PUBLICATIONS 
 
 OF TIIK 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 SERIES IN 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY AND PUBLIC LAW 
 
 No. 4 
 
 THE CONSUMPTION OF WEALTH 
 
 SIMON N. PATTEN 
 Professor of Political Economy, University of Pennsylvania 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 Published for the. University 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 1901 
 
 GINX & Co., Selling Agents, Tremont Place, Boston, Mass. 
 
 PRICE FIFTY CENTS
 
 LlBRARf 
 
 '<;'<iV.4RS*TY Of 
 CAUFOSNIA 
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 PUBLICATIONS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 SERIES IN 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY AND PUBLIC LAW 
 
 No. 4 
 
 THE CONSUMPTION OF WEALTH 
 
 BY 
 
 SIMON N. PATTEN 
 Professor of Political Economy, University of Pennsylvania 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 Published for the University 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 1901 
 
 GINN & Co., Selling Agents, Tremont Place, Boston, Mass. 
 
 PRICE FIFTY CENTS
 
 PRESS OF 
 THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPAN
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 INTRODUCTION, 5 
 
 I. THE CAUSES OF THE INTENSITY OF FEELING DERIVED FROM 
 FOOD 9 
 
 II. THE INFLUENCE OF THE COST OF COMMODITIES UPON THEIR 
 CONSUMPTION, 17 
 
 III. THE CAUSES OBSCURING THE PRIMARY LAWS OF CONSUMP- 
 
 TION, 24 
 
 IV. THE GROWTH OF NEW PLEASURES, 30 
 
 V. THE LOVE OF HOME AND COUNTRY, 37 
 
 VI. THE STANDARD OF LIFE, 43 
 
 VII. THE BEST USE OF LAND, 52 
 
 VIII. THE OUTLOOK FOR THE FUTURE, 62
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 IT IS the purpose of this essay to bring all those facts into 
 harmonious relations to one another which throw light 
 upon the laws regulating the consumption of wealth. These 
 laws are not merely the laws of human enjoyment. Doubt- 
 less the desire for happiness is always an important element 
 in determining consumption, yet it is modified by many other 
 elements to such a degree that our consumption could not be 
 inferred solely from the relative intensity of our desires. Econo- 
 mists have too often forgotten that the pains of producing com- 
 modities have an influence upon the order of their consumption. 
 We produce to consume ; but what we will desire to consume is 
 largely determined by the cost of production. While produc- 
 tion is determined by consumption, the latter is itself largely 
 modified by the former. Every improvement in production 
 thus changes the order in which different commodities are con- 
 sumed, by taking more from the cost of some commodities than 
 from others. 
 
 There is, moreover, a great need to examine the laws of 
 human enjoyment. Men do not always have the same desire 
 for a commodity. With individuals the change is very slow ; 
 but from age to age there are important modifications in the 
 demand for commodities. Some pleasures are growing while 
 others cease to have their former .power. There seems, also, to 
 be a general direction along which changes in consumption are 
 forcing mankind, the causes of which must be discovered before 
 the laws of consumption can be explained. 
 
 It is doubtless true that consumption as a whole needs no 
 encouragement : all that is produced will find consumers, if 
 there is no obstacle in the way. The interest of the public lies 
 solely in the direction which the consumption of a given amount 
 of wealth will take under different conditions. Improvements 
 in production, and the growth of new states, as well as the
 
 vi Introduction. 
 
 gradual modification of inherited ideas and customs, have dur- 
 ing this century changed the direction of consumption so fully 
 as to create a new order of consumption. Another epoch in the 
 development of mankind has arrived, in which men will be 
 compelled to change their habits and diet, in order to avoid the 
 new evils, and to secure the new pleasures connected with their 
 present environment. 
 
 These changes are of especial importance to a new country 
 like America, where all the elements which determine the 
 direction of consumption have been already so much modified 
 that the habits, instincts and feelings we have inherited from 
 our forefathers are no longer safe guides for us to follow. Our 
 climate and our food supply are so different from that of Europe 
 that we must learn to eat and drink new articles, and clothe 
 ourselves in a new way, before we can make the best use of our 
 resources with the least pain and suffering on our part. The 
 extreme cold of our winters and the great heat of our sum- 
 mers will necessitate a much greater change in the food and 
 clothing from summer to winter than is needed in the more 
 even climate of Europe. Pork and corn will not be too warm 
 as foods for winter, nor will rice and fruit be too cool for 
 summer. Drinking habits which are harmless, or at least 
 not very injurious in the damp or cool climate of Europe, 
 become destructive of health and honor in the dry, parching 
 heat of an American summer. The German who sleeps at 
 home all the year through between two feather ticks, soon 
 changes his habit of sleeping when he arrives in America. 
 He thinks, however, that he can still drink a quart of beer 
 with as little harm as in his old home. It will take a much 
 longer time to break up his drinking than his sleeping habits ; 
 yet the same causes are working in both cases, and will force 
 him, or at least his descendants, to become American in the 
 one respect as in the other. 
 
