the habits and modes of life prevailing
among them at the particular time. The object of limiting
the supplies of labour, in short, is never to be attained by
mere didactic explanations of general principles, but by the
influence of laws formed upon them and upon the principles
of human nature.
If any thing could give surprise in Mr Malthus's writings,
after the contradictions and absurdities already brought un-
der review, the following passage undoubtedly should :
" It is a truth/' says Mr Malthus, " which I trust has been
sufficiently proved in the course of this work, that, under a go-
vernment constructed upon the best and purest principles,
and executed by men of the highest talents and integrity, the
most squalid poverty and wretchedness might universally
prevail from an inattention to the prudential check to popula-
tion."*
If people will fly into the regions of chimera, and make
impossible suppositions, it may be easy to draw conclusions
logically from them, and to confound the ignorant and the
unwary.
Mr Malthus here speaks as if the prevention of the in-
crease of population required the positive interference and
direct attention both of the people and of government, and
generally all his isolated and unsupported assertions either
insinuate or broadly maintain this doctrine ; whilst all his
facts and reasonings go to prove, that such attention and
interference can be of little or no use, and that it is from
the indirect operation of good government and education
that we have alone to hope for any considerable or real ef-
fect in beneficially limiting such increase. If the preven-
tion or retardation of the increase of population requires any
attention at all on the part of government, it is merely of
that negative kind which should hinder them from giving to
* Essay on Population, book iv. chap. 6.
CHAP. X. EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. 167
it any direct encouragement: it is merely necessary they
should be aware that such encouragement is not only unne-
cessary, but generally pernicious. But surely the want of
knowledge and attention to the extent just mentioned could
not be reasonably supposed of " men of the highest talents
and integrity ;" and if we have been at all successful in ex-
hibiting a just view of the subject, it must have been made
evident, that " under a government constructed upon the
best and purest principles,'" and executed by such men,
" the preventive check," as Mr Malthus calls it, must ne-
cessarily have been brought to operate with the greatest
force. The above passage, therefore, supposes what is mo-
rally impossible, and consists indeed of a contradiction in
terms. It proceeds upon the assumption, that " a govern-
ment constructed upon the best and purest principles'" might
operate so mischievously as to produce the worst effects that
can exist under any government, and that " men of the
highest talents and integrity" might be ignorant and inat-
tentive to their duties. Now what is this, in plain language,
but to assume, that a good government may be a bad one,
and that good and wise men may be unwise and bad ? -
what is it but a distinct and positive contradiction ?
Similar in extravagance to that just noticed is the fol-
lowing assertion : " If the supply of labour were greater
than the demand, and the demand for food greater than the
supply, the people might suffer the utmost extremity of
want under the most perfect and best-executed government
that the human imagination can conceive."*
This must, at all events, be allowed to be a truism, as
must likewise the following, which is its parallel ; but what
do they avail in any fair argument ?
* Essay on Population, book iv. chap. 9.
168
EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. BOOK I.
" If, in the best season for vegetation that mankind have
ever seen, or imagination can conceive, the corn would not
grow, the people must be starved."
If suppositions may be indulged in which are inconsistent
with the nature of things and the established laws of the
universe, and used in serious argument without being scout-
ed, no doctrine can be too absurd to be maintained, and no
cause too bad to be defended.
Mr Malthus, it has been seen, has himself advanced ar-
guments and facts which conclusively prove that one of the
most necessary and inseparable effects of good government
is to prevent the supply of food from falling short, and that
of labour from exceeding the demand; and without pro-
ducing this effect it could not of course be called good go-
vernment, and, a fortiori^ could far less deserve the name
of the most perfect.
It is very remarkable, that in all Mr Malthus has said in
his voluminous writings to excuse governments from any
blame in reference to the misery and " squalid poverty" of
the lower classes, he has always been most scrupulously
careful to avoid denying their indirect power to mitigate or
remove such poverty. Besides the instance already noticed
in which this cautiousness plainly appears, the following
may be adduced in proof of the same remarkable wariness
of Mr Malthus upon all occasions in regard to this parti-
cular :
" Mr Paine very justly observes/' says Mr Malthus, " that
whatever the apparent cause of any riots may be, the real one is
always want of happiness ; but when he goes on to jsay, it
shows that something is wrong in the system of government,
that injures the felicity by which society is to be preserved,
he falls into the common error of attributing all want of hap-
piness to government. It is evident that this want of happi-
ness might have existed, and from ignorance might have been
CHAP. X. EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. 169
the principal cause of the riots, and yet be almost wholly un-
connected with any of the proceedings of government."*
A little afterwards he says, " the principal cause of want
and unhappiness is only indirectly connected with govern-
ment, and totally beyond its power directly to remove."-)-
And in another place he repeats the assertion (for, I should
calculate, at least the twentieth time,) in the following words
and letters (i. e. italics) : " The principal and most per-
manent cause of poverty has little or no direct relation to
forms of government."];
From these statements, and others to the same effect
which might be multiplied without end, it is apparent that
Mr Malthus tacitly acknowledges the indirect effects of good
government in improving the condition of the people, though
all his efforts are glaringly exerted to turn the attention of
his readers away from that view of the subject. In reference
to such statements, I shall only repeat what I have already
observed with regard to them ; namely, that it is of no
earthly consequence whether the power of governments in
improving the condition of the people be direct or indirect,
the only important question being whether the effect itself
be certain and infallible ; and provided that this be the case,
we need give ourselves very little concern about its being
indirect.
I shall add here an instance or two of assertions of similar
import with those just noticed, though somewhat different in
the form in which they are put.
" The cause," observes Mr Malthus, " which has the
most lasting effect in improving the situation of the lower
classes depends chiefly on the conduct and prudence of the
individuals themselves ;" and again repeats, " The means
* Essay on Population, book iv. chap. 6. t Idem.
* Idem, book iii. chap. 14.
Idem, book iii. chap. 13.
170 EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. BOOK I.
of redress are in their own hands, and in the hands of no
other persons whatever."*
Now, has not Mr Malthus been obliged to confess, al-
most in spite of himself, and to the utter destruction of his
theory of human misery, that " the conduct and prudence
of individuals," in regard to the abstaining from marriage,
depends wholly on the nature of the laws and government
under which they live ? Has not he borne most ample tes-
timony to this great truth, and stated sometimes, in the
very strongest language, the facts which incontestably and
undeniably prove it ? as, for example, when he says, " ig-
norance and despotism effectually destroy the checks arising
from reason and foresight ;" and that security or good go-
vernment is " the first grand requisite to the growth of pru-
dential habits ?"
How then, I ask, is the means of redress in their own
hands, except they be placed under good government ?
and when they are so placed, can Mr Malthus, or any one
who has listened to his statements, venture to deny but that
infallibly " the redress shall follow ?"
From all that has been stated, then, I think we may
fairly conclude, that the character, condition, and habits of
the people are influenced and determined by their political
circumstances, and are in fact the result of the laws and in-
stitutions under which they live. On the one hand, if these
laws be wisely contrived, and founded on the principles of
justice and benevolence, habits of order, frugality, and in-
dustry will prevail, and the condition of the people will be
comfortable and happy, and will go on steadily and inde-
finitely to improve. If, on the other hand, the laws be of
an opposite description, the condition of the people will be
poor and miserable ; " the standard of wretchedness at which
* Essay on Population, book iv. chap. 3.
CHAP. X. EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. 1^1
they will consent to marry and propagate their species" will
be degraded very low ; and if by any accident or great good
fortune an improvement or elevation of the " standard"
takes place (for such an event will sometimes happen under
very bad government,) it will speedily fall back again to the
same low point.
Good government, then, it evidently appears, is an abso-
lutely indispensable requisite to any great increase or accu-
mulation of wealth, as well as to any considerable or lasting
improvement in the condition of mankind. It is equally
certain, or rather indeed it is almost the same proposition,
that without good government a people can never be en-
abled to attain any very great degree of prosperity, or to ac-
quire that degree of improvement which should ensure their
future progress in the same career, until they arrive at the
most highly-advanced stage in which a country approaches
to the limits of its resources. Those limits it may perhaps
be impossible for a people or country ever fully to reach,
but under good government they must always be advancing
and making approaches nearer and nearer towards those li-
mits, although at last of course by very slow degrees ; but
after having made a certain progress, and arrived at a cer-
tain stage of improvement, it is but barely possible that
they should ever again essentially retrograde.
At first indeed improvement might proceed very slowly,
and in the end it necessarily must do so, but from very dif-
ferent causes or obstacles at those different periods : at last
the obstacle is the limited extent of earth ; in the beginning
it is the ignorance and ineptitude or torpor of the human
mind. This last-mentioned obstacle, however, can never
permanently resist the influence of good government, and
the first-mentioned can have no power to stop improvement
altogether, or to prevent the continual and indefinite in-
crease of wealth, wages, and population. As soon, however,
as the second-mentioned obstacle is removed, in countries
172 EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. BOOK I.
which are yet at a great distance from the limits of their re-
sources, their progress must be comparatively rapid, until
they arrive at a very advanced stage of improvement. The
quickness or slowness of their advance may indeed be very
various in different parts of this their middle progress from a
variety of accidents, but it cannot fail to be incomparably
quicker during this period than it is possible for it to be
either at the beginning or end.
The progress of a country under good government might
be somewhat like the following : Suppose a country or
people ever so miserably poor and degraded, and unenlight-
ened and ignorant, placed at once, by whatever miracle, un-
der good government, immediately all open and flagrant dis-
orders or violence (which we may suppose to have been
previously frequent and considerable) would be repressed,
and justice would be administered with an even hand ; some
portion of new industry would quickly show itself amongst
them, and they would slowly begin to better their condition,
and to emerge from the state of thraldom and apathy in
which they had previously lain ; wealth as well as popula-
tion would gradually increase ; inventions and improve-
ments in all the arts of life would be introduced and multi-
plied; and at length the sluggish mind would be fully
awakened by the general diffusion of knowledge and educa-
tion. Then would commence their full career; and al-
though particular accidents might occur to retard or accele-
rate the march of improvement, and cause it to advance at
a quicker or slower pace at one period and another, still it
could not fail to be rapidly progressive upon the whole, until
the country should have become highly cultivated in every
part, the wealth very great, and the population dense or nu-
merous, in proportion to the extent of territory.
Arrived at this stage population must necessarily augment
at a slower rate, although wealth might continue to increase
and accumulate very greatly and rapidly for some time
CHAP. X. EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT.
longer ; but ultimately both the one and the other would
inevitably be brought to advance with contracted steps;
and although it may be theoretically true that they could
never be brought to a stop altogether, yet it is certain that
in the end their progress must come to be so exceedingly
small as to be reduced to an imperceptible and evanescent
quantity.
But throughout the whole of this progress, as well when
wealth and population had attained their highest and almost
stationary state, as during the period of their most rapid in-
crease, the condition of the lower classes, as well as that of
every other class of labourers, would be constantly and uni-
formly progressive, and would continue to go on improving
indefinitely, though of course, as has been already observed,
by very slow steps at the end, and those constantly growing
slower and slower.
This constant progress in improvement, after the attain-
ment of a certain stage, follows necessarily from the prin-
ciples of human nature, and would arise from " the uniform,
constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better
his condition," which, as Dr Smith observes,* " is fre-
quently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of
things toward improvement, in spite both of the extrava-
gance of government and the greatest errors of administra-
tion." How much more confidently, then, might this effect
be looked for under a system from which such great errors
would be necessarily excluded ?
It is, therefore, maintained, that wherever good govern-
ment is once established and advanced to a certain point of
improvement, education will be speedily introduced and
widely extended, and the principle of improvement, the de-
sire of bettering their condition, will be extended in like
Wealth of Nations, book ii. chap. 3.
174 EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. BOOK I.
proportion, and become effectual for its purpose, down to
the very lowest ranks of the people, and that the necessary
consequence must be, that the natural wages of labour,*
" the custom of the country," and " habits and modes of
life," will begin and continue universally and indefinitely to
improve and increase throughout the whole extent of the la-
bouring population.-)-
It will be found quite in vain to merely urge against this
induction what has been in times past, and with the lofty
air of superior wisdom and intelligence, to haughtily point
the finger to the volume of history, and refuse to enter into
farther argument. Before the invention of printing this
might have passed, and the sketch just delineated could
perhaps never have been realized ; but that inestimable in-
vention has totally changed the position and prospects of
mankind. Before that invention knowledge and education
could never be expected to reach, or at least to be widely
diffused, among the inferior ranks of people ; and although
much might have been done for them by the establishment
of good government, even independent of education, who, it
may be asked, could or would establish good government, or
maintain it, even if it were established, without the assist-
ance of the people themselves and of the press 9 The de-
graded condition of the great body of the people, therefore,
was then utterly hopeless and irremediable ; but now the
face of affairs is totally changed, and all reasoning from ex-
perience antecedent to that event, or without taking it
into the account, is valueless, nugatory, and inconclusive.
The general diffusion of knowledge and education is at all
times, and especially in the present condition and circum-
* The student should be already acquainted with what is meant by
the natural wages of labour as explained by Dr Smith. The general
reader will see it explained in book iii. chap. 4. of this work.
t See this subject farther treated in book ii. chap. 5 and 8.
3
CHAP. X. EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. 175
stances of the world and of mankind, a necessary conse-
quence of the establishment of good government ; and the
progress already made, even under very defective systems,
seems fully to secure that establishment at no distant date.
The early attainment, indeed, of both these important ob-
jects may now be considered as certain, and it may be con-
fidently anticipated that their reciprocal effects, acting and
reacting on each other, will produce the most important and
beneficial change in the composition of human society, and
in the future destiny of our race.
Another objection on which much stress has been laid, is
thought to arise from the imputed indolence of mankind-
But ignorance and bad government are the parents of indo-
lence. Show men their true interests, and enable them suc-
cessfully to pursue them, and indolence will disappear ; but
education and good government can alone be adequate to
secure the attainment of these objects, the former teaching
men to know and appreciate their true interests, as well as
how to pursue their objects wisely, and the latter enabling
them to do so with success. It would be in vain for the
miserable boors and vassals of Poland or Russia to endea-
vour to better their condition by activity and exertion how-
ever great, and no such endeavour can therefore be expected
of them. They can acquire no property which is consider-
able, or which could be of any consequence to improve their
condition, because themselves and all they possess are the
property of others. Those slaves are of course indolent,
except when they are roused from their torpor by the cane
or the knout ; but it is not so in England. Here, it is cer-
tain, there is little to complain of on the score of indolence.
The severe distresses for want of employment that have oc-
curred throughout the country, at different periods since
the conclusion of the late war, have been attributed to a va-
riety of different causes ; but I have heard of no persons so
utterly regardless of truth and justice as to ascribe them to
176 EFFECTS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. BOOK I.
the indolence or laziness of our people. It was not an
aversion to labour, or any want of alacrity to accept of em-
ployment, on the part of the starving population of Glas-
gow and Manchester, and the other chief seats of our manu-
factures, but the difficulty they experienced in finding work
to labour at, that occasioned the unexampled and truly-de-
plorable distresses of those unfortunate periods ; on the con-
trary, the patience and perseverance of those men, and the
constancy and firmness with which they bore up under the
most trying circumstances in which men can be placed,
(when their utmost exertions, even when they were so for-
tunate as to find employment, though continued for four-
teen and even sixteen hours a day, procured them so small
and inadequate a return,) it is but feeble justice to say, was
remarkable and exemplary, and was of itself sufficient to
furnish a complete answer to this objection. Let us hope,
then, that we shall hear no more of the effects of indolence,
unless it be coupled with its natural and proper causes, ig-
norance and bad government.
There are in fact but two ways of improving mankind
and of bettering their condition, and these are by means of
education and good government, and all attempts to suc-
ceed by any other methods will always be found abortive
and unavailing ; but as a liberal system of education can
never be thoroughly and securely established where good
government is not found, and as the former naturally follows
where the latter has place, these two causes are in effect re-
duced to one, and good government may be pronounced to
be the one indispensable and only efficient cause of improve-
ment in the condition of mankind in general, and particu-
larly in that of the labouring classes of people.
END OF THE FIRST BOOK.
AN INQUIRY, &c.
BOOK II.
ON THE CAUSES WHICH UNDER THE SYSTEM OF THE
DIVISION OF LABOUR NATURALLY REGULATE THE
DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH, AND WHICH UNDER
GOOD GOVERNMENT NECESSARILY DETERMINE THE
EXACT SHARE THAT EVERY DIFFERENT INDIVIDUAL
IS ENTITLED TO CONSUME, OR TO POSSESS AND COM-
MAND, IN STRICT ACCORDANCE WITH THE NATU-
RAL GROUNDS OF RIGHT TO IT, AS THESE HAVE
BEEN EXPLAINED IN THE PRECEDING BOOK.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL EXPOSITION OF THE CAUSES WHICH NATURALLY
REGULATE THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH UNDER THE
SYSTEM OF THE DIVISION OF LABOUR, AND OF THE
PRINCIPLE ON WHICH THESE CAUSES DEPEND.
SECTION I.
DEMONSTRATION OF THE PRINCIPLE WHICH NATURALLY
REGULATES THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH UNDER THE
SYSTEM OF THE DIVISION OF LABOUR.
AFTER the period when the system of the division of la-
bour has once been completely established, it is by the vo-
M
178 THE PRINCIPLE OF BOOK II.
luntary exchange of equivalent values, of commodities for
commodities and labour, and of labour for commodities, " by
treaty, by barter, and by purchase," that wealth is naturally
distributed among the people, and that every individual ac-
quires the particular share of it which he is entitled to con-
sume, or to possess and command. For after the period
just mentioned, as no person finds it necessary to engage in
any great variety of employments, or ever for a moment
thinks of producing for himself all the different articles or
commodities of which he stands in need, he can only look
to obtain them by exchanging some part either of his la-
bour, of his capital, or of his land, or their produce, or what
is the same thing, the price of their produce, for such arti-
cles, or for the land, the labour, or the commodities or capi-
tal belonging to other people.
Now in making these exchanges, it is not to be supposed
that the transactions are altogether loose or arbitrary. On
the contrary, they are regulated and controlled, in the great
majority of instances, by causes and principles which are
constant, uniform, and insuperable in their influence ; and
which under good government, where there is a high degree
of freedom and security, and where every person is at per-
fect liberty to choose whatever occupation he pleases, and to
change it as often as he pleases, are calculated effectually
to secure the rights and just interests of every individual,
and necessarily to prevent any one from gaining any undue
or considerable advantage over another in these exchanges.
But the causes which regulate these exchanges, and which
by regulating them regulate consequently the distribution
of wealth, and the principle also on which these causes de-
pend, will best appear by reverting to that early stage of
society in which the division of labour is first introduced.
" In a tribe of hunters or shepherds/' says Dr Smith, " a
particular person makes bows and arrows with more rea-
diness and dexterity than any other. He frequently exchanges
CHAP. I. DISTRIBUTION DEMONSTRATED.
them for cattle or for venison with his companions ; and he
finds at last that he can in this manner get more cattle and
venison than if he himself went to the field to catch them.
From a regard to his own interest, therefore, the making of
bows and arrows grows to be his chief business, and he be-
comes a sort of armourer. Another excels in making the
frames and covers of their little huts or moveable houses.