 In order to bring out clearly the laws of consumption, it will 
 be necessary to view the field of economic phenomena from a 
 new standpoint. Just as the point of view giving the best 
 analysis of production is different from that needed for good 
 results in distribution, so in consumption, yet another analysis
 
 Introduction. vii 
 
 of the same phenomena must be made before its laws can be 
 clearly seen. The distinctions which must be emphasized to 
 show the workings of primary laws of consumption are very 
 different from those which are decisive in establishing the best 
 known laws of production and distribution. The effects of 
 primary laws become prominent only in exceptional cases, and 
 the search for such cases takes the student into a very different 
 quarter of the economic world from that into which other in- 
 vestigations have taken him. 
 
 There is also another way in which the study of consumption 
 seems likely to differ from that of the better known departments 
 of economics, and especially from that of production. In the 
 progress of a science, the inductive truths are more easily rec- 
 ognized and are those which are first discovered and empha- 
 sized. The more deductive laws are obscured by the effects of 
 transient causes which hide them from view until the more ap- 
 parent truths of the science have been seen and developed. 
 Production, as a department, was worked out before distribu- 
 tion, because more of its laws are inductive. If Adam Smith, 
 had not previously developed the doctrines of production, the 
 work of Ricardo would have been impossible. 
 
 In consumption, we have a department which is of necessity 
 much more deductive than either of the other departments of 
 economics. It has its basis on facts in human nature and in 
 society, which are of the most primary character, and hence 
 are most easily hidden beneath a mass of obscuring facts which 
 have their origin in a multitude of secondary causes. The 
 theory of consumption rests upon the laws of pleasure and 
 pain, modified by the social environment in which men live. 
 
 There must, therefore, be an air of unreality in a discussion 
 carried on in terms so far removed from the concrete world. 
 So many secondary facts are for the time overlooked, in order 
 to show the working of primary laws, that the conclusions 
 reached often seem to conflict with well-established inductions. 
 
 The ultimate laws of a science, however, cannot be investi- 
 gated in any other way. They are so far from the surface that 
 their effects come into view mingled with a multitude of effects 
 of more apparent causes, from which they must be artificially
 
 viii Introduction. 
 
 separated before they can be studied with care. There is no 
 likelihood that the influence of these secondary causes will be 
 overlooked. When the effects of the primary laws are fully 
 recognized, it will be an easy task to show how they are modi- 
 fied in society by disturbing causes. Until that time comes, 
 it is better to fix the attention solely upon the fundamental 
 laws and their influence upon society, even though there is 
 some danger that for a time the counter forces may be neglected.
 
 THE CONSUMPTION OF WEALTH 
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE INTENSITY OF FEELING DERIVED 
 FROM FOOD. 
 
 It is impossible to determine accurately the laws which fix 
 the intensity of feeling derived from the consumption of food, 
 without tracing the past development of man. Had the food 
 of man always been as abundant and as varied as it now is 
 among the more advanced races, there would be some grounds 
 for supposing that our present appetites are the necessary re- 
 sult of some fixed element in our natures. It is, however, but 
 a few generations at most, since our ancestors lived under 
 widely different conditions, where a keen appetite was their 
 chief source of pleasure. Only those who had a great relish 
 for food could withstand the hardships they had to endure and 
 have a sufficient inducement to earn a living under conditions 
 where the returns for labor are so limited. 
 
 The primitive man had no regular industry. Thinking of 
 the morrow, he was forced to take what food he could find, and 
 when and where it pleased nature to give it. At one season, 
 fish was abundant ; at another, plenty of game could be found ; 
 and at another, grains or fruits afforded a possible means of 
 subsistence. No matter how abundant such food may be at 
 times, yet there are long intervals when they are very scarce. 
 During these intervals, starvation and famine do their work, 
 and sweep off all those who have not vitality enough to enable 
 them to exist a long time upon an insufficient diet. Thus, 
 periods of starvation and plenty follow one another rapidly. 
 One month the people are feeding upon the generous bounties 
 of nature ; the next few weeks brings them again upon the 
 verge of starvation when their food is so scarce that they can
 
 io The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 live only by drawing upon that store of subsistence which a 
 period of plenty gives to a vigorous body in the form of muscle 
 and flesh. 
 
 Of such a man, there is one thing that it would be safe to 
 predict. The strength of his appetite for food must be very 
 great. Had he a poor appetite, he would eat only enough 
 during the periods of plenty to supply his present wants. 
 When the season of scarcity came, his system could not endure 
 the hardships of starvation, and he would be carried off by 
 disease or famine. Such a man must have the power to store 
 up fat in his system just as a cow or a hog does ; and to do 
 this, he must, like the lower animals, have an intense desire 
 for food, and so keen an appetite that he will not be satisfied 
 until long after the present needs of his system are supplied. 
 
 That the primitive man has a powerful appetite, can be readily 
 seen from all his actions. When he has food, he has no idea 
 how to use it with moderation. If an animal be slain, a great 
 feast is at once provided, and enough food will be gormandized 
 in a day to have supplied the participants with nourishment 
 for a week. There seems to be no limit to the appetites of such 
 people, and they cease eating only when the extreme limit of 
 their stomachs' capacity is reached. Their intense desire for 
 food is also shown in many other ways. The many disgusting 
 dishes of which they partake with the keenest pleasure tell 
 how strong is the impulse that leads them to gluttony. Surely 
 no one not controlled by an abnormal appetite will eat the half- 
 rotten meat which seems so great a luxury to many tribes. 
 
 The primitive man needed a strong appetite to withstand the 
 hardships that an irregular food-supply forced him to undergo. 
 *A weaker appetite would have unfitted him for his environ- 
 ment, and driven him out of the world. The slow but steady 
 development of man has gradually given to him steadier 
 sources of food-supply. Starvation and famine have become 
 less frequent, until at length, in the civilized races of to-day, 
 the means of subsistence have become so regular that the 
 average man never feels keenly the pangs of hunger. 
 
 No one, I trust, will deny that along with the increased regu- 
 larity in the supply of food, the strength of the appetite for
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. n 
 
 food has been diminished. The love of coarse food in great 
 quantities has entirely disappeared. Feasts are no longer glut- 
 tonous debauches lasting for several days. Doubtless we are 
 far from a condition in which our appetites are in harmony 
 with our present environment, yet we have at least progressed 
 far enough to make the coarse foods and drinks of our ancestors 
 disgusting to us. 
 
 We must, therefore, examine the changes which occur when 
 a nation using but one kind of food begins to use a more varied 
 diet through any change equalizing the cost of production of 
 several important kinds of food. Let us take, for example, a 
 man who is accustomed to potatoes as a sole diet. At his din- 
 ner the first potato he eats will give him a great pleasure. The 
 second he will also greatly relish, although his appetite will 
 yet be less keen. From each of the following potatoes, he will 
 derive less pleasure, until at length no further enjoyment can 
 be obtained by continuing to eat. This point is called the 
 "point of satiety," and upon its position depends largely the 
 character and habits of each man. Will the appetite be satis- 
 fied with three potatoes, or will four or even more be desired ? 
 Evidently there is a connection between the point of satiety 
 and the needs of the system. The man who uses his head 
 more than his hands will, when eating, reach the point of 
 satiety much more quickly than will the man who is accus- 
 tomed to hard manual work. The use of machinery takes away 
 much of the hard work needed in the past, and allows a man 
 to survive with a much smaller appetite than formerly. It is 
 also plain that those who are daily confined in close rooms, by 
 sedentary occupations, soon lose a part of their appetites. They 
 have in their food a much smaller source of enjoyment than 
 when they were in the pure air and in constant motion. 
 
 Facts like these are afforded by the daily observations of 
 every intelligent person. They show that the desire for food 
 is not a fixed quantity independent of the environment. Yet, 
 important as they are, they deserve no more emphasis than 
 should be given the changes in appetite which come from in- 
 creased regularity in the food-supply. 
 
 All these changes are overlooked, because from their nature
 
 12 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 they cannot come under the direct observation of any one. 
 Only by a careful historical inquiry do great changes in taste 
 and appetite become visible. The primitive man is apt to be 
 regarded as similar to the man of the present. Men have not 
 that training which is needed to give a vivid concept of the his- 
 torical development of mankind. The fixity of man's nature 
 has also been emphasized by all the ideas we have derived from 
 the philosophical world. So many of the economic premises 
 have been derived from this source, that it is difficult to free 
 ourselves from them, and replace them with others in harmony 
 with the gradual development which history shows to have 
 taken place. 
 