He is accustomed to be of use in this way to his neighbours,
who reward him in the same manner with cattle and with
venison, till at last he finds it his interest to dedicate himself
entirely to this employment, and to become a sort of house-
carpenter. In the same manner a third becomes a smith or a
brazier ; a fourth a tanner or dresser of hides or skins, the
principal part of the clothing of savages. And thus the cer-
tainty of being able to exchange all that surplus part of the
produce of his own labour, which is over and above his own
consumption, for such parts of the produce of other men's la-
bour as he may have occasion for, encourages every man to
apply himself to a particular occupation, and to cultivate and
bring to perfection whatever talent or genius he may possess
for that particular species of business."*
It is in this manner and from this motive, namely, from
a regard to his own private interest, that, as society
advances, every individual devotes himself chiefly to one\
particular occupation, or species of business, and produces
or assists in producing only one particular sort of wealth or
commodities. That particular sort he amasses in much
greater quantity than he can himself consume ; and with the
surplus he purchases, in the earliest stages of society by
means of barter, and afterwards through the intervention of
money, those other sorts of commodities which other indi-
viduals in like manner, and from like motives, produce and
amass in much greater quantity than they can consume ;
* Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. 2.
180 THE PRINCIPLE OF BOOK II.
and by this arrangement every individual and every family
acquire more of every commodity, and live in greater ease
and plenty than they could do if every one attempted or
were obliged to produce and fabricate, by his own separate
and unassisted industry, the whole of the commodities for
which he had occasion. Under this system, as Dr Smith
observes, " the most dissimilar geniuses are of use to one
another, the different produces of their respective talents
being brought, as it were, into a common stock, where every
man may purchase whatever part of the produce of other
men's talents he has occasion for."*
We have already seen-f- how very greatly this division of
labour increases the quantity of work which the labourer can
perform. But the more work the labourer can perform,
and the more of every commodity that every individual can
produce, in every different employment or species of business,
the more he will be able and the more he will be compelled
to give in exchange for the commodities produced by others
in every other employment or species of business. This he
will be compelled to do, not by any physical force or violence
directly constraining him to part with his property against
his will, but by the force of circumstances and of competi-
tion operating upon his will, and bringing him to part with
it voluntarily, in order to procure his due share of any other
property he may wish to have in exchange for it.
That this consequence must necessarily fall out wherever
there is any tolerable security or good government, and
where men are at perfect liberty to choose and to change
their businesses as they please, will appear evident from the
following considerations :
If the hut-maker and the maker of bows and arrows (to
* Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. 2.
f In chap. vii. sect. 2. of the first book.
CHAP. I. DISTRIBUTION DEMONSTRATED. 181
shape our reasonings here with reference to the passage
above quoted from Dr Smith) got a very large and dispro-
portionate quantity of venison for their productions or ser-
vices, insomuch that, by a comparatively small exertion of
their bodies, they could live as well as the hunters could do
by a much greater exertion of theirs, it would naturally hap-
pen that some of the latter would turn to the making of
huts and of bows and arrows, as the more eligible occupa-
tion, until it should require about an equal quantity of la-
bour to live by the one employment and the other. This,
I say, would naturally and indeed necessarily happen, be-
cause people will always choose as well as they can judge
the most advantageous species of business, or that which
they expect the best to reward their exertions.
If the hut-maker and the maker of bows and arrows went
a great part of their time idle, and yet procured as much
cattle and venison in exchange for their productions as the
smith, the brazier, and the dresser of hides, who all worked
longer, or harder, or more assiduously, the former would be
reckoned good trades and the latter bad ones. Most people,
therefore, in choosing their employments would incline to
follow the former rather than the latter, and greater num-
bers applying themselves to the one and fewer to the other,
a more just distribution of labour and of wealth would take
place, and the different rewards, or wages, in those different
trades would be brought somewhat near to an equality.
It is this plain principle, then, namely, the single and
simple principle of self-interest, o?* the readiness with which
every man endeavours to better his condition, and to seize
every favourable opportunity of advancing his own fortune,
the self-same principle, it may be remarked, which we
have already seen to be the primary cause of production,
which, by regulating the distribution of labour and capital,
and equalizing the advantages and disadvantages in all the
182 THE PRINCIPLE OF HOOK II.
employments of both, regulates the amount of pecuniary re-
wards in both, so as to compensate such advantages and
disadvantages, and to regulate consequently the distribution
of wealth, according to a certain and fixed rule, in every pe-
riod of society under the system of the division of labour,
from the earliest to the latest.
As society advances, one set of people apply themselves
and their labour to the production of one sort of commodi-
ties, and another to another. One set apply themselves to
agriculture, another to manufactures, and a third to mer-
chandise or commerce ; and these more general departments
of industry are each divided and subdivided into a thousand
minuter branches, forming altogether an infinite number and
variety of particular employments, not to speak of profes-
sions unconnected with trade, as physicians, lawyers, clergy,
&c. ; all persons, in short, not hereditarily or otherwise en-
dowed with a sufficient portion of saved, stored, and accu-
mulated wealth to support them without labour, or whose
land or capital produces not a sufficiency of rent or inte-
rest to satisfy their wants, must do something, and must
generally be provided with trades or occupations. Now, if
too many persons apply themselves to one occupation, and
too few to another, or, what comes to the same thing, if
too much capital be applied to one and too little to an-
other, for it is capital that draws the labourers to work,
it will necessarily follow that the rewards, profit, or wages
in the one will diminish and in the other increase, and that
hands and capital will be withdrawn from the one and added to
the other, until the disorder be corrected or mitigated, and
until those rewards, profit, or wages be brought somewhat
near to an equality in all the divisions and employments of
labour and capital. And, in general, it is to be observed,
that the amount or rates of wages and profit, or rewards, in
the different employments of labour and capital, can never
CHAP. I. DISTRIBUTION DEMONSTRATED. 183
differ very widely from one another, or for any long period
of time, in the same country or neighbourhood, except in
so far as such difference arises out of the difference of ad-
vantages and disadvantages belonging to the employments
themselves, independent of the pecuniary rewards, profit, or
wages to be obtained by engaging in them.* For as soon as
any such difference in the amount or rates of wages and
profit, or pecuniary rewards, in the different employments of
labour and capital, as should cause a difference in the whole
of the advantages and disadvantages attending them, should
begin to appear, the principle here explained would come
into operation, and would lead the individuals immediately
concerned in the employments wherein such difference took
place to withdraw hands and capital from those in which the
advantages had become less, and to add them to those in
which they had become greater, and by this means to cor-
rect the inequality, in the manner which has been stated, by
merely attending to their own interest.
SECTION II.
GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE EFFECTS IN REGARD TO
DISTRIBUTION, WHICH THE PRINCIPLE EXPLAINED IN
THE FOREGOING SECTION IS NATURALLY CALCULATED
TO PRODUCE.
THIS principle, therefore, it will be seen, the principle,
namely, that every one should continue to prefer and follow
* The subject here alluded to, namely, the explanation of the cir-
cumstances which occasion a difference of pecuniary wages in different
employments, owing to the advantages and disadvantages of a different
nature attending them, is given at length in chap. viii. sect. 2. of this
book.
184 NATURAL EFFECTS OF BOOK II.
the most profitable employment, both for himself (i. e. for
his labour,) and for his capital, is perfectly calculated
to secure the most equitable and beneficial distribution of
wealth which it is possible to conceive or to attain under
the present constitution of human nature ; as it will be appa-
rent, from what is stated in the foregoing section, that un-
der good government, where there is a high degree of secu-
rity and liberty, the influence of this principle naturally
and necessarily produces the following most important and
most salutary results : First, It awards to every indivi-
dual the just advantages of his property and industry ;
secondly, It decrees to the community the whole benefit
of all new inventions and improvements in the arts and
processes of production ; and, thirdly, It decrees to the
community also a part of the benefit of every new in-
crease and new investment of capital. And it will be ob-
served also, that in producing these results, and in regu-
lating the distribution of wealth in the manner before de-
scribed, the principle here explained is farther calculated to
secure this other most important object, viz. to regulate the
consumption of wealth by the amount of production, and
consequently to protect the community from the danger of
any premature expenditure or exhaustion of the general
stock of wealth at any time existing ; because it is calcu-
lated to prevent that stock from being drawn upon by any
person beyond the amount which he contributes to it, either
in land, labour, or commodities.
Thus, if one individual labours and produces more wealth
than another, or possesses more wealth produced and accu-
mulated either by himself or by others, he is entitled to
consume or command- more, because he contributes more to
the general stock at market, and he is enabled accordingly to
consume or command more under the operation of this prin-
ciple. Such individual throws more into the general stock,
and he draws more out of it in exchange for his larger con-
CHAP. I. THE PRINCIPLE OF DISTRIBUTION. 185
tributions. Or at least he is able to throw more into the
general stock ; and if he does so (and only if he does so)
he acquires the power, under the operation of this principle,
and of the causes depending upon it, explained in the fore-
going section, of drawing more out of that stock, or of com-
manding or consuming more if he pleases. And in propor-
tion to every man's superior industry, or to what he is able
to throw into the general stock of wealth at any time exist-
ing, he acquires the power of drawing more out of it in a
like proportion, under the operation of the principle here
explained.
But if an individual invents any new machine, or makes
any improvement in any of the arts or processes of produc-
tion, in agriculture, manufactures, or commerce, the whole
benefit of it goes immediately to the community, unless
where a patent or monopoly intervenes, and confines a part
of the benefit to the inventor, or to those who hold the ex-
clusive grant under sanction of the law, to use and employ
those improved processes ; yet still another part of the be-
nefit accrues to the community, even during the existence
of the patent ; because, in order to acquire possession of any
considerable share of the market, the persons who hold the
monopoly must lower considerably the price of their pro-
ducts, and the whole benefit must still revert to the com-
munity when the patent expires.
Also, if an individual saves and accumulates wealth, and
invests it in any profitable or productive employment, the
community always derive a part of the advantage ; because,
as wealth increases, it is only by producing goods of equal
or better quality, and by selling the latter nearly as low, and
the former as low, or rather somewhat lower than similar
goods were formerly sold, that the produce of any new in-
vestment can, in general, find a market, or that the indivi-
dual making that investment can succeed in obtaining his
proper share of business or sales ; and because every new
186 NATURAL EFFECTS OF BOOK II.
increase and new investment of capital increases the compe-
tition of the capitalists, and forces them to be content with
a lower rate of profit or interest. And although the benefit
thence resulting may be but small and insensible in each
particular instance of new investment, it is always some-
thing, and always accumulating.
But, as these considerations are important, I shall here
endeavour to render them somewhat more perspicuous, by a
more detailed statement of them under the three distinct
heads above mentioned.
I. In the first place, then, it is obvious that the principle
explained in the foregoing part of this chapter decrees to
every individual the just advantages of his property and in-
dustry ; in other words, it decrees to the labourer a quan-
tity of wealth proportioned to the amount of his contribu-
tions of labour or commodities to the general stock at mar-
ket ; and to the land-proprietor ', or other capitalist, it
decrees the command of a quantity proportioned to his ac-
tual possessions, or to that which he is able to throw into
the same general stock.
1. This principle decrees to the labourer the whole just
advantages of his industry ; in other words, it decrees to
him the command of a quantity of wealth proportioned to
the amount of his contributions of labour or commodities to
the general stock at market.
Thus, if one individual labours more, or produces more
wealth than another, he is entitled to consume or command
more, because he contributes more to the general stock at
market, and, under the operation of the principle here ex-
plained, he is enabled accordingly to consume or command
more. By labouring or producing more, he is enabled to ex-
change that labour or produce for more of every other sort of
produce, or for more money, with which he can again, by a
second exchange, acquire more either of labour or commodities
CHAP. I. THE PRINCIPLE OF DISTRIBUTION. 187
than any other labourer who labours less (in the same species
of business) can acquire ; and thus, in proportion to every
man's superior industry, in any particular species of busi-
ness or labour, or to what he actually contributes to the
general stock of wealth at market, he acquires the power of
drawing more out of it, in a like proportion, under the ope-
ration of this principle. Nor does the intervention of money
make any difference in this result, at least if that money is
properly regulated and kept in order.
2. This principle decrees to the land-proprietor or other
capitalist the whole just advantages of his property ; in
other words, it decrees to him the command of a quantity of
wealth proportioned to his actual possessions, or to that
which he is able to throw into the general stock at market.
Thus, if one man possesses more land or more capital of
any other sort than another, he contributes or is able to
contribute more to the general stock at market ; and if he
does so (and only if he does so) he can draw more out of
that stock. As he is able to throw more into it, he has it
in his power by doing so at any time to draw more out of it
in exchange. This, indeed, is nearly self-evident, and does
not appear to require any lengthened illustration. If a
man's property be large, he can, by throwing the whole, or
a large part of it into the market, that is, by offering it in
exchange for other sorts of property, draw a large quantity
out of the same market or general stock of wealth offered for
sale ; and thus again, in proportion to every man's superior
property, or to what he is able to throw into the general
stock at market, he acquires the power of drawing more out
of it.
And thus it is that the principle explained in this chap-
ter decrees to every individual the just advantages of his
property and industry, and that the consumption of wealth
is regulated and kept within the bounds of production or
contribution ; for it will be manifest, that if no person is al-
188 NATUHAL EFFECTS OF BOOK I.
lowed to draw more out of the general stock than he contri-
butes or puts into it, or than his labour or property enables
him to replace, the community never can be injured by in-
dividuals, nor one individual by another, although any one
may injure himself by drawing out his whole share and con-
suming it improvidently.
II. This principle decrees to the community the whole
benefit of all new inventions and improvements in the arts
or processes of production.
To prove this, after what has been advanced in the for-
mer part of this chapter, a very few words will be sufficient.
An invention or improvement in any of the arts or pro-
cesses of production must either reduce the cost or improve
the quality of the articles produced, else it is no improve-
ment at all. If it improves the quality of the articles at the
same cost, it in effect reduces the cost ; and in any view
that can be taken of the subject, the benefit must evidently
fall to the community, seeing that all persons must ever af-
terwards acquire better goods at the same price.
But if the invention or improvement, whatever it may be,
reduces the cost of producing the articles, the whole benefit
of it is equally certain to fall to the community, and to be
shared and enjoyed by every individual ; because if the cost
of production be reduced, the price of the articles must be
reduced also to the same extent, or in the same proportion.
This follows directly from the reasonings advanced in the
former part of this chapter ; for it must be evident, from
what is there stated, that if the price of the articles did not
fall in proportion to the fall in the cost of producing them,
then the business of producing them would be more profit-
able than other businesses, and hands and capital would be
attracted towards it in the manner before described, until
the profit in the business and the price of the articles were
reduced and brought down to the common level.
CHAP. I. THE PRINCIPLE OF DISTRIBUTION. 189
Suppose, for example, such an improvement were made
in the manufacture of any given article or articles, let us
instance broad cloth and linen, as should reduce the cost
of producing them one-half, then- price must necessarily
fall one-half^ and the whole benefit must accrue to the com-
munity, and must be shared and enjoyed by every indivi-
dual, because every one would be able, for ever afterwards,
to procure what he wanted of these articles at half the real
price they formerly cost him ; that is, in other words, by
the sacrifice or expenditure of one-half of the labour, sweat,
or toil, or of the capital, or both, which they formerly would
have required ; and suppose that the same or similar im-
provements were extended to all commodities whatever, or
that the cost of producing them were reduced universally to
one-half, one-third, or one-fourth of what it had formerly
been, it would follow, of course, that the price of them
would fall in the same proportion, and a double, triple, or
quadruple quantity of every commodity would be procured
at the same sacrifice of labour or of previously-accumulated
wealth, which one-half, one-third, or one-fourth of the quan-
tity had previously required to obtain it.
In this case the efficiency of the powers of production
being increased in a twofold, threefold, and fourfold degree,
every producer would, if he exerted himself equally as be-
fore, have a double, triple, or quadruple quantity of commo-
dities to dispose of beyond what he had before ; and as the
whole would have to be exchanged in the same proportions
as before for one another and for labour, every one would
necessarily acquire a double, triple, or quadruple quantity
of produce as his share of wealth.
That the whole quantity of commodities produced must
be exchanged in the same proportions as before, other things
remaining the same, is evident, and follows directly from
what is advanced in the foregoing part of this chapter ; nor
would the greatest conceivable or possible improvement in
190 NATURAL EFFECTS OF BOOK II,
the arts of production occasion any embarrassment or diffi-
culty in the distribution of the commodities produced under
any tolerable system of security and liberty ; for under such
a system the principle of distribution here explained neces-
sarily ensures the proper application of all commodities to
their destined use, since, however great the quantity pro-
duced might be, it never could be any body's interest to
throw any of them away, and they must all therefore go to
their proper use, through the medium of exchange, either
for one another or for labour. Even if improvements were
made which should produce effects a hundred or a thousand
times greater than is above supposed, they would only con-
fer so much the greater benefits on the human race. It
would not follow that a single article would be produced to
be thrown away, because it would be no man's interest to do
so ; nor would it follow that any sort of commodities or ma-
nufacture would be produced in any greater quantity than
should be necessary to supply the effectual demand ; for the
principle explained in this chapter prevents that circumstance
also from taking place, and causes all commodities to be
produced and brought to market in a just proportion to one
another. Even if the improvements in the arts and pro-
cesses of production, therefore, were to be so great as to en-
able all men to provide for all their wants by half a day's, or
half an hour's, or half a minute's labour in the day, they
would only enable each to employ so much the more of his
time and of his life in study, or in any other sort of duty
or enjoyment that he liked best.
III. This principle decrees to the community a part of
the benefit of every new increase and new investment of ca-
pital.
When an individual saves and accumulates wealth, and
invests it in any profitable or productive occupation, it is
only, as before mentioned, by producing goods of equal or
CHAP. I. THE PRINCIPLE OF DISTRIBUTION. 191
better quality, and by selling the latter always at least as
low, or rather generally somewhat lower than the same
species of goods had previously been sold, that he can in
general succeed in obtaining his proper share of business or
sales, or that the produce of his new investment can find a
market. People will not in general renounce their old con-
nexions, or change their custom from one dealer to another,
without some advantage or prospect of advantage inducing
them to do so ; and when new competitors appear, bringing
additions to a market already well stocked with goods, it is
always something to the advantage of the public, who are
enabled in consequence to purchase what they want on more
favourable terms from both the old and new dealers. The
advantage gained may and certainly must be but small,
and even insensible in every single instance of new increase
and new investment ; but it must always be something, and
must necessarily produce a pressure towards a reduction of
price, if. it does not produce an actual or observable reduc-
tion.
There are a great many trades and employments, it is to
be remembered, in the advanced state of society, which it
requires a certain amount of capital to enable the traders to
engage in, and as wealth increases, greater numbers come
to have it in their power to enter into such trades, and many
are willing to do so, and accept a lower rate of profit or in-
terest ; and sometimes also a lower rate of what is properly
to be considered as wages, or remuneration for their labour ;
which is all in favour of the community in general, or of
the great body of it, consisting of the lower classes of la- .
bourers.