 There is yet another result of progress deserving attention in 
 this connection. The primitive man had so little shelter that 
 the warmth of his body was due to 'the effects of the large 
 quantities of food he consumed. His protection from cold came 
 from his blood, and not from the artificial protection warm 
 houses and clothing now give every one. It is only within the 
 present age that the houses and public buildings have been so 
 well constructed as to afford a complete protection from external 
 conditions. Even at the present time in many parts of the civil- 
 ized world, but a sparing use is made of fire thoroughly to warm 
 houses, churches and other buildings. Many are yet living 
 who can recall the time when churches were not heated in this 
 country. Every visitor to Europe knows how limited is the 
 use which they make of heat to warm their churches, or even 
 their dwelling houses. The steady increase in the amount of 
 clothing sold to all the civilized races shows in the same way, 
 the growing reliance upon artificial protection from cold and 
 dampness. By these changes the need of food is diminished, 
 and the appetite must be reduced until it adjusts itself to the 
 needs of the system. 
 
 The point of satiety is further conditioned by the nutritive 
 qualities of the food consumed. Some kinds of food have a 
 greater proportion of nutritive matter than others, and of these 
 smaller quantity will supply all the needs of the body than 
 would be required of the less nutritive kinds of food. If a 
 person accustomed to a meat diet should be compelled to sub-
 
 The Consumption of Wealth, 13 
 
 sist on potatoes, his appetite would give out long before he had 
 eaten enough to supply the wants of his system. On the other 
 hand, if a person accustomed to a potato diet should suddenly 
 change to a meat diet, his appetite would be so great that he 
 would eat much more than his system demanded. Suppose a 
 man whose sole diet has been potatoes to come under conditions 
 where wheat-bread will form a substantial part of his diet, evi- 
 dently his appetite will be too strong for his new conditions. 
 If he eat half his usual allowance of potatoes, and then change 
 to bread, he will eat more bread than would be an equivalent 
 for the potatoes he would have eaten if potatoes were his sole 
 diet. A change of food revives the appetite, and a person will 
 eat more than his system requires. On the other hand, his 
 system will require less food if the diet becomes more varied. 
 The different articles of food supplement one another, and all 
 the needs of the system are supplied with much less waste than 
 if a less varied diet were consumed. If, then, the appetite of 
 a person increases as his diet becomes more varied, while with 
 this more varied diet his system requires less food, a change to 
 a more varied diet will destroy the previous harmony between 
 the needs of the system and the appetite. This harmony can 
 be restored only when the appetite has been so reduced that the 
 point of satiety will be reached as soon as the needs of the 
 system have been satisfied. With every increase in the variety 
 of our food, the intensity of pleasure derived from the food 
 must be reduced ; so that, when the system becomes accus- 
 tomed to the new diet, the point of satiety will be reached 
 sooner than was formerly the case. 
 
 The truth of this law is much obscured in actual life by the 
 conditions under which our civilization has arisen. In most 
 countries, during the earlier stages of their development, those 
 articles of food whose consumption gives the greatest pleasure 
 could not be used to any extent on account of their great cost. 
 Articles like potatoes end rice had so low a cost that they were 
 consumed, although the pleasure derived from them was much 
 less than could be obtained from more palatable food. At the 
 present time a more varied diet means the consumption of a 
 greater proportion of these more desirable articles, such as
 
 14 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 wheat-bread, meat and liquors. In this way a more varied diet 
 excites the appetite in a double way and greatly increases the 
 intensity of feeling derived from the consumption of food. Our 
 appetite will in time adjust itself to the new conditions, and 
 the intensity of feeling derived from food will be so reduced 
 that the point of satiety will be reached as soon as the needs of 
 the system are satisfied. 
 
 There is no necessary connection between the intensity of 
 feeling which we derive from the consumption of food, and its 
 ability to supply the needs of our system. Water and air are 
 necessary to our systems, and yet we derive but little pleasure 
 from their consumption. An abundant supply of any article 
 of food causes us to lose our relish for it. This fact is plainly 
 visible in the effect which the increased consumption of liquor 
 has on the tastes of those who use it. It is universally admitted 
 that the demand for strong drinks is rapidly increasing. Even 
 in France and Germany, where the use of light liquors has 
 been so prevalent, the public taste is much less discriminating 
 than formerly. The change from light to strong drinks shows 
 that the public is losing that delicate sense of discrimination 
 which is the cause of intense pleasure, and that it is seeking, 
 through an increase of quantity and stimulation, to obtain a 
 substitute for what it has lost. 
 
 The reduction of the appetite is also made evident by the 
 increase in the variety of drinks. Men with strong appetites 
 have only one favorite drink, and look down upon those who 
 use another kind. To drink several different liquors in succes- 
 sion shows a loss of appetite, since with a weak appetite the 
 point of satiety for one drink is reached long before the craving 
 for liquor is satisfied. 
 
 With tobacco, also, the effects of weaker appetites can be 
 noticed. The disuse of snuffing and chewing shows that the 
 coarser uses of tobacco have become disgusting, and this would 
 not happen, if the appetite had not been reduced. The in- 
 creased use of strong tobacco for smoking is an evidence of the 
 same change that is shown by the greater use of strong drinks. 
 The mass of the tobacco no longer comes from Cuba, or other 
 localities, noted for the fine flavors of their product, but from
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 15 
 
 Wisconsin, Connecticut or other regions growing the coarser 
 tobacco. The use of cigarettes tells the same story, since in 
 this way even the stems of the leaf can be smoked. 
 
 I do not, however, wish to infer that every increase of va- 
 riety in food reduces the intensity of pleasure derived from it. 
 The intensity of feeling obtained by consuming the first por- 
 tions of each kind of food, may be as great as ever, and still 
 the feeling of satiety for this kind of food, be reached much 
 more quickly than if this one article of food was the sole diet. 
 The pleasure derived from the first portions is somewhat re- 
 duced in the refined man ; yet the most remarkable change is 
 the quickness with which the point of satiety is reached. A 
 small portion is delightful ; but a mere mass is disgusting to 
 him. To his ancestors, however, quantity was an element of 
 pleasure. They could make a whole meal of one article, and 
 enjoy it to the end. 
 
 The appetite of a person is strong in whom the point of 
 satiety for some one article is not reached until the stomach is 
 filled. A person who can make a whole meal of soup is a good 
 example. A diet of salt pork and potatoes shows a like appe- 
 tite. A preference for fat meats, and especially for food fried 
 in fat, tells the same story. The love of a boiled dinner, where 
 the articles are cooked together in a way to give them a com- 
 mon flavor, has the same cause. In short, the stronger the 
 appetite, the fewer the articles to which the appetite is limited. 
 Other articles are shut out because the intensity of the pleasure 
 derived from this accustomed food remains greater to the end 
 than that secured from other articles. With a strong appetite, 
 there is a long and complete satisfaction of some one desire, 
 followed by a dormant sleepy state, until the appetite is again 
 revived by hunger. The boa constrictor furnishes an extreme 
 case of this class of appetites, as it has but little life unless 
 hungry. 
 
 A person with a weak appetite may be healthy, but the point 
 of satiety for any one article is reached so quickly that several 
 articles must be eaten to supply the needs of the system. Such 
 a person in eating, always changes back and forth rapidly from 
 one dish to another so as to revive his appetite by the taste of
 
 1 6 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 some new dish. A few bites from any one dish "satisfy him, and 
 this desire does not come back until it has been "restored by 
 trying some other dish. The desire to drink constantly while 
 eating has the same cause. In this way, a new vigor is given 
 to the appetite by the sudden change in feeling which a fresh, 
 cool, or a very hot drink will produce. To have a weak appe- 
 tite means to enjoy intensely and to tire quickly. No one 
 pleasure will continually satisfy such an appetite without any 
 change to other pleasures. The strength of the appetite is de- 
 termined not so much by what a person enjoys, as by the rap- 
 idity with which he tires of each pleasure. 
 
 This difference may be illustrated by letting the various ar- 
 ticles of food be represented by a, 6, and c, with each of which 
 a co-efficient is joined showing the degree of intensity of feel- 
 ing derived from its consumption. Suppose a man with a 
 strong appetite derives twelve degrees of intensity from the 
 first portion consumed while a man with a weaker appetite de- 
 rives eight similar degrees. As the pleasure from succeeding 
 portions would be less, we might have the following order in 
 consumption : 
 
 Strong appetite one article, 
 
 I2a, n#, lOtf, 90, 8a, yfl, 6a, ^a, 4a, $a, 2a, la, dormant state. 
 Weak appetite three articles, 
 
 8a, 85, 8c, 70,, yd, 6c, 50, 4^, y, point of satiety. 
 
 With the first person the point of satiety is not reached until 
 the stomach is so loaded that he becomes drowsy. The second 
 person avoids the reduction of pleasure as long as possible by 
 a change of food. I put the point of satiety after three units 
 of pleasure, because with a weak appetite a reaction against 
 food sets in, by which the pleasure of eating is quickly cut off 
 at the close of the meal. It is of course arbitrary to put this 
 reaction at three units, since the weaker the appetite the higher 
 will the unit be. 
 