But in treating this subject of the distribution of wealth
as it takes place under the system of the division of labour,
and under the operation of the principle described, and of
192 MONEY THE INSTRUMENT LOOK II.
the causes depending upon that principle explained in this
chapter, it is always to be understood and remembered,
that it is only under good government, where there is per-
fect liberty in the choice of employments, and in the dis-
posal of land, capital, and labour, that all the beneficial
effects we have endeavoured to delineate are to be looked
for, or that a strictly equitable distribution can be attain-
ed ; and every infringement of the liberty just mentioned,
or any obstruction thrown in the way of the free disposal
or employment of land, capital, and labour, or of the free
choice of employments in general, is to be regarded as an
obstruction thrown in the way of the just distribution of
wealth, and consequently as a violation more or less of jus-
tice and of the rights, not only of the persons directly re-
strained, but of all others on whom such restraints or facti-
tious monopolies operate injuriously ; and indeed of the com-
munity in general, whose prosperity and improvement are
always obstructed and prevented from expanding to its full
extent by all such restraints ; and when such restraints or
monopolies are carried to a great excess, the real effect is,
that a certain portion of the community, or limited number
of individuals, are constituted the legal plunderers and op-
pressors of the others.
CHAPTER II.
OF THE INSTRUMENT OF DISTRIBUTION, MONEY.
AFTER the period when any sort of regular and settled
government has been once established in a country, when
the land has been wholly appropriated, when capital has
CHAP. II. OF DISTRIBUTION. 193
accumulated to some considerable extent, and when the
system of the division of labour has been fully introduced,
money becomes the great instrument of distribution.
After this period it is no longer practicable for every in-
dividual, or for the individuals generally of any class or or-
der of men in society, to supply the whole of their wants,
either from their immediate possessions of land or capital,
or from the immediate produce of their labour ; and not only
the non-labourers, whose possessions, however large, consist
but of one, or at most but a few different objects, or species
of vendible property, as well as the unproductive labourers,
under whose hands no sort of produce or vendible property
at all arises, must exchange, the former their land or capi-
tal, and the latter their labour, for some convenient and
generally useful or acceptable commodity, as money, in or-
der to obtain, by a second exchange, any other article they
require ; but even the productive labourers themselves, as
they produce, or more commonly but assist in producing
only one, or at most but a few different articles or species
of commodities, are equally subject to the same necessity,
and must all exchange their labour or its produce, in the
first instance for money, before they can obtain by a second
exchange any of those other commodities which every man
constantly requires besides the one or the few articles which
he himself produces.
The baker and the brewer, the weaver and the shoe-
maker, must apply to other people for every thing they
want, except bread and beer, and cloth and shoes, and to
one another when they want any of these necessaries, except
the single article which they respectively produce. But if
they possessed nothing else to offer in exchange but those
articles themselves, it would be always very difficult and
often impossible for them to treat or bargain with one an-
other, or to procure either these or any others of the various
articles which all men constantly require. " The butcher, 1 '
N
194 MONEY THE INSTRUMENT BOOK II.
to use the words of Dr Smith, " has more meat in his shop
than he can himself consume, and the brewer and the baker
would each of them be willing to purchase a part of it ; but
they have nothing to offer in exchange, except the different
productions of their respective trades, and the butcher is al-
ready provided with all the bread and beer which he has im-
mediate occasion for. No exchange can in this case be made
between them. He cannot be their merchant, nor they his
customers ; and they are all of them thus mutually less ser-
viceable to one another. In order to avoid the inconveniency
of such situations, every prudent man in every period of so-
ciety, after the first establishment of the division of labour,
must naturally have endeavoured to manage his affairs in such
a manner as to have at all times by him, besides the peculiar
produce of his own industry, a certain quantity of some one
commodity or other, such as he imagined few people would
be likely to refuse in exchange for the produce of their in-
dustry."*
Now this commodity whatever it may be, or whatever
other character may belong to it, is money. Every man
thenceforward lives by exchanging the surplus part of his
property, or of the produce of his industry, for such parts
of the property or of the labour of other men, or of the
produce of their labour, as he requires ; and thus it is that
money becomes the great instrument of the distribution of
wealth.
The shoemaker uses perhaps one pair of shoes, while he
makes fifty. The remaining forty-nine pairs he is therefore
at liberty to appropriate to the supply of his other wants ;
and he endeavours to dispose of them for money, which he
knows that every body will be willing to accept for the pro-
duce of then* labour, and for any commodity he may desire
to purchase. It would be in vain for him, he is well aware,
to take his shoes to the tanner and the leather-merchant,
* Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. 4.
CHAP. II. OF DISTRIBUTION. 195
and propose with them to purchase the stock he might at
any time want of the last-mentioned article. Those indi-
viduals use no more shoes than himself, and are moreover
perhaps already provided with all they require ; whilst the
shoemaker, it may be, wishes to purchase the article of
leather, to the amount perhaps of half the produce of his la-
bour. The leather-merchant, however, will not take his
twenty-five pairs of shoes ; but let him dispose of his pro-
ducts for money, and bring that commodity to the mer-
chants, and they will gladly supply him with their commo-
dities in exchange. They are not always ready to take his
article of shoes, but must have money for their commodi-
ties, and when they want shoes, they will come to him, and
bring money also in their turn wherewith to purchase them.
But although money be the instrument by which these
exchanges are effected, it is still with the surplus produce of
his labour that the industrious man really purchases every
commodity, because it is with that surplus he purchases
the money with which he purchases every thing else.
When he gives that surplus for money, he throws it into
the general stock at market, and the amount of it, by limit-
ing the quantity of money he receives, limits the quantity
of other goods he can draw out of that general stock ; con-
sequently it limits his consumption and expenditure or en-
joyment of wealth, that is, his destruction of it, to the amount
of that which he contributes to the consumption and enjoy-
ment of other people. Money therefore, in short, every
person requires, and uses merely as the means of enabling
him to exchange his labour or his possessions, or their pro-
duce, for the necessaries, conveniences, and luxuries of life
in proportion to his scale of property, or to his contributions
of labour or commodities to the general stock, daily and
regularly, as he requires them.
Every person therefore, in the advanced state of society,
requires to keep in reserve a quantity of money greater or
196 MONEY THE INSTRUMENT BOOK II.
smaller in proportion to the amount of his revenue, or to
the extent of his transactions or exchanges, the labourer
in proportion to his wages, the non-labourer in proportion
to his rent or interest, and the merchant, manufacturer, &c.,
in proportion to the extent of their dealings, or then* sales
and purchases, &c. Of these it is evident that the manu-
facturer will in general pass more money through his hands,
in proportion to his annual income or revenue, than the
land-proprietor or capitalist ; the merchant still more than
the manufacturer ; and the banker most of all. Every one,
however, must endeavour to keep a certain quantity in pro-
portion to his ordinary outgoings or exchanges ; but every
one will at the same time endeavour to keep as little as
possible, viz. no more than may be sufficient to serve his ne-
cessary purposes ; because if he keeps more, it will lie use-
less beside him ; whereas by employing it in trade, or lend-
ing it at interest, he is enabled to make a profit by it.
If the shoemaker, for instance, finds his cash accumulat-
ing very much upon his hands, he will observe that by
taking a part of it to purchase more leather and any other
materials he requires, and employing the remainder to pay
the wages of an additional workman, he will get more for
the finished work than the materials and wages together
amount to ; and with what is over, therefore, he can either
increase his consumption of other commodities without di-
minishing his capital, or increase, if he pleases, his capital,
and extend his business still farther ; or, if he cannot, or
does not choose to extend his business, he can lend it at in-
terest, and what he again receives as interest he can still
reinvest (though at an ultimately decreasing rate of interest)
ad infinituvn.
The sums therefore which must be kept in hand by every
individual will thus be brought within a certain compass,
and reduced to as moderate an amount as may be consistent
with the conveniency and various necessities of each ; and
CHAP. II. OF DISTRIBUTION. 197
the sum total or aggregate of all these smaller sums will
make up the entire circulating medium, or whole money of
a nation, employed in executing its whole business or ex-
changes, and in dealing out or distributing the whole of its
wealth to every individual in his just proportion, that is, in
proportion to what he contributes to the general stock.
This total sum of money which circulates, and which is
employed merely as an instrument of distribution and ex-
change, will be great or small in proportion to the greatness
or smallness of the other descriptions of wealth to be ex-
changed and distributed by it ; to which, however, it will
bear a higher ratio in poor than in rich countries ; because
the rapidity of circulation is greater in the latter than in
the former, and the same sum of money will therefore do
more work in the same time ; that is, it will serve to ex-
change and distribute a greater quantity of other wealth in
rich than in poor countries.
Thus far we have spoken of money merely as an instru-
ment of distribution and exchange ; but whatever serves
this purpose must also be used as the common measure of
value, and must therefore be possessed of the quality of
value in itself, that is, it must be a vendible commodity ;
and as it must serve this additional and necessarily con-
nected purpose, not only in all bargains or agreements im-
mediately to be executed, but in those also of a prospective
nature, which stipulate and contract for the delivery or re-
ceipt of determinate quantities or values of property at
periods more or less distant, it is required that the commo-
dity which is to serve this purpose should be comparatively
uniform and steady in its own value, which it can only be
by requiring at all times nearly an equal quantity of labour
to produce it.
Many different commodities, it is probable, as Dr Smith
198 MONEY THE INSTRUMENT BOOK II.
has observed, were successively both thought of and em-
ployed as money in the rude ages of society, and at the first
establishment of the division of labour. He mentions cattle
as having been used in the earliest times ; and takes notice
of the different articles of salt, a particular sort of shells,
dried Jish, tobacco, and sugar, as having been used as
money in different situations and countries. But all these
or any such articles must have been found very inconvenient
and inadequate instruments of distribution, and were all
very early superseded in all countries by the metals copper,
silver, and gold, which have been found peculiarly adapted
to serve both the purposes for which money is required, by
the possession of the following qualities : first, portable-
ness, they contain a comparatively great value in small
bulk, which makes it easy to carry them to market : se-
condly, divisibility, they can be divided into very minute
parts without any perceptible diminution or alteration in
the value of the mass, which pan be easily reunited by fu-
sion and at a small cost, and thus they can be easily pro-
portioned without loss to the smallest quantity of any other
commodity that any one may wish to acquire : thirdly,
durability, they may be kept for almost any length of
time without waste or decay : fourthly and lastly, unifor-
mity or steadiness of value, they are the least liable of
any known commodities to any considerable or sudden va-
riations in their value, insomuch that, for all practical and
ordinary purposes, and within moderate periods of time,
perhaps we may say periods of twenty or thirty years, they
may be looked upon as invariable.
This superior steadiness of value which is found to cha-
racterize the precious metals above all other commodities,
and which, combined with the other qualities above-mention-
ed, has caused them to be so universally used as money,
and as the common measure of value, arises from the su-
CHAP. II. OF DISTRIBUTION. 199
perior steadiness in the cost of their production above what
is found in that of other commodities ;* or, in other words,
from the quantity of labour and commodities, or capital,
which must be expended in acquiring those metals at first,
being always nearly the same at one time and another, which
sort of expenditure constitutes the real price of all commo-
dities, and is the foundation of all value in exchange, and
as labour is the chief ingredient in the cost of production,
and the only one which continues necessarily and uniformly
the same in itself, it is, as I shall endeavour to prove in the
following chapter, the only certain measure of that value.
CHAPTER III.
THAT LABOUR IS THE ONLY CERTAIN MEASURE OF VALUE.
As the existence of all value in exchange is wholly depen-
dent on the necessity of some portion of human labour being
* It has been asked, " Why should gold, or corn, or labour, be the
standard measure of value more than coals or iron ?" (Ricardo, Prin-
ciples of Pol. Econ. chap. 20, p. 343, second edition.) The answer is
simply, because the former articles are in general either more steady
in their value, or of more convenient application as the standard, than
the latter. Some commodity must of necessity be chosen to serve
the double purpose of a measure of value and instrument of exchange ;
and the question being, which is the best adapted to it, there can be
no hesitation about the answer as to whether coals or iron, or gold,
should have the preference. As to labour, it is indeed the only cer-
tain measure, as we shall presently endeavour to demonstrate, fixed
and invariable in the nature of things ; but then labour is not a
commodity, and cannot therefore be laid hold of, or applied as the
common measure ; and as to corn, it is too bulky and inconvenient
as well as exceedingly variable within short periods.
200 LABOUR THE ONLY CERTAIN BOOK II,
employed in the production of those commodities in which
value in exchange forms an attribute,* so labour is the only
certain measure of that value.
It is true, that after the period when capital comes to be
employed to any considerable extent in production, the ex-
changeable value of commodities is no longer determined by
the quantities of labour bestowed in producing them, be-
cause they are then no longer produced by labour alone, but
partly by labour and partly by capital ; and because it hap-
pens thenceforward that the quantities or proportions of la-
bour and capital expended in production are not only dif-
ferent in different species of commodities, but are continually
varying in the same species.-j- Still, however, human la-
* Although capital, as I have endeavoured to demonstrate, is a means
or instrument of production as well as labour, it is not equally the
fundamental cause of exchangeable value ; for if capital could pro-
duce every thing without lahour, there would be no such thing as ex-
changeable value at all ; that is to say, if capital could be made to
work itself, without the assistance of human hands or labourers, and
to reproduce and extend itself so as to supersede the necessity of la-
bour altogether in the production of every thing that man can wish
or want, there would be no such thing as wealth in the sense in which
we treat of it, or vendible property, or exchangeable value ; because
then every thing would be brought to the condition of air and water,
and the other free bounties of nature ; unless perchance, under such
condition, the multiplication of mankind in a limited world should
make it necessary in the end to appropriate the capital and the things
produced by it, or even to destroy a part of them in order to prevent
the earth from being over-peopled ; which to do (namely, to appro-
priate or destroy) would again require care, and attention, and appli-
cation, in a word, labour ; and would thus, by a new fatality, bring
mankind back to their first condition, and reconvert every thing that
was so before once more into vendible property.
t This happens from a variety of causes, depending, however, chiefly
on the increase or diminution of capital ; among others, from new in-
ventions and improvements in the arts and processes of production,
whether arising from the increase of machinery, the better arrange-
CHAP. III. MEASURE OF VALUE. 201
hour, that is to say, the natural price or wages of common
labour, continues to be the best and only certain standard
which can be referred to in any question of doubt or diffi-
culty as to whether the common measure of value, whatever
it may be, has varied or not. This alone (namely, the na-
tural wages of common labour,*) of all definable objects or
quantities of wealth, is necessarily confined within certain
and narrow limits in regard to variations in its value. Al-
most all other things might vary for any length of time
and to any conceivable extent ; this alone cannot ; and this
raent or combination of works or of materials in those processes, or
from improvements in the skill or effective power of the labourer him-
self.
* The ordinary and average wages of common ploughmen, or farm-
servants, hired by the year, are those perhaps, of all others, in which
there are the smallest variations or difference in different ages, or in
periods of time considerably distant ; and such, of course, must form
the best standard measure of value, or the best test to try that stand-
ard, and to prove whether it or any other commodity has varied in its
value or not.
In the higher sorts of labour the wages admit of very great differ-
ence and of very great variations, as do likewise the modes of life
among the higher labourers. Clergy, lawyers, physicians, master
manufacturers, merchants, farmers, and all the other higher classes of
labourers, are all of them (the individuals I mean, in each of those
classes) paid very differently and live very differently.
But it is not so with the lower classes of labourers ; the smallness
of their wages leaves less room for variations ; and in those of all com-
mon labourers, as hedgers, ditchers, &c., there can be but compara-
tively little change in the most distant periods. The ordinary and
average wages of these, therefore, would do equally well with those of
the common farm-servants for marking the difference of prices in dif-
ferent periods, or for correcting the accidental variations of the com-
mon measure of value, were it not that, being hired only for short pe-
riods, and not always constantly employed, it is not so easy to know
what their wages really are, or how much they earn daily upon an
average throughout the year.
LABOUR THE ONLY CERTAIN BOOK II.
it is therefore which is properly considered as the only cer-
tain standard fixed and established in the nature of things.
Gold and silver, for example, might vary, not temporarily
and partially merely, but once and for ever, to a hundred
times or a hundredth part their present value, from cal-
culable or conceivable variations in the richness or barren-
ness of the mines ; so might all other commodities, except
corn, and the very few other articles which can be used, or
actually are used, as the chief food of the common labourers,
and which, although not altogether so strictly limited in
regard to variations as the aggregate of wages, are yet like-
wise necessarily confined within certain moderate and not
indefinite boundaries. It happens necessarily that the ar-
ticle actually used as the chief food of the common la-
bourers cannot vary indefinitely, because a certain extent of
variation, one way or other, necessarily effects its own cure.
A certain increase in the value of corn, for example, where
it forms the chief food of the common labourers, would de-
prive those persons of food and consequently of life ; and a
certain diminution of its value would speedily bring into ex-
istence additional numbers ; and by laying, as it were, the
axe to the root of the demand when the commodity was
high, and again raising up demanders when it was low, those
accidents just mentioned, which must necessarily occur un-
der the circumstances, would keep the value of the article
from diverging very far either the one way or the other.
But it is the sum of the articles daily consumed or earned
by the common labourer, or, in other words, the exchange-
able value of the aggregate of those articles, which consti-
tutes the least variable measure, and which, as being the
only permanently steady ingredient in the price of all com-
modities, is alone to be depended upon in cases of doubt or
difficulty, as to whether the common measure of value, or
any given commodity, has varied in its value.
And this is all that is, or ever was, or ever could be
CHAP. III. MEASURE OF VALUE. 203
meant by those who have stated labour to be the measure of
value ; at least it is evidently all that is meant by Dr Smith
in stating that doctrine ; and, after all the comments which
have been made upon the subject, and the almost universal
rejection of labour as the standard by later political econo-
mists, there still appears to me a singular force and pro-
priety as well as truth in all that he has said in support of
his position.
" The real price of every thing," says Dr Smith, " what
every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it,
is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. What every thing is
really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants
to dispose of it or exchange it for something else, is the toil
and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can im-
pose upon other people. What is bought with money or with
goods is purchased by labour as much as what we acquire by
the toil of our own body. That money, or those goods, in-
deed, save us this toil. They contain the value of a certain
quantity of labour which we exchange for what is supposed at
the time to contain the value of an equal quantity. Labour
was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid
for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour,
that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased ;
and its value, to those who possess it, and who want to ex-
change it for some new productions, is precisely equal to the
quantity of labour which it can enable them to purchase or
command."*
" Equal quantities of labour," says he again, ft at all times
and places, may be said to be of equal value to the labourer.
In his ordinary state of health, strength, and spirits, in the
ordinary degree of his skill and dexterity, he must always lay
down the same portion of his ease, his liberty, and his happi-
ness. The price which he pays must always be the same,
whatever may be the quantity of goods which he receives in
* Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. 5.
204 LABOUR THE ONLY CERTAIN BOOK II.
return for it. Of these, indeed, it may sometimes purchase a
greater and sometimes a smaller quantity ; but it is their value
which varies, not that of the labour which purchases them.
At all times and places, that is dear which it is difficult to
come at, or which it costs much labour to acquire ; and that
cheap which is to be had easily, or with very little labour.
Labour alone, therefore, never varying in its own value, is
alone the ultimate and real standard by which the value of all
commodities can at all times and places be estimated and com-
pared."*
It would be unsuitable in this place, and altogether end-
less, to enter into a detailed controversy with the numerous
host of writers who have denied this doctrine ; but it may
still be proper briefly to notice some of the chief objections
they have urged against it.