 We have now the leading causes which reduce the strength 
 of our appetites. A regular supply of food prevents the recur- 
 rence of seasons of scarcity and plenty. An extended use of 
 machinery and of natural agents lessens the need of muscular 
 exertion. Well-constructed buildings, adequate clothing, and
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 17 
 
 cheap fuel reduce the supply of carbonaceous food required to 
 keep our bodies warm. The great variety in our food allows 
 each article to supplement the others in such a way that a small 
 quantity of food will supply all our bodily needs. From these 
 causes combined, there must be many important changes in the 
 choice we make between different kinds of food. Many dis- 
 turbing causes retard these changes, and obscure the results 
 under the new conditions in which men now live ; yet with 
 every marked improvement in economic affairs, the temporary 
 causes, even though still prominent, lose some of their power. 
 The prominent laws of consumption are becoming more evident, 
 and force men into a more complete harmony with their new 
 environment. Our appetites must in time feel the effects of this 
 new economic environment, and be gradually reduced until the 
 point of satiety will be reached as soon as the needs of the sys- 
 tem are satisfied. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF THE COST OF COMMODITIES UPON THEIR 
 CONSUMPTION. 
 
 In the preceding section I have dealt solely with the causes 
 that determine the amount of happiness derived from the con- 
 sumption of food. It would seem that when we have fi^ed the 
 intensity of our desire for food and other commodities, the laws 
 of the consumption of wealth would also be determined. What 
 can look more plausible than that we should satisfy our most 
 intense desires first ? And if we do this, can we not determine 
 the intensity of each desire from the order in which we demand 
 commodities for consumption ? This reasoning, however, con- 
 tains a serious error, since from the whole intensity of a pleas- 
 ure the amount of pain any way connected with it must be de- 
 ducted before we can determine its relative position among our 
 pleasures. The desire to avoid pain influences our actions as 
 greatly as does the desire to obtain happiness. We endeavor 
 not to get the greatest amount of happiness regardless of pain,
 
 1 8 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 but to secure the greatest balance of happiness above the pain. 
 This distinction is of the greatest importance in economic af- 
 fairs because the wealth we enjoy is not the free gift of nature. 
 We get what we consume as the result of severe toil, and the 
 pains incident to production modify our demand for commodi- 
 ties. 
 
 To illustrate my meaning, let us picture the action of an in- 
 dividual at a free dinner, where all the dainties of the season 
 were at his disposal. What articles of food would he choose 
 first ? Evidently those which gave him the greatest pleasure. 
 When his desire for these articles was satisfied, or when the de- 
 gree of their utility to him was greatly reduced, he would con- 
 sume other articles for which his appetite was not so strong. 
 The final degree of utility of any article would rapidly decline, 
 and hence a great many different article would be consumed. 
 
 In contrast with the action of this individual at a free dinner, 
 let us picture his actions at an ordinary dinner for which he 
 must pay. He will now consume a very different set of articles 
 from those he consumed at a free dinner. The knowledge that 
 a given article of which he is very fond costs twice or three 
 times as much as some other article for which his desire is 
 much less, will usually cause him to eat the latter article, even 
 though his appetite for it is much weaker. Many of the costly 
 articles of which he partook largely at the free dinner will not 
 come into his ordinary dinner at all, while other articles will 
 seldom appear on his table, and then be eaten very sparingly. 
 
 From these illustrations it can be seen that there are two dis- 
 tinct orders in which we choose commodities for consumption. 
 One of these we may term the natural order, as it is the order 
 in which men choose commodities for consumption when influ- 
 enced solely by those ultimate physiological conditions which 
 make the consumption of some commodities more pleasurable 
 than others. The second we may term the economic order, be- 
 cause this is the order in which men choose commodities for 
 consumption when their natural desire for an article is modi- 
 fied by the amount of labor required to produce it. If the 
 labor required to produce an article were always in proportion 
 to the utility derived from its consumption, these two orders
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 19 
 
 would be identical. It is, however, seldom true that the con- 
 sumption of the product of a week's work in the production of 
 wheat will give the same amount of pleasure as does the prod- 
 uct of a week's work in the production of corn, rice, tobacco, 
 cloth or cutlery. Although the consumption of wheat may 
 give a more intense pleasure to a man than that of rice, he will 
 consume rice if work in a rice field is so much more productive 
 than work in a wheat-field that the pleasure derived from the 
 consumption of rice, in proportion to its cost, is greater than 
 the pleasure derived from the consumption of wheat in propor- 
 tion to its cost. Suppose that eight units of pleasure are de- 
 rived from a dinner composed of wheat- bread, and that six units 
 of pain are required for its production ; while a dinner of rice 
 gave four units of pleasure and costs but two units of pain. In 
 this case the dinner of rice would be chosen, since the ratio of 
 the pleasure to the pain would be greater than if wheat were 
 consumed. A man under economic conditions will first choose 
 that article which'has the highest ratio of pleasure to pain, and 
 then other articles will be chosen in that order which allows the 
 highest ratios to stand first. For pleasure we can substitute 
 utility, and for pain the cost in labor, and then we can say that 
 men, in choosing articles, are determined by the ratio of their 
 cost to their utility. 
 