On the following passage in the Wealth of Nations,
" But though equal quantities of labour are always of equal
value to the labourer, yet to the person who employs him they
appear sometimes to be of greater and sometimes of smaller
value. He purchases them sometimes with a greater and
sometimes with a smaller quantity of goods, and to him the
price of labour seems to vary like that of all other things. It
appears to him dear in the one case and cheap in the other.
In reality, however, it is the goods which are cheap in the one
case and dear in the other."f Mr BuchananJ remarks,
" Dr Smith himself states, that labour is sometimes purchased
with a greater and sometimes with a smaller quantity of goods ;
but he immediately adds, that it is the goods which vary in
their value, and not the labour. But why may not the labour
vary in its value as well as the goods ?"
* Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. 5. f Ibid.
$ The editor of the Wealth of Nations, with notes and an addi-
tional volume.
Buchanan's edition of Smith's Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. 5.
As to the general assertion of Mr Buchanan in reference to the above
passage, and to the doctrine maintained in it, tbat " this is quite
CHAP. III. MEASURE OF VALUE. 205
To this I reply, that labour itself cannot vary, because it
consists of a fixed and invariable quantity of bodily toil,
pain, or suffering, which the labourer must undergo, and
which times, nor places, nor the power of men cannot alter.
Wages may indeed vary, and we can understand the pro-
position when it is said that wages rise or fall ; but when it
is said that labour rises or falls, is there any meaning in the
expression ? Is it really intelligible ? What is it that rises
when labour rises ? Wages. But this is not labour it-
self ; it is the reward or recompense of labour. Labour, as
I have already observed in a former part of this work,* is
simply a movement or exertion of the human body and fa-
culties ; and to talk of its rising or falling in value, unless
its reward or wages be alone meant, is plainly to use words
without the shadow of a meaning.
Again, when Dr Smith observes, " Labour, therefore,
it appears evidently, is the only universal as well as the only
accurate measure of value, or the only standard by which we
metaphysical," and " a metaphysical notion," I do not know whether
it be necessary to make any observations ; for what is it in the science
of political economy that is not metaphysical or connected with meta-
physics ? or what is political science in general but a branch of the
greater sciences of metaphysics and morality ? The subdivision of po-
litical economy indeed treats of wealth, and is thus also connected with
matter or physics ; but all its profoundest and most important con-
clusions depend upon metaphysical considerations, or the principles of
human nature. In short, this department of political science bears
the same relation to the more comprehensive science of metaphysics
that the mixed does to the pure mathematics ; and the use and ap-
plication of the principles of the latter science in its subordinate
branch is not more necessary and inevitable than the use and applica-
tion of metaphysical principles in political economy ; and with regard,
therefore, to any doctrine or position contained in it being metaphysi-
cal, or " a metaphysical notion," it does not seem to be any objection
or disparagement, provided only that it be a just doctrine or position.
* Vide book i. chap. 2.
206 LABOUR THE ONLY CERTAIN BOOK IT.
can compare the values of different commodities at all times
and at all places. We cannot estimate, it is allowed, the real
value of different commodities from century to century by the
quantities of silver which were given for them. We cannot
estimate it from year to year by the quantities of corn. By
the quantities of labour we can, with the greatest accuracy,
estimate it both from century to century and from year to
year."* His commentator asks, " How can this be, when
Dr Smith himself states, that the same quantity of labour is
paid very differently ?"t
And why should a thing the same in itself not be paid
differently or " very differently ?" or is it any impeach-
ment of the invariability of the value of labour to say that
it is paid differently ? On the contrary, is it not plain to
the common sense of all mankind, that if a thing really be
invariable in its value, it must always be paid differently
wherever the value of other things varies ?
When indeed an alteration takes place in the natural
price or wages of labour, or in the quantity and quality of
the necessaries, conveniences, and luxuries which can be
permanently commanded by the lower classes of labourers,
the standard of value may be justly said to vary, because
in this case an essential change is made in the condition and
character or quality of those labourers themselves. When,
in consequence of good or bad government, the character,
condition, and habits of the people are elevated or depressed,
the character and absolute value of themselves, of their la-
bour, and of the wealth it produces, suffer a change. When,
for example, in consequence of good government, the gene-
ral condition and habits of the people and the natural re-
ward of labour are improved and increased, every thing is
made really more valuable, because every thing is then em-
* Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. 5.
t Buchanan's edition of Smith's Wealth of Nations, booki. chap. 5.
CHAP. III. MEASURE OF VALUE. 207
ployed in maintaining a more valuable set of people ; or, in
other words, all the labourers must then live better, and
command more wealth than before. The labourers are then,
in fact, more valuable creatures. The absolute value of
themselves and of their labour is improved, and their power
of purchasing universally increased.
When again, on the other hand, in consequence of bad
government, the general condition and habits of the people
are deteriorated, and the natural reward of labour dimi-
nished, every thing becomes really and absolutely less va-
luable, because every thing is then employed in maintain-
ing a less valuable population ; in other words, all the la-
bourers live worse and command less wealth than before.
The labourers are then, in fact, less valuable creatures ;*
the absolute value of themselves and of their labour is de-
preciated, and their power of purchasing universally dimi-
nished.
All this, however, does not demonstrate but that the natu-
ral wagesf of those labourers should still continue to be the
only certain or safe standard measure of value, and indeed
the only one (excepting, as before observed, the chief ar-
ticles of food,) that possibly can be appealed to in cases of
difficulty, because it must still continue to have a fixed and
very limited boundary of variation on either hand which it
cannot pass ; whereas, with regard to every other definable
object, or commodity, or quantity of wealth, having ex-
changeable value, (always excepting the chief articles of
food, which are still, however, by many degrees less certain
than this,) there is no certain or assignable limits to the ex-
tent of their variations.
* Humanly speaking.
t Before coming to the consideration of the question here discussed,
the reader should be thoroughly acquainted with what is meant by
the natural wages of labour as explained by Dr Smith.
208 LABOUR THE ONLY CERTAIN BOOK II,
Mr Ricardo, however, in disputing this doctrine with Dr
Smith, contends, that neither corn nor labour is less liable
to variation, or more to be depended upon as standards of
value, than gold or silver. After stating the causes of va-
riation to which gold and silver are liable, viz. " from the
discovery of new and more abundant mines," " from im-
provements in the skill and machinery by which the mines
may be worked," and " from the decreasing produce of the
mines after they have yielded a supply to the world for a
succession of ages," Mr Ricardo exclaims, " But from
which of these sources of fluctuation is corn exempted ?"*
Now, suppose the answer should be, from none of them :
What then ? Dr Smith does not say that corn is not liable
to variations in its value. On the contrary, he shows that
it is subject, within certain narrow limits, to variations even
in its average value ; and he takes particular notice of its
temporary fluctuations " from year to year," and explains
very distinctly, that on this account it is not so good a mea-
sure from year to year, or for short periods of time, as gold
or silver. But he very justly says and demonstrates, that
for distant periods of time ^ or, to use his own words, " from
century to century," corn is a better measure of value than
gold or silver, or than any thing else whatever except la-
bour ; which manifestly it is, for this plain reason, That
whereas, by the possible existence or discovery of greatly
more fertile mines than any at present known, gold and sil-
ver might be reduced to a hundredth part of its present va-
lue ; or, what is perhaps more probable, from the failure
and exhaustion of all the known mines of those metals, and
from the prodigious increase in the demand for them which
may naturally be expected in the course of a few ages,
in consequence of the increase of population and wealth
Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, chap. i. sect. 1.
CHAP. III. MEASURE OF VALUE. 209
throughout the world, their value might be increased a hun-
dred or a thousandfold ; no sort of variation approaching
nearly hi extent to this could possibly take place (or, if it
could take place, could continue for any length of time,) in
the value of corn ; because its cheapness would necessarily
raise up consumers or demanders to sustain the price, and
its dearness would diminish the number of demanders, or
keep them from increasing, and prevent the price from ris-
ing or continuing permanently or extravagantly high.
But Mr Ricardo goes still farther, and maintains, not
only that neither corn nor labour are any better measures of
value than gold or silver, but that neither gold, nor silver,
nor corn, nor labour itself, nor any other commodity, or
number of commodities, can be considered as a standard
measure of value more than another. " Why," says he,
" should gold, or corn, or labour, be the standard measure of
value more than coals or iron? more than cloth, soap, candles,
and the other necessaries of the labourer? Why, in short,
should any commodity, or all commodities together, be the
standard, when such a standard is subject to fluctuations in
value ? Corn as well as gold may, from difficulty or facility
of production, vary ten, twenty, or thirty per cent, relatively
to other things ; why should we always say, that it is those
other things which have varied and not the corn ? That com-
modity is alone invariable which at all times requires the same
sacrifice of toil and labour to produce it."*
Now, do not the average wages of common labour require
at all times the same sacrifice of toil and labour to produce
them ? and are they not, therefore, even upon Mr Ricardo^s
own principles, necessarily and uniformly of the same value ?
The ploughman, and other common labourers, earn their
daily, weekly, or yearly wages, at all times, by as nearly as
can be supposed or calculated an equal sacrifice of toil and
* Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, chap. xx.
o
210 LABOUR THE ONLY CEETAIN BOOK II.
labour ; they work, as nearly as can be imagined, an equal
number of hours in the day, week, and year, at all times
(and it must be allowed they work about equally hard upon
an average,) and the commodity or commodities they earn
as wages, whatever it or they may be, exactly measure and
represent their share in the work of production, all that is
over and above wages being produced either by capital or
land.* The natural wages of the common labourer, there-
fore, or the necessaries commonly used or consumed by him,
being uniformly produced by the same quantity of labour,
are uniformly of the same value, and must therefore be con-
sidered, even according to Mr Ricardo's own showing, as the
natural and only certain standard measure of value, fixed
and established by the constitution of things.
It is true, it would be inconvenient, and indeed altogether
impracticable, to constitute all " the necessaries of the la-
bourer," or all the commodities which his labour enables
him to purchase or command, the common measure of value,
because it would be impossible to apply the whole of these,
in the form of a measure, to all the ordinary transactions of
business or exchange ; yet it is certain, that whatever single
or few commodities, conveniently capable of such applica-
tion, represent most nearly and constantly a day's or a cer-
tain given number of days' wages of common labour, will
always be the best practical measure ; and furthermore, it
may safely be affirmed, that no commodity which does not
* If this were not the case, then would the labourer be constantly
cheated, for nobody but himself has a right to what he produces.
Nor does the capitalist or landlord ever live upon what he produces,
but upon what their own lands or capitals produce ; of which produce,
rent and profit, or interest, are the proper and only certain measures ;
and nothing is wanting but security and liberty to render all these
measures, and the shares they award to the different classes, perfectly
just, and that accruing to the labourer a liberal one.
CHAP. HI. MEASURE OF VALUE. 211
do this, or of which a given quantity is not constantly and
uniformly nearly measured by a day's or some given num-
ber of days 1 wages of common labour, could be proposed or
established as the common measure, or, if it could be esta-
blished, could be endured for any length of time, owing to
the mischief it would occasion ; for if any commodity were
established as the common measure which varied much or
frequently from the standard of the natural wages of com-
mon labour, it would occasion the utter confusion of all
value in exchange, the greatest apparent fluctuation in com-
modities, the real value of which had not at all changed, and
the greatest injustice in all the transactions or transfers of
property effected by its means upon contracts or stipulations
lasting beyond a few days.
Although, however, the only perfect and certain standard
of real value in exchange, the natural wages of common la-
bour, cannot be applied as the common measure of value,
or as the measure constantly in use, it is not on this account
to be thought that it is altogether useless. It can still be
applied either to prove the uniformity or correct the varia-
tions of the common measure ; and if regular and correct
registers were kept, as they ought to be, of the ordinary and
average wages of all the common and lower descriptions of
labour, this standard might often be beneficially applied to
the purpose now mentioned.
But we must attend a little farther to the objections of
Mr Ricardo :
" In the same country," says this writer, " double the
quantity of labour may be required to produce a given quan-
tity of food and necessaries at one time that may be necessary
at another, and a distant time; yet the labourer's reward may
possibly be very little diminished. If the labourer's wages at
the former period were a certain quantity of food and neces-
saries, he probably could not have subsisted if that quantity
had been reduced. Food and necessaries in this case will have
212 LABOUR THE ONLY CERTAIN BOOK II.
risen 100 per cent, if estimated by the quantity of labour ne-
cessary to their production, while they will scarcely have in-
creased in value, if measured by the quantity of labour for
which they will exchange."*
But is it not plain, that the quantity of necessaries given
upon an average for labour is exactly that which it pro-
duces ? Labour produces wages ; and all wealth or necessa-
ries which exist above what are received in exchange for la-
bour, are produced, as I said before, by land or capital,
else, as I said before, the labourer is eternally cheated. The
error lies in supposing that all wealth is produced by labour,
nothing by land and nothing by capital.
Mr Ricardo says again, " Adam Smith, who so accu-
rately defined the original source of exchangeable value, and
who was bound in consistency to maintain, that all things be-
came more or less valuable in proportion as more or less labour
was bestowed on their production, has himself erected another
standard measure of value, and speaks of things being more
or less valuable in proportion as they will exchange for more
or less of this standard measure. Sometimes he speaks of
corn, at other times of labour, as a standard measure ; not the
quantity of labour bestowed on the production of any object,
but the quantity which it can command in the market ; as if
these were two equivalent expressions, and as if, because a
man's labour had become doubly efficient, and he could there-
fore produce twice the quantity of a commodity, he would
necessarily receive twice the former quantity in exchange
for it."t
I shall, in the first place, suppose that " a man's labour 11
becoming " doubly efficient" has been occasioned by the
increase of capital or improvement of machinery, and then
I will say, that in this case it is not the man's labour, but
* Principles of Political Economy, chap. i. The italics in this pas-
sage, of course, are Mr Ricardo's own.
t Ibid.
CHAP. II. MEASURE OF VALUE. 213
the capital he is supplied with, which is the efficient cause of
the double quantity being produced; or, in other words,
that it is capital, not the man's labour, which produces the
half of this double quantity. The man's labour produces,
as before, a given quantity, the equivalent of which he re-
ceives as wages, and the other equal quantity is produced by
capital, and, upon Mr Ricardo's theory of real wages con-
tinuing the same, would go wholly to the capitalist.
But to be a little more particular : If a man's labour be-
comes doubly efficient, it must proceed from one of three
causes, either, 1st, From improvements in his own inge-
nuity, dexterity, or skill in applying his labour ; or, 2dly,
From the increase or improvement of capital, machinery,
&c. ; or, 3dly, From the increased fertility of the land he
cultivates. If the increased efficiency of labour proceeds
from the last-mentioned cause, it is the land that produces
the additional quantity ; if it proceeds from the second-men-
tioned, it is capital which produces it ; and it is only when
proceeding from the first-mentioned cause that the addi-
tional quantity is really and properly to be considered as
produced by labour. In this last case the additional pro-
duce will always go to the labourer, but never wholly or ne-
cessarily in the others. A skilful, ingenious, and dexterous
workman, even a common labourer, will naturally receive
higher wages than an awkward and unskilful one. But it
is in the higher departments of labour wherein ingenuity
and skill, from having larger room to develop themselves,
(in the construction, arrangement, and conducting of works
and manufactories,) produce their most important effects,
and draw to the labourers a proportionably large share of
the produce of those works as their wages, much (or more
frequently the whole) of which is vulgarly supposed to arise
from capital, and is called profit of stock, but which is truly
the produce and reward of labour.
Mr Ricardo himself, as before cited, observes, .that gold
214 LABOUR THE ONLY CERTAIN BOOK II.
and silver may fluctuate " from improvements in the skill
and machinery with which the mines are worked." Now,
is it not evident, that, in so far as that effect is produced by
machinery, it is not produced by labour, and that it is only
in so far as it is produced by bodily toil, ingenuity, dex-
terity, skill, &c. that it is produced by labour ? Superior
profit will reward the proprietor of the machinery, that
profit is his produce ; and superior wages will reward the
skill of the labourer, those wages again are his produce.
It will be in vain to pretend or assert that the machinery
is solely the produce of labour, and that still, therefore, the
whole produce is the produce of labour ; for it is plainly con-
trary to the fact to say so. What machinery, I would beg
to ask, at present in existence in Great Britain is solely the
produce of labour ? What machine is there in the produc-
tion of which capital has not assisted ? I defy any man to
show a single machine which has not been the joint produce
of land, capital, and labour, and I defy him equally to deter-
mine in what proportion these different instruments of pro-
duction have contributed to the final result, except from the
share which the different classes of contributors shall acquire
in the shape of rent, interest, and wages.
Again, when Mr Ricardo says, " If a piece of cloth be
now of the value of two pieces of linen, and if in ten years
hence the ordinary value of a piece of cloth should be four
pieces of linen, we may safely conclude, that either more
labour is required to make the cloth, or less to make the
linen, or that both causes have operated,"* it must be ob-
served, that the conch sion would be altogether fallacious
and imperfect, unless we add to it, that capital produces
more of the linen than formerly, while labour produces less.
We should conclude, indeed, that there was now about a
* Principles of Political Economy, chap. i.
CHAP. III. MEASURE OF VALUE. 215
half less labour employed in producing a piece of linen than
formerly ; but this conclusion would still be defective if we
did not add to it, that this must probably arise from a half
more than formerly being produced by capital ; that is to
say, about a half more work than formerly must be consi-
dered as being now done by capital in the manufacture, of
linen.
Lord Lauderdale appears to me to be the first who enter-
tained nearly accurate ideas on this point ; and if he be
wrong in all his other corrections of Dr Smith, as I decided-
ly think he is, still it must be acknowledged that he is right
in this one.
" The author of the Wealth of Nations/' says Lord Lauder-
dale, " appears to consider the profit of stock as paid out of,
and therefore derived from, the value added by the workman
to the raw material. He states, that ' As soon as stock has
accumulated in the hands of particular persons, some of them
will naturally employ it in setting to work industrious people,
whom they will supply with materials and subsistence, in or-
der to make a profit by the sale of their work, or by what
their labour adds to the value of the materials. In exchang-
ing the complete manufacture, either for money, for labour, or
for other goods, over and above what may be sufficient to pay
the price of the materials and the wages of the workmen,
something must be given for the profits of the undertaker of
the work who hazards his stock in this adventure. The value
which the workmen add to the materials, therefore, resolves
itself, in this case, into two parts, of which the one pays their
wages, the other the profits of their employer upon the whole
stock of materials and wages which he advanced.'* And
again, ' The labour of a manufacturer adds generally to the
value of the materials which he works upon, that of his own
maintenance and of his master's profit.' t
" If this, however," continues Lord Lauderdale, " was a
Wealth of Nations, vol. i. p. 57, 4to edition. t Ibid. p. 400,
216 LABOUR THE ONLY CERTAIN BOOK II.
just and accurate idea of the profit of capital, it would follow,
that the profit of stock must be a derivative, and not an ori-
ginal source of revenue ; and capital could not therefore be
considered as a source of wealth, its profit being only a trans-
fer from the pocket of the labourer into that of the proprietor
of stock."*
It must be acknowledged, however, that the incorrectness
thus noticed by Lord Lauderdale in the Wealth of Nations
is more in the expression than any thing else, as Dr Smith
is not led into any farther error in consequence of these pas-
sages and a few others of similar import ; for he founds none
of his future reasonings, or of his doctrines in regard to taxa-
tion, on the supposition of labour producing all and capital
nothing. It is singular, however, that Mr Ricardo, who
has so faithfully followed Lord Lauderdale in almost all the
erroneous doctrines wherein he differs from Dr Smith,^
should not have seconded him when he happened to be
right, nor was not led by his Lordship's numerous and just
hints, J in reference to the independent productiveness of ca-
pital, to suspect the soundness of his theory that labour
produces all.