 It may seem a little abstract to think of estimating the ratio 
 of the cost of commodities to their utility ; yet, in a concrete 
 way, it is what every family does continually. Our unit of 
 cost is the dollar, and our measure of utility is the pleasure we 
 get from a dollar's worth of any commodity. A dollar's worth 
 of beef is compared with the same value in pork, mutton, cab- 
 bage, or potatoes. We do not simply choose the article we like 
 best without regard to the quantity which a dollar will buy. 
 We hesitate in purchasing until we decide whether the quantity 
 of one article which a dollar can procure will give us a more 
 pleasant dinner than a dollar's worth of some other article. 
 The dollar and the pleasure we can get from what a dollar will 
 purchase of the various articles never ceases to influence us. 
 Thus we continually compare the cost of commodities with their 
 utility; even though no use is made of so abstract a formula.
 
 20 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 The reduction in the cost of sugar deserves especial atten- 
 tion, because the change in its value has been so recent that 
 the great economic effects of the change are just beginning to 
 reveal themselves. In the past, sugar has been so costly that 
 it has always been ranked among the luxuries, and from force 
 of habit it is still so regarded by most persons. Its price is now 
 so reduced that the cost of a pound of sugar is but little more 
 than that of a pound of flour, and there are good reasons to 
 suppose that its price will soon be reduced below that of flour. 
 The effects of this change must in time revolutionize our pres- 
 ent diet. Most of our fruits and many of our vegetables become 
 palatable only through a free use of sugar, and it is of as much 
 importance to the utilization of these fruits and vegetables as 
 salt and ice are to the preservation of meat. When present 
 prejudices and habits which limit the use of sugar give way, 
 and the tax is removed, the increase in the use of our fruits and 
 vegetables must be as great as that which the use of salt and 
 ice has caused in the case of meat. 
 
 The rapid increase in the use of sugar is now worthy of espe- 
 cial attention, because of its connection with the temperance 
 movement. In past times the diet of the ordinary laborer was 
 made palatable only through the free use of liquor. It was 
 the pleasure-giving portion of the meal, the other coarse and 
 usually ill-prepared articles being washed down by its use. As 
 no other highly pleasurable diet was within the laborer's 
 means, the use of liquor could not be greatly reduced without 
 making his diet unendurable. Now, however, all this is 
 changed. The low price of sugar places a satisfying diet 
 within the means of every one, and it is now much easier than 
 formerly to persuade people to forego the use of liquor, when 
 an equally pleasurable diet can be obtained from other sources. 
 The temperance people as a class live on a sugar diet, sugar 
 being that part of their diet from which they derive the greater 
 part of their pleasure. As consumers, they form a distinct class, 
 and have an order of consumption radically different from their 
 liquor-loving neighbors. With every reduction in the price of 
 sugar, they gain an increasing advantage in the struggle for 
 life over the drinking class, and the day does not seem far dis-
 
 The Consumption oj Wealth. 21 
 
 tant when the cheapness of their diet will give them an indus- 
 trial supremacy in the greater part of the field of employment. 
 
 I do not, however, wish to assert that all the effects of the 
 increased use of sugar are advantageous to the consumer. A 
 greater consumption of sugar is a good in the sense that it will 
 prove beneficial to the race, even though it may injure many 
 individuals. Improved consumption has its evils no less than 
 improved production. The strong appetite for sweets which 
 many persons have, doubtless injures their health. The ten- 
 dency of cheap sugar will be to weaken and then to destroy 
 these persons, thus leaving the world to those who have less 
 desire for sugar. Sugar may in time prove so injurious that the 
 moral reaction against it will be as strong as it now is against 
 liquor and tobacco ; yet this fact would prove still more clearly 
 the great change in the appetites of men which the free use of 
 sugar for a long time had made. The long-continued use of 
 liquor has changed the appetites of its users ; should men en- 
 tirely cease to drink liquor, the modification in the appetite 
 which it has caused will be permanent, and as a whole they 
 will be better off for what the race has gone through, even 
 though it has destroyed so many individuals. When the re- 
 duction in the price of sugar has had its full effect upon the 
 race, another great change in appetite will be caused. All men 
 will be better consumers, because their weaker appetites will 
 compel them to resort to a greater variety of food to supply the 
 demands of their systems. Many articles which we now eat 
 only when they are sweetened, will not go out of use when the 
 craving for sugar is reduced. We shall gradually learn to 
 enjoy them for their own taste, and thus make them a part of 
 the standard of life. 
 