To return, and conclude the chapter :
* Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Public Wealth, chap. iii.
pp. 149 152, second edition,
t Particularly in the three following: 1st, Denying the distinc-
tion between productive and unproductive labour ; 2d, Denying that
labour is the measure of value ; and, 3d, In the distinction he at-
tempts to lay down between wealth and riches.
J Among others the following: " It is apprehended that in every
instance where capital is so employed as to produce a profit, it uni-
formly arises either from its supplanting a portion of labour which
would otherwise be performed by the hand of man, or from its perform-
ing a portion of labour which is beyond the reach of the personal exer-
tions of man to accomplish." LAUPERDALE'S Inquiry, c. p. 155, se-
cond edition.
CHAP. III. MEASURE OF VALUE. 217
Under the system of the division of labour, and as soon
as that system, together with increasing wealth, has been
carried to any considerable extent, it becomes absolutely
necessary, as we have already seen, to adopt and establish
some one, or some very few vendible commodities, as the
common measure or measures of value, which may serve the
purpose of regulating contracts, or of expressing the values
agreed to be transferred, both at distant periods and in im-
mediate exchanges, as well as to regulate the value of every
species of written obligation (as bills, tokens, &c.,) which
circulate as money. Gold and silver have been universally
adopted for this purpose, and as long as these metals retain
nearly their present cost and value, there are no other known
articles that could with advantage be substituted for them,
or that could supply their place, and serve all the purposes
of money nearly so well. Still, however, these articles are
but arbitrarily chosen to serve these purposes, and are still
subject to the possibility of great variations in their value,
and consequently may still require to be corrected, or even
to be discarded altogether from performing this office if they
should happen to vary in a great degree. And what other
articles could then with certainty be appealed to if this
possible case were actually to happen ? The natural wages
of common labour, or determinate quantities of corn, are
the only defined or definable articles which could then be
appealed to with certainty to perform the office of correc-
tors, or to determine the value of previous contracts ; and
to bring this controversy to a short conclusion, we have
only to consider what would be the comparative degree of
security or certainty to the proprietor of a rent or annuity
for a hundred years to come, if it were reserved or stipulat-
ed to be paid in gold or silver, in corn, or in days' wages of
common labour. Let such rent or annuity be of any given
amount : Suppose it were one pound of gold, fifteen
pounds of silver, twenty quarters of wheat, or Jive hun-
2118 LABOUR THE ONLY CERTAIN, &c. BOOK II.
dred days' wages of common labour, and that these dif-
ferent commodities or quantities of wealth were equivalent
in value and exchangeable for one another at the present
time, and a very little consideration will be sufficient to
convince us that whilst the gold and silver might vary to
almost any conceivable extent, the corn and wages could
vary but very little. The gold and silver might, at the end
of the hundred years, be exchangeable for very different
quantities of labour and commodities from those it exchanges
for at present ; whereas the corn, as we have already seen,
could vary comparatively little in its command of either ;
and the five hundred days' wages of common labour, in what-
ever commodities they might then be realized, whilst they
would be identical in their command of labour, would vary
still less than the corn, if they varied at all in their com-
mand over commodities in general.
Suppose that, from additional facility or difficulty of pro-
duction, gold and silver should, at the end of the hundred
years, have fallen or risen in value one-half, and should then
of course be equivalent, in the one case, to but 10 quarters
of wheat and 250 days' wages, and in the other to 40 quar-
ters and 1000 days 1 wages, is it not plain that our annui-
tant would in the one case be stripped of one-half of his
income, namely, of 10 quarters of wheat, or 250 days' wages,
and that in the other his debtor and bondsman would be
robbed to double that extent, as he would be required to
part with 40 quarters or 1000 days' wages ? Let us sup-
pose farther, the still possible case, that the gold and silver
should have risen or fallen in a quadruple rate, and it will
appear that the annuitant might starve in the one case, and
his debtor be perhaps ruined or robbed at least to a still
greater extent in the other, events which could not possibly
happen if the annuity were payable in corn or in days' wages
of common labour.
CHAP. III. NATURE OF VALUE. 219
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III.
ON THE NATURE OF VALUE.
SECTION I.
INTRODUCTION.
THERE is no question in political economy which has ex-
cited greater attention of late, or which has given rise to
more conflicting opinions among the present cultivators of
that science, than that which relates to the nature of value.
In the Ricardo school this question has produced an abso-
lute schism, although most of their writers on both sides
agree with their master in pronouncing it " a difficult ques-
tion." They have all indeed, as it appears to me, very much
exaggerated the importance of this question ; and yet it
may safely be affirmed, that their success in endeavouring to
make the subject clearer than it was left by Dr Smith, or
to go to the bottom of it, has not by any means correspond-
ed with the magnitude of their labours.
That the subject is not free from intricacy or difficulty
when pushed to its utmost metaphysical limits (as is the
case indeed with innumerable questions besides this) may
be allowed ; but it appears to me that all the great practi-
cal truths properly and strictly connected with the science
of political economy and taxation may be perfectly well
settled without going this extreme length, or indeed with-
out any very deep or abstruse treatment of it. As, however,
the whole theory and peculiar doctrines of the writers just
alluded to seem to be built chiefly, if not wholly, on their
peculiar views of this question, we are forced as it were to
follow them into the ulterior discussion of it ; although it
220 NATURE OF VALUE. BOOK II.
will be found, I think, more curious than useful, and ought
to be looked upon rather as a useless appendage than as any
proper or necessary part pertaining to the science ; for,
although political economy be, as we have before observed,
a subordinate branch of the more comprehensive science of
metaphysics, it is yet separated by an easy and distinct
boundary from its genealogical stem, and has properly no-
thing to do with the depths of metaphysics ; a proof of
which will perhaps appear in the further and supererogatory
discussion on which we are about to enter of the present
question ; in which it will be seen that the moment we ad-
vance a single step beyond the point to which Dr Smith
has conducted it, we are removed altogether from the pre-
cincts of this science, and that those writers who attempt
to connect this question with political economy beyond the
point just mentioned, either involve themselves in a laby-
rinth whence they can never escape, or envelope themselves
in a cloud of impenetrable darkness.
SECTION II.
OF THE PUZZLE FOUNDED ON THE NATURE OF EXCHANGE-
ABLE VALUE, AND ON THE NOTION OF ITS BEING A MERE
RELATION OF COMMODITIES BETWEEN THEMSELVES.
LORD LAUDERDALE, in whose Inquiry into the Nature and
Origin of Public Wealth is to be found the germ of this
discussion, and indeed of almost all the peculiar doctrines of
the Ricardo school, has, in the beginning of that work,
treated very fully of the market-price of commodities, or
their exchangeable value at a particular time and place, and
of the variations to which the market-price is liable ; and
has explained very distinctly the causes of those variations
on the principles of supply and demand ; but he takes no
CHAP. III. NATURE OF VALUE. 221
notice of the ulterior dependence of supply and demand,
and consequently of market-price, upon cost of production.
Now it is this last circumstance evidently which is the main
point to be attended to, as being that alone which confers
any character of science or of utility on the subject, and
without keeping it in view, any reasoning about market-price
must necessarily be a totally useless and unmeaning discus-
sion about merely accidental relations of quantity or num-
ber ; it being this circumstance alone, namely, the ultimate
dependence of market-price on cost of production, which
brings the variations of price or exchangeable value into
connexion with human conduct or actions, without which
the science of political economy could not exist, nor even
be conceived.
But, by keeping this circumstance out of view, it has been
attempted to reduce the idea of value to a mere relation of
commodities between themselves, without any connexion
with mankind, with labour, or with cost of production ; and,
in conformity with this idea of it, it has been asserted, that
value or exchangeable value cannot even be expressed but
by a comparison of two commodities ; whereas it is mani-
fest that it can be expressed by a comparison of commodi-
ties with labour as well ; and if the term must be designat-
ed a relation, it must be acknowledged that it is a double
one at least, and that the connexion of the exchangeable
value of commodities with labour and cost of production is
indeed the only circumstance which confers any importance
on the connexion of the exchangeable value of commodities
between themselves.
f< Experience shows us," says Lord Lauderdale, ' { that every
thing is uniformly considered as valuable, which, to the pos-
session of qualities that make it the object of the desire of
man, adds the circumstance of existing in scarcity. To con-
fer value, therefore, two things appear requisite : 1. That the
commodity, as being useful or delightful to man, should be
222 NATURE OF VALUE. BOOK II.
an object of his desire ; 2. That it should exist in a degree of
scarcity.
" With respect to the variations in value, of which every
thing valuable is susceptible, if we could for a moment sup-
pose that any substance possessed intrinsic and fixed value,
so as to render an assumed quantity of it constantly, under
all circumstances, of equal value, then the degree of value
of all things, ascertained by such a fixed standard, would vary
according to the proportion betwixt the quantity of them and
the demand for them, and every commodity would, of course,
be subject to a variation in its value from four different cir-
cumstances :
" 1. It would be subject to an increase of its value, from a
diminution of its quantity.
" 2. To a diminution of its value, from an augmentation of
its quantity.
" 3. It might suffer an augmentation in its value, from the
circumstance of an increased demand.
" 4. Its value might be diminished, by a failure of demand.
. VIII. WAGES DEFINED. 307
CHAPTER VIII.
OF THE WAGES OF LABOUR.
SECTION I.
OF THE RIGHT TO WAGES LIMITS OF THAT RIGHT DE-
FINED WAGES DEFINED.
WAGES consist of those things which are given or received
for labour or personal exertion, either of body or mind, as
the recompense or reward of that labour. " The produce
of labour," as Dr Smith very justly observes, " constitutes
the natural recompense or wages of labour."* But it is
only in the very earliest and rudest state of human society
that the immediate actual produce of the labourer can con-
stitute his wages. In the advanced state, and in every
period after the first establishment of the division of labour,
the immediate produce of the labourer, or rather his labour
itself, must in general be exchanged for money, which must
again be exchanged for a variety of other things, which
things it is that really constitute the wages of the labourer.
For in every period of society after that in which the di-
vision of labour is introduced, any single individual com-
monly performs but one particular operation, or set of opera-
tions, in the process of production, and but rarely brings to
perfection, by his own separate and independent industry,
even one single article or commodity. And even if it should
happen that he does, his wants are not confined to a single
article, but are, on the contrary, innumerable and infinitely
* Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. 8.
308 WAGES DEFINED. BOOK II.
various. Besides, it is to be remembered, that, in the great
majority of instances, the labour of each individual is com-
monly bestowed upon some subject-matter, or commodity,
which is the property of another ; which has been the fruit
of other men's labour and saving, and from which the im-
mediate effects or actual produce of the present contributor
cannot be separated.
One man tills the ground and gathers the harvest, an-
other grinds the corn, and a third bakes the flour into bread,
before a perfect article is produced. Now it is manifest
that not one of these labourers can distinctly abstract and
carry away his actual produce. For, besides that none of
them do the whole of the work, the subject-matter, that is,
the corn, belongs not, perhaps, to any one of them, but to
a fourth party or individual, to whom consequently a cer-
tain share of the finished article must be also assigned.
Not one of these persons therefore can abstract or appro-
priate his particular produce, nor can any one take the whole,
without taking what belongs in part to others as well as to
himself. The proper share of each therefore, it is evident,
can only be practically or fairly settled (as in point of fact
universally it is settled) by treaty and agreement amongst
the parties, and by determining beforehand, either that an
actual division and distribution of the commodity itself
shall be made, or (as is the more usual way) that each in-
dividual concerned shall receive his share the equivalent
or reward for his contribution, whether of labour or com-
modities in some other article,, as money, reciprocally
agreed upon and stipulated previously to the commence-
ment of their joint undertakings.
And this which has been just stated is a comparatively
simple case. In other manufactures there is a still greater
variety of parts to be performed by the different labourers
employe4 in production ; not one of whom can abstract, or
receive, or appropriate his actual produce ; not to mention
CHAP. VIII. WAGES DEFINED. 309
the provinces of unproductive labour, in which, there being
no production at all, that is, no production of wealth or
property, the labourer in that sort could but rarely be re-
warded by the actual or immediate effects of his labour. In
the very earliest and rudest state of society, the actual pro-
duce of the chase may reward the hunter, the skin he dress-
es may reward the dresser of skins, and the hut he erects
may reward the hut-maker. But in the advanced state, we
plainly see that even the productive labourers can but rare-
ly be rewarded by the immediate produce of their labour,
because they can but rarely carry away or appropriate that
produce; and in the provinces of unproductive labour, how
should the physician, the lawyer, or the divine, be rewarded
by the immediate effects of their peculiar species of labour,
except in those few instances only, wherein they might hap-
pen themselves to require " a cast" of their own respective
offices, viz. medicine, legal advice, and spiritual consolation ?
It is not therefore the actual or immediate produce of
the labourer which can, in general, in the advanced stages
of society, constitute his wages, but those other things
rather which he receives for his labour or for its produce
in exchange.
Wages are in general paid in money ; but neither is it
the money itself which the labourer receives that really
constitutes his wages, but those things rather which that
money can enable him to purchase and appropriate to his
use. It is the quantity and quality of the other sorts of
wealth, comprising the actual produce and contributions of
many different persons, which the money- wages he receives
can enable him to purchase, that properly constitute the real
reward or wages of the labourer ; which real wages are good
or bad, large or small, and high or low, not in proportion to
the number or weight merely of the metal pieces he receives,
but in proportion always to the quantity and quality of those
various other articles, or various descriptions of wealth, as
310 WAGES DEFINED. BOOK II.
of food, clothes, lodging, &c., which that money can en-
able him to purchase and command, or appropriate to his
use.
Those things, however, which his money-wages enable
the labourer to purchase, may still be said to be the ultimate
produce of his labour, (using the word produce in this in-
stance in a metaphorical sense,) although they be not by
any means its immediate or actual produce.
But further, with regard to the produce of labour ; that
which the labourer produces with the assistance of capital
is not the produce of his labour entirely, but of his labour
joined to that of those who produced the capital ; and if the
capital he uses belongs to another, a part of the produce will
belong to that other also. The artisan or manufacturer, for
example, who works with a steam-engine belonging to an-
other, and by that means produces any sort of wealth or
commodities, is not entitled to the whole produce, even al-
though the raw materials of the articles fabricated were
wholly his own ; some part, it is evident, must belong to
the proprietor of the engine, in whatever way his share of
the produce might be agreed to be paid.
And such is the case universally in regard to labourers
working with or assisted by any other species of capital be-
longing to other people : a part of the produce is always
due to the proprietor of the capital as well as to the work-
man. The labourer is worthy of his hire ; but so also is the
capitalist of his profit or interest. In other words, the per-
son who has laboured before, and not consumed but saved
the produce of his labour, and which produce is now applied
to assist another labourer in the work of production, is en-
titled to his profit or interest (which is the reward for labour
which is past, and for saving and preserving the fruits of
that labour) as much as the present labourer is entitled to
his wages, which is the reward for his more recent labour :
CHAP. VIII. WAGES DEFINED. 311
It being remembered that this principle holds good equally
in regard to the remotest heirs as to the original producer
and saver of the capital himself. And here we have another
view of the true nature and origin of the right to capital,
and to its profit, which evidently stands on the same foun-
dation with the right of the labourer to his wages ; the capi-
tal being always originally worked for and won in the same
manner.
Again, the produce which arises in an extensive and well-
arranged work or manufactory, under the management of a
skilful master or superintendent, is not the produce of the
common labourers or subordinate workmen alone, but of all
the persons employed, including inferior managers, clerks,
and assistants of every description, as well as the master or
chief manager himself ; and every one of these (and cer-
tainly not least the last-mentioned) are entitled to a certain
determinate share of the wealth produced, as well as the in-
ferior labourers.
What the shares of every different labourer should be,
the highest as well as the lowest, is properly settled by
treaty and agreement between the parties ; and the share
which should belong to the capitalist is also properly settled
in the same manner. As thus :
A capitalist, that is, a person who has either produced
and saved wealth himself, or who has inherited or acquired
it from those who could only acquire it by production and
saving at first, lends, we shall suppose, his capital to a
master undertaker of a work or manufactory, and treats and
agrees with him alone for his share, which is, in this case,
strictly profit of stock. The master undertaker again treats
and agrees with each of his workmen separately, or with
his subordinate managers at least (if he employs such) whom
he perhaps empowers to treat with the inferior workmen for
their shares or wages ; and what remains over, after these
several claims are discharged, belongs to the master under-
312 WAGES DEFINED. BOOK II.
taker as his share, and is strictly wages, that is, remunera-
tion or reward for his labour ; unless indeed in businesses
where the risk or liability to losses is considerable, and
greater than the average risk in other businesses ; in which
case some part of the share that comes to the undertaker
may be distinguished and set down as compensation for
such risk.
When the labourer and capitalist are one and the same
person, in other words, when a person possessing capital
employs it himself in trade or production, without requiring
the assistance of any other labourer, the whole produce
accrues to himself alone, and it may happen that he takes
no account, nor observes any distinction between what he
owes to his labour and what to his capital. But, after de-
ducting the ordinary rate of interest, the remainder is wholly
wages or reward of labour. And when the labourer and
capitalist are different persons, and when consequently part
of the produce must belong to one, and part to another, this
distinction necessarily takes place, and their different shares
must be settled and agreed upon in the first instance, before
the one contributes his stock or the other his labour. And
so, in point of fact, it happens accordingly (as an appeal to
experience will satisfy us) that the shares of every one,
whether labourer or capitalist, is in general thus settled be-
forehand, in the manner which has been stated by treaty
and agreement.
Again, if the capitalist superintending the application of
his own capital employs other labourers besides himself, he
treats and agrees with every one, or with his inferior mana-
gers, as in the manner before specified, for their shares or
wages ; and what is over after paying these consists partly
of wages, and partly of profit of stock : And in this case also
it may happen that these two different descriptions of re-
venue shall be confounded with one another ; but, after the
payment of all his hired labourers, and a due allowance being
CHAP. VIII. WAGES OF LABOUR DEFINED. 313
made for profit of stock, whatever remains behind is wages
or reward to this individual for his own labour ; unless, as
before mentioned, the business should happen to be more
than commonly hazardous ; in which case a certain portion
of what remains might be separated and recognised as com-
pensation for the superior risk, before reckoning the amount
of wages.
It should appear then, from what has been now advanced,
that all that part of the joint produce of land, capital, and
labour, that is over and above what makes good rent and
interest, (and, if we choose to reckon it separately, the com-
pensation for extra risk, in employments which are more
than ordinarily hazardous,) is properly the fund of wages,
and must all go either to the masters on the one hand, or
to the workmen on the other. And it is self-evident there-
fore, that the more the one class of persons obtain, the less
must fall to the share of the other class ; but the masters, it
appears, must, in all the more than ordinarily hazardous
businesses, have their shares augmented by a quantity
greater or less in proportion to the varieties of risk they in-
cur.
Now, in reference to the mode in which this fund of
wages comes to be divided between the masters and the
workmen, it is true the masters will always endeavour to
keep as large a share as possible to themselves as their
own wages, and to give as small a one as possible to the in-
ferior labourers as theirs. But, on the other hand, it is
true also, that the inferior labourers will generally endeavour
to procure as large a share as possible for themselves, with-
out caring whether any thing at all be left to the masters ;
and provided the law stands neuter, and shows no undue fa-
vour or regard to the one side or party more than to the
other, neither the one nor the other will be able to prevail
314 CAUSES OF DIFFERENCE OF WAGES BOOK II.
entirely in the contest, or to gain any undue or lasting ad-
vantage the one over the other.
The masters or employers of the inferior labourers will
not be able to gain any undue advantage over them, be-
cause, if the latter did not find that they made better wages
under a master than they could do working separately and
independently on their own account, they would not accept
the employment. Nor will it be found any valid objection
to this argument to say, that, in the advanced state of so-
ciety, the great majority of labourers could get no employ-
ment, unless they agreed to accept work under a master ;
for still it happens, under all ordinary circumstances, that
the necessity of the masters, and their anxiety to have their
work done, is found in general to be sufficiently strong and
pressing to subject them equally with the workmen to the
effects and control of the principle of competition, provided
the law treats both parties with even-handed justice.
On the other hand, the workmen, or subordinate labour-
ers, will be equally unable to gain any undue advantage
over their employers ; because, the agreements being volun-
tary, the latter would not require the assistance of subordi-
nate labourers if they did not find their advantage in em-
ploying them at the wages stipulated, whatever these may be.
SECTION II.
OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH GIVE OCCASION TO A DIF-
FERENCE OF WAGES IN DIFFERENT EMPLOYMENTS.
THE wages of labour (as has been already cursorily noticed,
I think, in some of our preceding chapters,) are regulated
partly by the nature of the work in which it is employed,
that is to say, by the different nature of employments
CHAP. VIII. IN DIFFERENT EMPLOYMENTS. 315
themselves, and partly by the habits and condition of the
labourers in every different employment or species of la-
bour. Of these two subjects, or two different species of ac-
cidents or circumstances affecting wages, the latter have
been already adverted to in a preceding part of this work,*
and will be yet farther resumed and illustrated in the third
and last section of the present chapter ; but previously to
this it will be necessary to attend a little to the former,
namely, to the circumstances which occasion a difference of
wages in different employments ; and as Dr Smith has given
a very full, and luminous, and distinct view of these cir-
cumstances, I shall here, by observing the rule I have pre-
scribed for myself,-)- have little more to do than transcribe
such parts of what he advances on the subject as appear to
be sufficient for my purpose in the present section.
As introductory to the subject Dr Smith observes,
" The whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the
different employments of labour and stock must, in the same
neighbourhood, be either perfectly equal, or continually tend-
ing to equality. If in the same neighbourhood there was any
employment evidently either more or less advantageous than
the rest, so many people would crowd into it in the one case,
and so many would desert it in the other, that its advantages
would soon return to the level of other employments. This
at least would be the case in a society where things were left
to follow their natural course, where there was perfect liberty,
and where every man was perfectly free both to choose what
occupation he thought proper, and to change it as often as he
thought proper. Every man's interest would prompt him to
seek the advantageous and to shun the disadvantageous era-
ployment/'J
* Book i. chap. 10.
f See before p. 71, et seq., in notes, where I have stated my reasons
in favour of the expediency of observing this rule.
Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. 10.
316 CAUSES OF DIFFERENCE OF WAGES LOOK II.
Dr Smith observes farther, (in the introductory part,) that
wages are extremely different in different employments, as
arising from " certain circumstances in the employments
themselves, which either really, or at least in the imagina-
tions of men, make up for a small pecuniary gain in some,
and counterbalance a great one in others."*
These circumstances he then proceeds to describe as fol-
lows :
" The five following are the principal circumstances which,
so far as I have been able to observe, make up for a small
pecuniary gain in some employments, and counterbalance a
great one in others : first, the agreeableness or disagreeable-
iiess of the employments themselves ; secondly, the easiness
and cheapness, or the difficulty and expense of learning them ;
thirdly, the constancy or inconstancy of employment in them ;
fourthly, the small or great trust which must be reposed in
those who exercise them ; and, fifthly, the probability or im-
probability of success in them.
" First, The wages of labour vary with the ease or hardship,
the cleanliness or dirtiness, the honourableness or dishonour-
ableness of the employments. Thus, in most places, take the
year round, a journeyman tailor earns less than a journeyman
weaver. His work is much easier. A journeyman weaver
earns less than a journeyman smith. His work is not always
easier, but it is much cleanlier. A journeyman blacksmith,
though an artificer, seldom earns so much in twelve hours as
a collier, who is only a labourer, does in eight. His work is
not quite so dirty, is less dangerous, and is carried on in day-
light, and above ground Honour makes a great part of the
reward of all honourable professions. In point of pecuniary
gain, all things considered, they are generally under-recom-
pensed, as I shall endeavour to show by and by. Disgrace
has the contrary effect. The trade of a butcher is a brutal
and an odious business ; but it is in most places more profit-
Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. 10.
CHAP. VIII. IN DIFFERENT EMPLOYMENTS. 317
able than the greater part of common trades. The most de-
testable of all employments, that of public executioner, is, in
proportion to the quantity of work done, better paid than any
common trade whatever.
" Hunting and fishing, the most important employments of
mankind in the rude state of society, became in its advanced
state their most agreeable amusements, and they pursue for
pleasure what they once followed from necessity. In the ad-
vanced state of society, therefore, they are all very poor people
who follow as a trade what other people pursue as a pastime.
Fishermen have been so since the time of Theocritus. A
poacher is everywhere a poor man in Great Britain. In coun-
tries where the rigour of the law suffers no poachers, the li-
censed hunter is not in a much better condition. The natu-
ral taste for those employments makes more people follow
them than can live comfortably by them, and the produce of
their labour, in proportion to its quantity, comes always too
cheap to market to afford any thing but the most scanty sub-
sistence to the labourers.
" Secondly, The wages of labour vary with the easiness and
cheapness, or the difficulty and expense of learning the busi-
ness.
" When any expensive machine is erected, the extraordi-
nary work to be performed by it before it is worn out, it
must be expected, will replace the capital laid out upon it,
with at least the ordinary profits. A man educated at the ex-
pense of much labour and time to any of those employments
which require extraordinary dexterity and skill, may be com-
pared to one of those expensive machines. The work which
he learns to perform, it must be expected, over and above the
usual wages of common labour, will replace to him the whole
expense of his education, with at least the ordinary profits of
an equally valuable capital. It must do this too in a reason-
able time, regard being had to the very uncertain duration of
human life, in the same manner as to the more certain dura-
tion of the machine.
" The difference between the wages of skilled labour and
those of common labour is founded upon this principle.
318 CAUSES OF DIFFERENCE OF WAGES HOOK II.
" The policy of Europe considers the labour of all me-
chanics, artificers, and manufacturers, as skilled labour ; and
that of all country labourers as common labour. It seems to
suppose that of the former to be of a more nice and delicate
nature than that of the latter. It is so perhaps in some cases ;
but in the greater part it is quite otherwise, as I shall endea-
vour to show by and by. The laws and customs of Europe,
therefore, in order to qualify any person for exercising the
one species of labour, impose the necessity of an apprentice-
ship, though with different degrees of rigour in different
places. They leave the other free and open to every body.
During the continuance of the apprenticeship, the whole la-
bour of the apprentice belongs to his master. In the mean-
time he must, in many cases, be maintained by his parents or
relations, and in almost all cases must be clothed by them.
Some money too is commonly given to the master for teaching
him his trade. They who cannot give money, give time, or
become bound for more than the usual number of years, a
consideration which, though it is not always advantageous to
the master, on account of the usual idleness of apprentices, is
always disadvantageous to the apprentice. In country labour,
on the contrary, the labourer, while he is employed about the
easier, learns the more difficult parts of his business, and his
own labour maintains him through all the different stages of
his employment. It is reasonable, therefore, that in Europe
the wages of mechanics, artificers, and manufacturers, should
be somewhat higher than those of common labourers. They
are so accordingly, and their superior gains make them in
most places be considered as a superior rank of people. This
superiority, however, is generally very small; the daily or
weekly earnings of journeymen in the more common sorts" of
manufactures, such as those of plain linen and woollen cloth,
computed at an average, are, in most places, very little more
than the day-wages of common labourers. Their employ-
ment, indeed, is more steady and uniform, and the superiority
of their earnings, taking the whole year together, may be
somewhat greater. It seems evidently, however, to be no
CHAP. VIII. IN DIFFERENT EMPLOYMENTS. 319
greater than what is sufficient to compensate the superior ex-
pense of their education.
" Education in the ingenious arts and in the liberal profes-
sions is still more tedious and expensive. The pecuniary re-
compense, therefore, of painters and sculptors, of lawyers and
physicians, ought to be much more liberal ; and it is so ac-
cordingly.
" Thirdly, The wages of labour in different occupations vary
with the constancy or inconstancy of employment.
" Employment is much more constant in some trades than
in others. In the greater part of manufactures, a journeyman
may be pretty sure of employment almost every day in the
year that he is able to work. A mason or bricklayer, on the
contrary, can work neither in hard frost nor in foul weather,
and his employment at all other times depends upon the oc-
casional calls of his customers. He is liable, in consequence,
to be frequently without any. What he earns, therefore,
while he is employed, must not only maintain him while he is
idle, but make him some compensation for those anxious and
desponding moments which the thought of so precarious a si-
tuation must sometimes occasion. Where the computed earn-
ings of the greater part of manufacturers, accordingly, are
nearly upon a level with the day-wages of common labourers,
those of masons and bricklayers are generally from one-half
more to double those wages. Where common labourers earn
four and five shillings a week, masons and bricklayers fre-
quently earn seven and eight ; where the former earn six, the
latter often earn nine and ten ; and where the former earn nine
and ten, as in London, the latter commonly earn fifteen and
eighteen. No species of skilled labour, however, seems more
easy to learn than that of masons and bricklayers. Chairmen
in London, during the summer season, are said sometimes to
be employed as bricklayers. The high wages of these work-
men, therefore, are not so much the recompense of their skill,
as the compensation for the inconstancy of their employment.
" A house-carpenter seems to exercise rather a nicer and a
more ingenious trade than a mason. In most places, however,
320 CAUSES OF DIFFERENCE OF WAGES LOOK II.
for it is not universally so, his day-wages are somewhat lower.
His employment, though it depends much, does not depend
so entirely upon the occasional calls of his customers ; and it
is not liable to be interrupted by the weather.
" When the trades which generally afford constant employ-
ment happen in a particular place not to do so, the wages of
the workmen always rise a good deal above their ordinary
proportion to those of common labour. In London almost all
journeymen artificers are liable to be called upon and dis-
missed by their master from day to day, and from week to
week, in the same manner as day-labourers in other places.
The lowest order of artificers, journeymen tailors, accordingly,
earn there half-a- crown a day, though eighteenpence may be
reckoned the wages of common labour. In small towns and
country villages the wages of journeymen tailors frequently
scarce equal those of common labour ; but in London they are
often many weeks without employment, particularly during
the summer.
" When the inconstancy of employment is combined with
the hardship, disagreeableness, and dirtiness of the work, it
sometimes raises the wages of the most common labourer above
those of the most skilful artificers. A collier working by the
piece is supposed, at Newcastle, to earn commonly about
double, and in many parts of Scotland about three times the
wages of common labour. His high wages arise altogether
from the hardship, disagreeableness, and dirtiness of his work.
His employment may, upon most occasions, be as constant as
he pleases. The coal-heavers in London exercise a trade
which in hardship, dirtiness, and disagreeableness, almost
equals that of colliers j and, from the unavoidable irregularity
in the arrivals of coal-ships, the employment of the greater
part of them is necessarily very inconstant. If colliers, there-
fore, commonly earn double and triple the wages of common
labour, it ought not to seem unreasonable that coal-heavers
should sometimes earn four and five times those wages. In
the inquiry made into their condition a few years ago, it was
found that at the rate at which they were then paid, they
CHAP. VIII. IN DIFFERENT EMPLOYMENTS. 321
could earn from six to ten shillings a day. Six shillings are
about four times the wages of common labour in London, and
in every particular trade the lowest common earnings may al-
ways be considered as those of the far greater number. How
extravagant soever those earnings may appear, if they were
more than sufficient to compensate all the disagreeable cir-
cumstances of the business, there would soon be so great a
number of competitors as, in a trade which has no exclusive
privilege, would quickly reduce them to a lower rate.
tf Fourthly, The wages of labour vary according to the small
or great trust which must be reposed in the workmen.
" The wages of goldsmiths and jewellers are everywhere
superior to those of many other workmen, not only of equal
but of much superior ingenuity, on account of the precious
materials with which they are intrusted.
" We trust our health to the physician ; our fortune, and
sometimes our life and reputation, to the lawyer and attorney.
Such confidence could not safely be reposed in people of a
very mean or low condition. Their reward must be such,
therefore,, as may give them that rank in the society which so
important a trust requires. The long time and the great ex-
pense which must be laid out in their education, when com-
bined with this circumstance, necessarily enhance still further
the price of their labour.
" Fifthly, The wages of labour in different employments
vary according to the probability or improbability of success
in them.
" The probability that any particular person shall ever be
qualified for the employment to which he is educated is very
different in different occupations. In the greater part of me-
chanic trades success is almost certain, but very uncertain in
the liberal professions. Put your son apprentice to a shoe-
maker, there is little doubt of his learning to make a pair of
shoes ; but send him to study the law, it is at least twenty to
one if ever he makes such proficiency as will enable him to
live by the business. In a perfectly fair lottery, those who
draw the prizes ought to gain all that is lost by those who
x
322 CAUSES OF DIFFERENCE OF WAGES BOOK II.
draw the blanks. In a profession where twenty fail for one
that succeeds, that one ought to gain all that should have
been gained by the unsuccessful twenty. The counsellor-at-
law, who,, perhaps, at near forty years of age, begins to make
something by his profession, ought to receive the retribution,
not only of his own so tedious and . expensive education, but
of that of more than twenty others who are never likely to
make any thing by it. How extravagant soever the fees of
counsellors-at-law may sometimes appear, their real retribu-
tion is never equal to this. Compute in any particular place
what is likely to be annually gained, and what is likely to be
annually spent, by all the different workmen in any common
trade, such as that of shoemakers or weavers, and you will
find that the former sum will generally exceed the latter. But
make the same computation with regard to all the counsellors
and students of law, in all the different inns of court, and you
will find that their annual gains bear but a very small pro-
portion to their annual expense, even though you rate the
former as high and the latter as low as can well be done. The
lottery of the law, therefore, is very far from being a perfectly
fair lottery ; and that, as well as many other liberal and hon-
ourable professions, is, in point of pecuniary gain, evidently
under-recompen sed.
" Those professions keep their level, however, with other
occupations, and, notwithstanding these discouragements, all
the most generous and liberal spirits are eager to crowd into
them. Two different causes contribute to recommend them :
first, the desire of the reputation which attends upon superior
excellence in any of them ; and, secondly, the natural confi-
dence which every man has, more or less, not only in his own
abilities, but in his own good fortune.
" To excel in any profession, in which but few arrive at
mediocrity, is the most decisive mark of what is called genius
or superior talents. The public admiration which attends
upon such distinguished abilities makes always a part of
their reward ; a greater or smaller in proportion as it is higher
or lower in degree. It makes a considerable part of that re-
CHAP. VIII. IN DIFFERENT EMPLOYMENTS. 323
ward in the profession of physic ; a still greater, perhaps, in
that of law ; in poetry and philosophy it makes almost the
whole."*
It thus appears that there is, in all the different species
or employments of labour, a very great variety and dif-
ference of circumstances, or of advantages and disadvan-
tages attending them, which necessarily give occasion to a
correspondent variety and difference of pecuniary wages.
And when we contemplate the wide extent of this variety,
and of this difference of wages, from the highest to the
lowest, -first, in the provinces of unproductive labour, from
the king, the minister of state, and the judge upon the
bench, down to the common beadle or sheriff-officer, from
the military chief, or general, down to the common soldier,
and from the divine, the lawyer, and the physician, to
the menial servant ; and, secondly ', in the provinces of pro-
ductive labour, from the general merchant to the common
sailors in his ships and porters in his warehouses, from the
master manufacturer to his journeymen or workmen, and
from the extensive farmer to his ploughmen and other com-
mon labourers, it must appear indeed a most monstrous
and unaccountable hallucination that could lead any per-
* Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. 10. By looking into the
" Wealth of Nations," and into the chapter just mentioned, whence
the above extracts are taken, it will be seen that they are there inter-
mingled with others, on the profit of stock, already quoted in thfc first
section of the seventh chapter of this book, on that subject. In that
place it was shown that there is an error in supposing, as Dr Smith
has done, that profit is affected by any of the five circumstances which
he describes so justly as affecting wages, and that he was led into
that error by another, of which it was there shown also he was himself
perfectly aware, namely, that he had not perfectly discriminated be-
tween profit and wages.
324 CAUSES OF DIFFEEENCE OF WAGES BOOK II.
son in his senses to attempt, as one of Mr Ricardo's dis-
ciples has done, to demonstrate the " equality of wages !"*
or to treat of them, as has been done by Mr Ricardo him-
self, as if they were limited to what would command but the
lowest necessaries of life, and as if they represented a fixed
and unvarying quantity !
Yet, however various and different the wages of labour
really are in different employments, they are still regulated
in a certain degree in all of them by the same principles :
immediately, by the number of applicants or of hands, can-
didates or competitors in each, compared with the extent of
the employment; and more remotely, by the habits and
modes of life or subsistence common to each ; and conse-
quently by those external and other circumstances which
determine, control, and generate the general character and
habits of every class and order of the people.
What those external circumstances are which chiefly de-
termine, control, and generate the general character, and
habits, and condition of the people, I have already indi-
cated pretty largely and unequivocally ;*( but I must still
endeavour somewhat farther to illustrate my position, and
to show more fully than has yet been done the connexion
between wages and the habits and modes of subsistence of
the labourers, and the connexion of those habits and modes
of subsistence, especially in reference to the lower classes of
labourers, with the character of the laws and government
under which they live.
* " Equality of Wages" is the running title of one of the chapters
of Macculloch's Principles of Political Economy, at the head of which
we read at length, " Equality of Wages in all the different Depart-
ments of Industry !"
t See chapter 10 of book i.
CHAP. VIII. IN DIFFERENT EMPLOYMENTS. 325
SECTION III.
OF THE CAUSES WHICH REGULATE THE NATURAL RATE
OF WAGES.
As it is the number of individuals who are candidates or
competitors for employment, at any particular time and
place, which determines the market-rate of wages, and as
the natural rate is nothing else but the ordinary and average
market-rate, so it is the number of permanent candidates
or competitors which determines the natural rate of wages.
But there can be no permanent competitors in any em-
ployment which does not afford wages equivalent to the ne-
cessary outgoings or expenses of those employed, or equiva-
lent at least to what may be sufficient to keep the labourers
living. Nor are men contented in general, where they are
in any degree enlightened or intelligent, with what is barely
sufficient to keep them in existence. They commonly re-
quire, except in their lowest state of ignorance and degrada-
tion, not merely necessaries, but conveniences, and even
luxuries ; and to attain these they will, under favourable
circumstances, cheerfully undergo much labour, and submit
for a time to many privations, provided they have a rea-
sonably-assured prospect of arriving at the proposed goal,
and attaining their object at last.
The mode hi which the number of competitors (or popu-
lation) can alone be increased is obvious enough ; and one
of the strongest principles of human nature is the desire of
sexual enjoyment and of progeny. But there is another
principle which is not less strong, nor less universal, nor less
necessary to the preservation of the human species and of
competitors in all employments, viz. the desire of food,
clothes, and lodging, and of provision for a family ; and al-
though, under certain circumstances and habits of the people,
326 CAUSES WHICH REGULATE BOOK II.
this principle or desire may be very easily satisfied, because,
under those circumstances, the people will be contented with
a very poor and miserable subsistence, with potatoes, and
rags, and hovels, yet it is capable, under other circum-
stances and other habits, of being improved into an effec-
tual desire for better food, and clothes, and lodging, and of
restraining the sexual passion, and the propensity to pro-
creation or marriage, until those other wants, necessaries,
conveniences, and luxuries, be provided for and gratified.
It has, however, been remarked by Di Smith, that
" every species of animals naturally multiplies in proportion
to the means of their subsistence, and no species can ever
multiply beyond it. But in civilized society," he continues,
" it is only among the inferior ranks of people that the scanti-
ness of subsistence can set limits to the further multiplication
of the human species; and it can do so in no other way than
by destroying a great part of the children which their fruitful
marriages produce."*
But it is only where they are ill-governed, oppressed, and
ignorant, that the inferior ranks of people multiply beyond
the limits of a liberal subsistence. Under other circum-
stances they must necessarily, as has been shown,-f- from the
principles of human nature, uniformly improve their condi-
tion, and habits, and modes of life, and acquire higher and
higher wages in proportion as wealth and population increase.
But, says Dr Smith, " Though the wealth of a country
should be very great, yet if it has been long stationary, we
must not expect to find the wages of labour very high in it.
The funds destined for the payment of wages, the revenue
and stock of its inhabitants, may be of the greatest extent ;
but if they have continued for several centuries of the same
or very nearly of the same extent, the number of labourers
employed every year could easily supply, and even more than
* Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. 8.
t Ibid, book i. chap. 10.
CHAP. VIII. THE NATURAL BATE OF WAGES, 32?
supply, the number wanted the following year. There could
seldom be any scarcity of hands, nor could the masters be
obliged to bid against one another in order to get them. The
hands, on the contrary, would in this case naturally multiply
beyond their employment. There would be a constant scarcity
of employment, and the labourers would be obliged to bid
against one another in order to get it. If in such a country
the wages of labour had ever been more than sufficient to
maintain the labourer, and to enable him to bring up a fa-
mily, the competition of the labourers and the interest of the
masters would soon reduce them to this lowest rate which is
consistent with common humanity/'*
On this passage Mr Buchanan makes the following just
and important observation :
" The wages of labour are not necessarily at their lowest
rate where wealth and population are stationary. In these
circumstances the condition of the labourer depends partly on
his own moral habits. If in poverty he is content to propa-
gate his race, poverty will be his lot ; but if he will not marry
on such hard conditions, the race of labourers will decline,
and wages will rise until the labourer agrees, by marrying, to
supply the market with labour."t
But Dr Smith says again, " It deserves to be re-
marked, perhaps, that it is in the progressive state, while the
society is advancing to the further acquisition, rather than
when it has acquired its full complement of riches, that the
condition of the labouring poor, of the great body of the
people, seems to be the happiest and the most comfortable.
It is hard in the stationary, and miserable in the declining.
The progressive state is in reality the cheerful and the hearty
state to all the different orders of the society. The stationary
is dull, the declining melancholy/'J
* Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. 8.
t Ibid. Buchanan's edition, note, p. 116.
{ Ibid, book i. chap. 8.
328 CAUSES WHICH REGULATE BOOK II.
Now, this is a perfectly accurate description of what will
happen to a country under bad government ; for even under
the worst that ever existed, when by any chance an increase
of wealth or improvement takes place (as may sometimes
happen from a variety of accidents even under the worst),
wages will necessarily rise, and all the other effects here de-
scribed by Dr Smith will exactly follow.
But under good government a country can never decline,
nor even become stationary, but wealth and population, and
the natural wages of labour, must go on necessarily and in-
definitely to increase, though no cfoubt by slower and slower
degrees when a country approaches the limits of its re-
sources. There is no necessity, however, in the nature of
things, or in fact, that wealth, or population, or wages,
should ever decrease or diminish, or even become stationary
upon the earth ; for as the produce of the earth (and still
more wealth in general) may be continually and indefinitely
augmented, it follows incontestably that both population and
wages may be continually and indefinitely augmented also ;
because, let the augmentation of wealth be great or small,
it is evidently possible that a part of it may go to support
additional numbers, or inhabitants, and another part to aug-
ment the wages of labour ; and to produce this result, it is
only necessary that population should increase in a less de-
gree than wealth, (which, as I have already demonstrated,*
is uniformly and invariably the case,) and that the labourer
should be placed under circumstances favourable to the de-
velopment of his prudential habits, i. e. in a state of security
under good government.
Even Mr Malthus himself admits that the natural rate
of wages, or, what is the same thing, the good or bad con-
dition of the inferior ranks of people, has no necessary con-
Chapter 6 of this book.
CHAP. VIII. THE NATURAL RATE OF WAGES. 329
nexion with any particular stage in the progress of society,
of population, or of wealth.
" Strictly speaking," he says in the Essay on Popula-
tion, " the good or bad condition of the poor is not neces-
sarily connected with any particular stage in the progress of
society to its full complement of wealth."*
And again, in his Principles of Political Economy, he
observes,
" The great resource of the labouring classes for their
happiness must be in those prudential habits which, if pro-
perly exercised, are capable of securing to the labourer a
fair proportion of the necessaries and conveniences of life,
from the earliest stage of society to the latest."^
But Mr Malthus, while he thus not only freely acknow-
ledges this important truth, but brings it voluntarily for-
ward in his pages as a part of his system, and while he not
only admits, but severally maintains and advances as a part
of his system also, all the chief facts and principles which
serve, when combined, to establish the conclusion that the
misery and poverty, and degradation of the lower classes of
labourers, are wholly to be ascribed to the imperfection of
government, or political institutions, or, which is the same
thing, to the want of good government, yet he constantly
and pertinaciously eschews this conclusion, and would fain
endeavour to escape from the toils and meshes of that irre-
soluble net, which, in spite of all his efforts to the contrary,
he has gradually worked around himself.
The whole indeed of Mr Malthus's Essay on Population,
and a great part of his Principles of Political Economy, will
be found, when attentively examined, to be one uninterrupt-
ed tissue of special pleading against that conclusion to which
* Book iii. chap. 13, vol. iii. p. 25.
f Chap. iv. sec. 5. p. 291.
330 CAUSES WHICH REGULATE BOOK II.
all the arguments he advances directly tend, and in which
they must necessarily terminate when they are fully sifted.
Mr Malthus admits, and advances it even as a part of
his system,* that good and bad government constitute " the
principal circumstances" which depress or elevate the cha-
racter of the lower classes of people, and which improve or
deteriorate their habits and modes of life. He admits, and
takes considerable pains to prove,-f- that their habits and
modes of life determine the degree of comfort or discomfort
under which they will continue to marry and procreate ;
and that this circumstance again determines their numbers
and their wages ; and yet he would fain deny what follows
plainly and unavoidably from these premises, viz. that the
whole depends upon good or bad government.
But this attempt of Mr Malthus will never succeed ; and
all his arts and endeavours to turn the attention of his
readers away from the fatal conclusion (fatal to Mr Mal-
thus and to his theory of human misery) will be found una-
vailing, and will necessarily end in drawing attention more
strongly and irresistibly towards it ; for a question of such
importance, and charged with such tremendous consequen-
ces, can never be allowed to remain in all the confusion and
uncertainty in which Mr Malthus has left it.
That these strictures, severe as they may seem, are
neither unfounded nor uncalled for, I now proceed to
show; and in doing this, while it is believed the sophistries
and inconsistencies of Mr Malthus will be made glaringly
manifest, the truth itself, it is hoped, will be, at the same
time, vindicated, and disburdened and drawn forth from
that load of clashing and contradictory statement beneath
which it lies buried in Mr Malthus's pages.
Essay on Population, book iv. chap. 9. vol. iii. p. 209.
Principles of Political Economy, chap. iv. sec. 2.
CHAP. VIII. THE NATURAL BATE OF WAGES. 331
In the work of Mr Malthus last mentioned, his Principles
of Political Economy, and in his chapter of that work on
the wages of labour, he gravely and deliberately says :
" It would be very desirable to ascertain what are the
principal causes which determine the different modes of sub-
sistence among the lower classes of people of different coun-
tries; but the question involves so many considerations,
that a satisfactory solution of it is hardly to be expected."*
Now this, to be sure, after what has been already ad-
vanced and quoted from Mr Malthus himself in a former
chapter,-)- must be confessed to be rather astounding, and, to
the reader who recollects the passages, it must appear not a
little extraordinary ; for he gives in them that very solution
which he here declares " is hardly to be expected." But
what is stranger, and more astounding still, this new posi-
tion of Mr Malthus will be found to stand in the place
where it appears, a mere unsupported assertion, not only
unattempted to be established by argument, but, mirabile
dictu, immediately and flatly contradicted by what follows
from Mr Malthus himself, in the very chapter, and section,
and page, in which it is put forth !
In the passages just alluded to, as already quoted from
Mr Malthus, he affirms of " the standard of wretched-
ness," the point below which the lower classes of people
" will not continue to marry and propagate their species,"
that " the principal circumstances which contribute to
raise it are liberty, security of property, the diffusion of
knowledge, and a taste for the conveniences and the com-
forts of life. Those which contribute principally to lower
it are despotism and ignorance." f Now this " standard of
* Chap. iv. sect. 2. t Chap. x. of book i.
J Essay on Population, book iv. chap. 9, p. 209 of vol. iii., fifth
edition.
332 CAUSES WHICH REGULATE BOOK II.
wretchedness" Mr Malthus will not and cannot deny to be
but other terms for " the different modes of subsistence
among the lower classes," the " point below which they
will not continue to marry and propagate their species ;"
and while therefore in the one place this author affirms that
a satisfactory solution of the question, " What are the
PRINCIPAL CAUSES which determine the different modes of
subsistence among the lower classes of people of different
countries" is hardly to be expected, he declares, in the
other, that " the PRINCIPAL CIRCUMSTANCES which con-
tribute to" produce that difference, or to " raise" and
" lower" those different modes of subsistence, are liberty,
security of property, &c., and despotism and ignorance !
Nor is this extraordinary mode of treating his subject
and his readers confined to one place, or does his conflict-
ing assertions, in the different places where they are found,
arise from any professed or actual change in the opinions
or sentiments of Mr Malthus in regard to the effects of
good and bad government in raising and lowering the
" standard of wretchedness," or " the habits and modes of
subsistence among the lower classes of people." On the
contrary, his opinions on this subject are not only retained
and reiterated in the newer publication, but are actually
avowed and enlarged upon in the very place, as has been
already mentioned, where this new and conflicting one is
introduced ; and with the intervention only of a saving clause
of four lines, (of what force or consequence we shall see
presently,) Mr Malthus proceeds as follows :
" From high wages, or the power of commanding a large
portion of the necessaries of life, two very different results
may follow ; one, that of a rapid increase of the population,
in which case the high wages are chiefly spent in the main-
tenance of large and frequent families ; and the other, that of
a decided improvement in the modes of subsistence, and the
CHAP. VIII. THE NATURAL RATE OF WAGES. 333
conveniences and comforts enjoyed, without a proportionate
acceleration in the rate of increase.
" In looking to these different results, the causes of them
will evidently appear to be the different habits existing among
the people of different countries and at different times. In
an inquiry into the causes of these different habits, we shall
generally be able to trace those which produce the first result
to all the circumstances which contribute to depress the lower
classes of the people, which make them unable or unwilling
to reason from the past to the future, and ready to acquiesce,
for the sake of present gratification, in a very low standard of
comfort and respectability ; and those which produce the se-
cond result, to all the circumstances which tend to elevate
the character of the lower classes of society, which make them
approach the nearest to beings who " look before and after,"
and who consequently cannot acquiesce patiently in the
thought of depriving themselves and their children of the
means of being respectable, virtuous, and happy.
" Among the circumstances which contribute to the cha-
racter first described, the most efficient will be found to be
despotism, oppression, and ignorance ; among those which
contribute to the latter character, civil and political liberty,
and education.
({ Of all the causes which tend to generate prudential habits
among the lower classes of society, the most essential is un-
questionably civil liberty. No people can be much accustom-
ed to form plans for the future, who do not feel assured that
their industrious exertions, while fair and honourable, will be
allowed to have free scope ; and that the property which they
either possess, or may acquire, will be secured to them by a
known code of just laws impartially administered. But it has
been found by experience, that civil liberty cannot be perma-
nently secured without political liberty. Consequently, po-
litical liberty becomes almost equally essential ; and in addi-
tion to its being necessary in this point of view, its obvious
tendency to teach the lower classes of society to respect
themselves by obliging the higher classes to respect them,
334 CAUSES WHICH REGULATE BOOK II.
must contribute greatly to aid all the good effects of civil li-
berty.
" With regard to education, it might certainly be made
general under a bad form of government, and might be very
deficient under one in other respects good ; but it must be
allowed, that the chances, both with regard to its quality and
its prevalence, are greatly in favour of the latter. Education
alone could do little against insecurity of property ; but it
would powerfully assist all the favourable consequences to be
expected from civil and political liberty, which could not in-
deed be considered as complete without it."*
Now what have we here but that very solution which Mr
Malthus commences by declaring " is hardly to be expect-
ed !" that very solution which he had once before, and in
another work, given in nearly the same terms, and which
every person of sound mind who bestows any considerable
attention on the subject, must necessarily come to ? What,
in reality, have we here exhibited to us but a conflict be-
tween the natural candour and knowledge of his subject of
Mr Malthus, and the awful idea not to be tolerated for an
instant the overwhelming danger above all things to be
avoided that of removing the imputation of " evil" from
" the principle of population," and allowing it to rest un-
equivocally God save the mark ! upon bad government ?
In order to avoid this Scylla, therefore, Mr Malthus
thrusts in the saving clause just alluded to following there-
in his ordinary and approved method in similar emer-
gencies : he says and it is all, as was mentioned, that in-
tervenes between the two passages above cited between
the affirmation that the " solution" of the question he is
discussing, " is hardly to be expected," and the solution
itself! He says, " Much must certainly depend upon the
* Principles of Political Economy, chap. iv. sect 2, pp. 250, 251
252.
CHAP. VIII. THE NATURAL RATE OF WAGES. 335
physical causes of climate and soil ; but still more perhaps
on moral causes, the formation and action of which are
owing to a variety of circumstances.""*
It will be perceived that the latter part of this sentence
the " still more perhaps" belongs not to the saving
clause, but to the " solution," and refers to what Mr Mal-
thus proceeds immediately to prove,-)- in the manner which
has been seen in the preceding extract ; and it is only the
little and naked assertion, " MUCH MUST CERTAINLY DE-
PEND UPON THE PHYSICAL CAUSES OF CLIMATE AND
SOIL," to which Mr Malthus here clings as the rock of his
hope, and on which he relies, to uphold the tottering and
shattered fabric of his system.
But if this which Mr Malthus asserts be really the case-
if " much certainly depends upon the physical causes of
climate and soil" why does not Mr Malthus go into the
subject, and show us that it is so ? Why does he, in a case
so momentous and vital to his argument, put us off with a
poor and meagre assertion, and leave us to be contented
with his word alone ? For here again, as in the instance be-
fore seen, he does nothing but assert ; he neither proves,
nor attempts to prove, any thing in regard to " jhe physi-
cal causes of climate and soil," as he does in regard to the
" moral causes" of good and bad government. He chooses
rather to avoid explanation and detail on the subject of the
former altogether, as being conscious that, should he at-
tempt to exhibit and draw them out into their full shape
and dimensions, (if they have any,) he should the more cer-
tainly expose their insignificance and weakness.
And this is a temper of mind and purpose from which it
is not at all likely that Mr Malthus will allow himself to be
Principles of Political Economy, p. 250.
Vide the work itself, in loco citato.
336 CAUSES WHICH REGULATE BOOK II.
diverted or seduced by any arts or provocation of his assail-
ants, since he perfectly well knows into whose hands he
must fall should he quit this stronghold of general asser-
tion, and descend into the arena of unreserved controversy :
he perfectly well knows that Mr Hume has long ago com-
pletely disposed of this argument ;* and although Mr Mal-
thus may fairly consider himself a giant among the dwarf-
ish race of the flattered and favoured authors of " these
degenerate days," he is far too cautious and prudent to
measure his strength, and to array his feeble and phantom
forces, in the face of those hardy and real troops which
stand already marshalled against him, by perhaps the great-
est of human intellects that have yet appeared on the
theatre of the world.
Wisely therefore was it, and well considered on the part
of Mr Malthus, that he resolved to observe a discreet and
dignified silence upon this topic : still, however, this may
not hinder but that there shall be those who will be trouble-
some enough to demand a< reason, and who will be so
saucy as to think that even the affirmations of Mr Mal-
thus himself should be accompanied with a statement of the
grounds on which they rest.
Dismissing then this saving clause this forlorn hope
of Mr Malthus, as undeserving of further attention or no-
tice, I shall here return again to his " solution" of the
question, " What are the principal causes which determine
the different modes of subsistence among the lower classes
of the people ?" for we must still attend on him somewhat
farther upon that subject.
When Mr Malthus says, as he does in the passages
already quoted, " Among the circumstances which contri-
bute to the character first described, the most efficient will be
In his Essay " Of National Characters."
6
CHAP. VIII. THE NATURAL RATE OF WAGES. 33?
found to be despotism, oppression, and ignorance, among
those which contribute to the latter character, civil and poli-
tical liberty and education ;" when he says, " Of all the
causes which tend to generate prudential habits among the
lower classes of society, the most essential is unquestionably
civil liberty ;" when he says, ' f We shall generally be able to
trace those which produce the first result to all the circum-
stances which contribute to depress the lower classes of th3
people, which make them unable or unwilling to reason from
the past to the future, and ready to acquiesce, for the sake of
present gratification, in a very low standard of comfort and re-
spectability ; and those which produce the second result, to
all the circumstances which tend to elevate the character of
the lower classes of society, which make them approach the
nearest to beings who ' look before and after/ and who con-
sequently cannot acquiesce patiently in the thought of de-
priving themselves and their children of the means of being
respectable, virtuous, and happy;" with what face can he
say, as he does in the same page, that a satisfactory solution
of the question, " What are the principal causes which deter-
mine the different modes of subsistence among the lower
classes of people, ' is hardly to be expected ?' " Yet Mr M al-
thus says all this. He tells us that such and such are the
" principal causes" and " circumstances'" which determine
" the habits and modes of subsistence among the lower classes
of people ;" and in the same breath (proh pudor /) he coolly
and deliberately delivers the following words, for I must
again repeat the most marvellous asseveration, " It would
be very desirable to ascertain what are the principal causes
which determine the different modes of subsistence among
the lower classes of people of different countries ; but the
question involves so many considerations, that a satisfactory
solution of it is hardly to be expected ! ! !"
Can words be found can terms be conceived, or pro-
positions stated, more diametrically opposed to each other
than these and they are all contained within the little com-
Y
338 CAUSES WHICH EEGULATE BOOK II.
pass of the single passage before quoted, precisely as it
stands in Mr Malthus's book ?
But Mr Malthus does not even stop here; he does not even
content himself with answering the question generally which
he had the moment before pronounced unanswerable ; for
that is obviously the meaning intended to be conveyed by
Mr Malthus, when he says it " involves so many consider-
ations, 11 that an answer to it " is hardly to be expected."
He does not stop, I say, or content himself with the gene-
ral answer and u solution" already cited ; he actually goes
into detail, and gives an example from the countries of
Ireland and England in illustration of his " solution," and
of the effects of good and bad government as being " the
principal causes which determine the different modes of sub-
sistence among the lower classes of people of different coun-
tries." He proceeds :
" According as the habits of the people had been deter-
mined by such unfavourable or favourable circumstances, high
wages, or a rapid increase of the funds for the maintenance
of labour, would be attended with the first or second results
before described; or at least by results which would ap-
proach to the one or the other, according to the proportions
in which all the causes which influence habits of improvi-
dence or prudence had been efficient.
" Ireland, during the course of the last century, may be
produced perhaps as the most marked instance of the first re-
sult. On the introduction of the potato into that country,
the lower classes of society were in such a state of oppression
and ignorance, were so little respected by others, and had con-
sequently so little respect for themselves, that as long as they
could get food, and that of the cheapest kind, they were con-
tent to marry under the prospect of every other privation.
The abundant funds for the support of labour, occasioned by
the cultivation of the potato in a favourable soil, which often
gave the labourer the command of a quantity of subsistence
quite unusual in the other parts of Europe, were spent almost
CHAP. VIII. THE NATURAL KATE OF WAGES.
exclusively in the maintenance of large and frequent families ;
and the result was, a most rapid increase of population, with
little or no melioration in the general condition and modes of
subsistence of the labouring poor.
" An instance somewhat approaching to the second may
be found in England, in the first half of the last century. It
is well known, that during this period the price of corn fell
considerably, while the wages of labour are stated to have
risen. During the last forty years of the 17th century, and
the first twenty of the 18th, the average price of corn was
such as, compared with the wages of labour, would enable
the labourer to purchase, with a day's earnings, two-thirds of
a peck of wheat. From 1720 to 1750 the price of wheat had
so fallen, while wages had risen, that, instead of two-thirds,
the labourer could purchase the whole of a peck of wheat
with a day's labour.
" This great increase of command over the necessaries of
life did not, however, produce a proportionate increase of po-
pulation. It found the people of this country living under an
excellent government, and enjoying all the advantages of civil
and political liberty in an unusual degree. The lower classes
of people had been in the habit of being respected, both by
the laws and the higher orders of their fellow-citizens, and
had learned in consequence to respect themselves. And the
result was, that, instead of an increase of population exclusive-
ly, a considerable portion of their increased real wages was
expended in a marked improvement of the quality of the food
consumed, and a decided elevation in the standard of their
comforts and conveniences."*
There is nothing said here concerning the effects of
" climate and soil," those " physical causes" upon which
we had previously been assured that " much must certain-
ly depend." Nor is there a single particular brought for-
ward of the " so many considerations" which we had been
also told previously should preclude the " expectation" of
* Principles of Political Economy, book iv. sect. 2.
340 CAUSES WHICH REGULATE BOOK II.
a satisfactory solution. What these considerations are na
cue is given to discover ; but instead of this the " solution"
itself is given ! And when Mr Malthus^s readers should
have expected to hear a dissertation upon the difficulties at-
tending the question, and upon the impossibility, or impro-
bability, at the least, of a satisfactory solution of it being
ever achieved, he is confounded and astonished by the in-
troduction, all at once, of the solution itself ; cooked indeed,
and garnished with the usual modicum of oils and aroma-
tics wherewith Mr Malthus is accustomed to drown and
deaden the taste of such indigestible and unsavoury viands.
" The question," he says, " involves so many considera-
tions :" " Among the circumstances :" " It would be very
desirable to ascertain :" " We shall generally be able to
trace :" and such other dubious and hesitating expressions
as may be calculated to throw distrust and uncertainty upon
what is otherwise clear. And " with regard to education,
it might certainly be made general under a bad form of
government, and might be very deficient under one in other
respects good; but it must be allowed that the chances,
both with regard to its quality and its prevalence, are greatly
in favour of the latter." How eminently candid is this last
admission ! And with what admirable precision of logical
deduction is the conclusion made out !
Mr Malthus may quibble, if he pleases, about the word
" satisfactory," which he has inserted perhaps to serve as
another loop-hole ; he may aver that the solution which he
has given is by no means satisfactory to himself, whatever
it may be to other people. And here we may readily
believe him. He keeps the word of promise to the ear at
least. He cannot well be satisfied with that which reduces
to nought all that he has ever written, and wholly takes out
the sting of his " principle of population." And this it is
which gives us the proper cue to discover the cause of the
inconsistences and contradictions which pervade Mr Mai-
CHAP. VIIT. THE NATURAL RATE OF WAGES. 341
thus's writings. He reasons himself out of his main doc-
trine, and he must get back to it again the best way he can.
If the specimen that has been here exhibited of these con-
tradictions could be considered in the light of a simple in-
advertence, glaring as it is, it would have deserved or re-
quired no remarks ; but this is far from being the case. It
is not here only, or in a few instances, that Mr Malthus
maintains these contradictory doctrines, and exemplifies the
model of reasoning which has been here examined. On the
contrary, the same desultory and contradictory mode of
treating his subject is copied in a thousand instances, and
indeed pervades and disfigures the whole of his Essay on
Population, as well as his " Principles of Political Eco-
nomy,"" wherever he touches upon this question.
But if we are not afraid of the truth, or of removing the
imputation of " evil" from " the principle of population,"
and of allowing that imputation to rest where it ought, and
where, in spite of himself, Mr Malthus's own reasonings
demonstrate that it should rest, the solution which he has
given will appear satisfactory enough ; and that which he
regarded as so difficult of accomplishment as to be " hardly
to be expected," will have been accomplished by himself,
even while he was unconscious of and dissentient from his
own success.
After what has now passed under review, then, I think I
have still new and additional reason to conclude, as I before
have done* on the same subject, that " there are in fact
but two ways of improving mankind, and of bettering their
condition, and these are by means of education and good
government ; and all attempts to succeed by any other me-
thods will always be found abortive and unavailing. But
as a liberal system of education can never be thoroughly
See book i. chap. 10 , at the end.
342 LEGAL PROVISION FOR THE POOR BOOK II.
and securely established where good government is not
found, and as the former naturally follows where the latter
has place, these two causes are in effect reduced to one ;
and good government may be pronounced to be the one
indispensable and only efficient cause of improvement in
the condition of mankind in general, and particularly in
that of the labouring classes of people. 11
CHAPTER IX.
OF POOR-LAWS.
SECTION I.
INTRODUCTION TO THE CHAPTER.
WHEN it happens to an able-bodied labourer, and to one who
has nothing but his labour to look to for his support, that
he is unable to procure employment, and that, having ex-
hausted any little store or savings which he might pre-
viously have had accumulated, he has nothing remaining
wherewithal to satisfy even the immediate cravings of his
hunger, it must be confessed, that he is then placed in a
worse condition than that of the savage in the state of na-
ture, since the latter is always free at least to employ his
labour and exertions to procure food, whereas the former is,
under the circumstances supposed, debarred from this pri-
vilege, and is in effect (where there is no legal or certain
provision made for his case) commanded to starve in the
midst of plenty, without moving a finger to save himself
from perishing. Now, it is in the highest degree important
CHAP. IX. EXPEDIENT AND POSSIBLE. 343
and vital to the question we are about to discuss, to remem-
ber, that the case just stated is the only one in which an
individual can be placed within the pale of civilized society,
in which he will find himself more unfortunately situated,
and in a worse condition, than even the savage in his wil-
derness.
It has been one of the chief objects of the present work
to demonstrate, and I trust it has been demonstrated, that
the institutions which are necessary to the existence of ci-
vilized society, and particularly the institutions of property,
and of the system of the division of labour, are naturally
advantageous to the labourers, as well as to the two other
classes of land-proprietors and capitalists, inasmuch as they
are the means of enabling every person, including even the
lowest labourers, (so long as they have employment,) to ac-
quire a greater share of wealth, of necessaries, conve-
niences, and luxuries, than they could do otherwise ; that
is, in other words, than they could acquire in the state of
nature. It seems equally therefore the duty and the in-
terest of every community to guard against the incidence of
the case just described, by providing, if possible, for all who
may be in want, and thus to make it the interest of every
individual without exception, and at all times, to support
those institutions and laws which are necessary to its exist-
ence and well-being.
That this ought to be done, if it were possible, without
introducing a greater evil than that which it would be there-
by attempted to obviate is allowed ; but this, it is contended,
is impossible.
That it is not so however, and that to maintain the indi-
gent and necessitous of every description is not that impos-
sible or very difficult thing which it has been represented to
be, I shall now proceed and endeavour to demonstrate.
344 LEGAL PBOVISION FOR THE POOR BOOK II.
SECTION II.
THE POOR-LAWS OF ENGLAND ILL CONTRIVED AND IM-
PERFECT, CONSIDERED AS A SYSTEM CALCULATED FOR
ALL TIMES AND CIRCUMSTANCES STILL WORSE AD-
MINISTERED. POSSIBILITY OF A LEGAL AND COMPUL-
SORY PROVISION FOR THE POOR, WITHOUT THEREBY
INCREASING THEIR NUMBERS.
WHETHER the poor-laws of England were well or ill con-
trived at first, or whether they were well or ill suited to the
purpose they were then intended to serve, I shah 1 not now
pretend to determine ; but, if we consider them as a system
calculated for all times and circumstances, it must be ad-
mitted at once that they are exceedingly deficient ; and in
regard to the manner in which they are now administered,
and to the many collateral evils which grow out of them, it
will be universally acknowledged that they are still more
censurable.
As they are at present administered indeed, and consi-
dered in regard to present circumstances, these laws are
nearly as ill calculated to serve the purpose required, or
that which should be aimed at by every poor-law, namely,
the relief of those who are in want, without occasioning
thereby an increase of their numbers, as can well be con-
ceived. But it does not thence follow that a better system
could not be fallen upon, or that (as has been contended)
no legal or compulsory provision can be made, or any regu-
lar systematic relief be given to the poor, without increasing
the evil it is intended to cure. The aged and infirm, at
least, might evidently be provided for, without any very
great or obvious danger of extending the evil, or of increas-
ing their numbers, by over-propagation, which is the bug-
bear set up to scare us from every regular mode of charity.
CHAP. IX. EXPEDIENT AND POSSIBLE. 345
But I will go further, and maintain, that even the able-
bodied, who may happen to be reduced accidentally to want,
and who may be unable for a time to procure employment,
may be safely kept living without any bad consequences
following, provided it be done with caution and judgment,
and that no more be given to any of this description of per-
sons than may be barely sufficient to keep them from starv-
ing. Such persons might be allowed, perhaps, about half
the ordinary rate of wages of the lowest labourers, without
any bad consequences following ; and that moderate allow-
ance, whilst it would relieve them from the most deplorable
and most miserable of all conditions, namely, that of being
without food, or any means of honestly procuring it, and
consequently from an overpowering motive to violence,
to rob or steal, would at the same time furnish no consi-
derable incentive or encouragement to idleness, or to redun-
dant propagation ; nor would it interfere detrimentally with
the interests of the regular employers of labour, the three
great mischiefs to be guarded against when any gratuitous
assistance is given to the able-bodied poor.
The evil apprehended is from " the principle of popula-
tion :" That if a liberal and undistinguishing relief were
given to the poor, their numbers would increase in propor-
tion as they were relieved, and would even outgrow and ab-
sorb the utmost amount of any possible funds that could be
assigned or applied to their support. But the relief given
need neither be too liberal nor undistinguishing. It ought
to be liberal only in cases where the apprehended danger
(of redundant propagation) could not arise, as in those of
the aged and infirm, and of children under age.
These only, therefore, namely, the aged and infirm, and
infants bereft of their parents, and without other resource, I
would support liberally, but the able-bodied as sparingly
as possible ; and all this, I will maintain, might be done by
346 LEGAL PROVISION FOR THE POOR HOOK II.
a proper and well-contrived system of poor-laws, without
increasing the evil or the numbers of the poor. I think it
indeed not improbable that a well-contrived system of poor-
laws would of itself, by its own proper effect, tend rather to
diminish the numbers of the poor, by tending to raise " the
standard of wretchedness," at which the lower classes of la-
bourers would consent to marry and propagate ;* and, from
what has been formerly advanced,-)- it will probably appear
to the readers as most likely that such a system of poor-
laws would soon become, under good government, almost, if
not altogether, a dead letter.
Previously to the period when Mr Malthus first wrote
and published his " Essay on the Principle of Population,"
the defects and bad consequences of the English poor-laws
had been fully observed and pointed out by many intelli-
gent writers ; nor did their tendency to encourage idleness,
and to increase the evil they were intended to cure, escape
notice. But it has only been since the memorable era of
that publication that it has entered into the heads of think-
ing men, and has been set down by them as the most cer-
tain and indisputable of all political axioms,J that no legal
provision can be made, nor any regular, systematic, and
certain relief of any sort, be given to the poor, without in-
creasing their numbers in such proportion and amount as to
* Even the English poor-laws, with all their faults and imperfec-
tions on their head, have probably had something of the effect al-
luded to, as it cannot readily be imagined that many persons would
be willing to take their stations, and settle themselves in marriage,
below the scale, whether of comfort or of ( ( wretchedness," which was
allowed to those claiming relief from the parish.
f See the preceding chapter, and also chapter 10 of book i.
J See as a specimen Mr RicardO's Principles of Political Economy,
chap. 5. p. 106, second edition.
CHAP. IX. EXPEDIENT AND POSSIBLE. 347
increase and aggravate the evil of poverty ; and that, in
short, it has been dogmatically pronounced, that the objects
attempted to be attained by poor-laws universally are abso-
lutely and altogether unattainable.
This doctrine is now, however, so generally, I might al-
most say universally, received by all who pretend to be
adepts in the science of political economy, is maintained by
them with such unhesitating and such undoubting confi-
dence,* and is withal so favourably entertained and patron-
ised in all high places, even in the highest of all, namely, in
* This was written many years before the late sudden and ample
recantations of Mr Malthus's disciples, very coolly given, after hav-
ing been engaged all the previous part of their lives in dogmatizing on
the contrary side$ when their nostrums had well nigh seared up the
heart and closed the hand of charity in these kingdoms, and had
caused thousands upon thousands of unfortunate persons to be starved
to death, or to perish from the want of that proper nourishment and
maintenance which every civilized community is bound in justice to
administer to all who may be in want within its well-stored precincts.
For it was nothing else hut the prevalence of those nostrums which
perverted men's minds and steeled their hearts, and prevented timely
and adequate public relief from being given to those numerous bodies
of men who were thrown out of employment, upon several occasions,
and at different places, since the conclusion of the late war. And
now the very men, who were chiefly instrumental in propagating those
dogmas which have produced all this mischief and misery, come for-
ward and declare them to be wholly visionary and unsound !
To acknowledge an error when a person discovers he has fallen into
one, is to be but barely honest, even if he could with credit or safety
deny the fact, and when it is seen that an exposure of it will speedily
be made and throw discredit upon its defenders, there is not even the
merit of candour in the confession ; but to take up opinions involv-
ing such inhuman and unheard-of consequences, without the most
rigid and scrupulous investigation, and thus lightly to set them down
as portions of eternal truth and science, is to incur a responsibility and
a guilt which is but ill excused or atoned for by an unceremonious
and disingenuous recantation of them.
348 LEGAL PROVISION FOR THE POOR BOOK II.
the high courts of parliament, that it might truly appear a
very bold undertaking to oppose the current, and perilous
even so much as " to hint a doubt or hesitate dislike,"
were it not that Mr Malthus, the great apostle and univer-
sally-acknowledged oracle of this creed, has been himself ob-
served to waver, and has indeed latterly (as I shall pre-
sently show) abandoned and retracted in effect, though not
in express words, or by a formal disclamation, his whole
theory on this subject, even in regard to the very imperfect
poor-laws of England ; yet strange it is that none of Mr
Malthus's disciples or followers take the slightest notice of
this circumstance, or even for a moment advert to those nu-
merous and large concessions and acknowledgments dispersed
throughout the writings of their master, which destroy alto-
gether the very essence of his theory. Mr Malthus ad-
mits, that there are other " principles" in man, and pecu-
liar to him as contradistinguished from the brutes, besides
the " principle of population," and which limit and con-
trol that principle in man though not in brutes. His dis-
ciples, however, can see nothing but the one principle, the
principle of population. They have no ear or understand-
ing for the controlling principles. It is sufficient for them
to have read the first chapter of the Essay on Population,
and to have comprehended the arithmetical and geometrical
ratios. They desire to know no further, but set down all
other knowledge as idle, unprofitable, and nugatory ; and
universally to a man, in so far as I have observed, argue
invariably as if the principle of increase in animals were no
otherwise controlled or regulated in man than in the brute
creation. They seem not to be acquainted with the fact,
or most strangely to overlook it, that their master admits
the counteracting and controlling principles peculiar to man
almost in their full extent ; and that he has in one place or
another of his voluminous writings repeatedly stated and
taken notice of the whole of these principles, except, I be-
CHAP. IX. EXPEDIENT AND POSSIBLE. 349
lieve, one ;* although, it must be confessed, that he seems
always very chary and very unwilling to take a full and
connected, or distinct view of them, or to admit that their
influence extends, as most certainly it does, to the entire
demolition of the fabric he had previously raised.
It has been most distinctly and correctly stated by Mr
Malthus, that the problem to be solved in planning out and
establishing a system of poor-laws is, " How to provide for
those who are in want in such a manner as to prevent a
continual increase of their numbers, and of the proportion
which they bear to the whole society."-f- Now the only
difficulty that can occur in dealing with this problem must
be in regard to those claimants who are able-bodied, but
cannot find employment; for in regard to the others,
namely, the aged, the infirm, and children under age, it is
evident that there could be no sort of difficulty with them,
* I allude to the principle of luxury and refinement which, without
degenerating into vice, will be found, I believe, to have a powerful
effect in restraining population in the advanced periods of society.
This principle I have elsewhere endeavoured shortly to develop (in
a pamphlet published several years ago, and already quoted in this
work, note, pp. 55, 56,) and now I find all my most sanguine hopes
and anticipations confirmed by the facts stated, and the assurances
given of still more particular proofs to follow, in a recent publication,
Sadler's " Ireland, its Evils and their Remedies," a work which
holds forth a glorious prospect for the world and for humanity, by
what is there already given, and still more by what is engaged to be
proved in the work which is announced to follow, namely, a complete
deliverance from the thraldom of Mr Malthus's v
'NIVEasi , y )
THE END.
OLIVER & BOYI), PRINTERS.
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