 Our present appetite for sugar may be compared with that of 
 the Esquimaux for fat. They drink oil with flie relish that we 
 eat candy. Their love for fat, however, is no wonder when we 
 recollect the nature of the climate and the limitation of their 
 food supply. Nature must give them a keen appetite for an 
 article to which their diet is limited and for which they have a 
 great need. Change the environment and give them a greater 
 variety of food, and they will lose their love for fats and oils.
 
 22 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 This appetite for fat is a characteristic of primitive men. 
 Only a few centuries ago fat meat had a higher price than the 
 lean. The change from fat to butter, and from molasses to 
 granulated sugar, shows the growing delicacy of the taste of 
 modern men. Just as a new environment with a more varied 
 supply of food has changed the love for fat into a feeling of 
 disgust, so is the craving for liquor and tobacco changing to a 
 feeling of aversion, and in the future the desire for sugar and 
 other strong appetites may go the same way. 
 
 It must, however, be kept in mind that the relative cost of 
 different articles, as indicated by their market-price, does not 
 by itself furnish sufficient grounds for correctly estimating the 
 relation of cost to utility. The utility of the various articles 
 desired often changes from causes which do not affect their 
 value. To those who think only of their immediate wants, 
 cheap and shoddy articles have a much greater utility than 
 they Have to those having high regard for their future welfare. 
 The choice between substantial articles of apparel or of house- 
 hold furniture, and their cheap imitations, which can only 
 supply present needs, is largely determined by the estimate 
 which the consumer has of his future needs ; and as his regard 
 for the future increases, the utility of substantial articles will 
 also increase, even though there is no change in their market 
 value. The utility of any article of food also largely depends 
 upon the ability of housekeepers to cook it properly. The 
 great consumption of meat and wheat-bread among Americans 
 is largely due to the ignorance of their cooks, who do not 
 usually possess sufficient skill to make ordinary vegetables pal- 
 atable. The influence of good cooking is readily seen in the 
 change which naturally takes place in the diet of an American 
 when he goes to France or Germany. Those who at home 
 rarely eat any vegetable other than potatoes will, in France or 
 Germany, freely consume all kinds of vegetables, for the simple 
 reason that the cooking is so superior that a taste is soon 
 acquired for many dishes against which the poor cooking of 
 his own country had given him a prejudice. 
 
 In the future the real luxuries of the diet will depend upon 
 the skill in cooking more than upon the possession of some rare
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 23 
 
 article. Nature seldom furnishes a simple dish which has all 
 the qualities needed to excite a delicate taste. We must learn 
 how to manufacture agreeable dishes out of cheap foods just as 
 we have learned to make the finest goods out of the cheapest 
 raw material. Skilled labor can increase the utility of food as 
 much as it can that of wool or iron. With every advance in 
 the art of cooking, a greater use of cheaper food can be made. 
 Just as our efficient employers utilize our cheap laborers, so will 
 efficient cooks utilize, in the future, our cheap foods. The 
 simple dishes of our forefathers will be displaced by more com- 
 posite ones having the same elements combined in a more har- 
 moniuos manner. In the same way that butter is now made 
 from cheap materials, or olive oil from cotton seeds, other costly 
 articles can be imitated which will combine the substances 
 needed by our system in a more scientific way. 
 
 There is a prejudice against cheap foods because they are as- 
 sociated in our minds with undiversified living of a plain char- 
 acter. We think of the New Englander making a frugal meal 
 from corn-bread, the Irishman longing for his potatoes, or the 
 Chinese satisfied with his rice. It is, however, overlooked that 
 a diet mainly of corn, potatoes or rice, is only possible for a 
 people who have strong appetites. When their appetites are 
 reduced through the effects of a better use of the food supply, 
 the one article of their former diet becomes distasteful to them 
 before they have eaten enough to satisfy the demands of their 
 system. They are now compelled to make use of variety in 
 their diet, and use more skill in cooking. Variety in food and 
 improved cooking are the only compensations which men can 
 find for the reduction in the strength of their appetites. Men, 
 however, resort to them in vain to increase the pleasure de- 
 rived from food, since every increase in their use only results 
 in a further reduction of the appetite. When these causes are 
 once put in operation, their is no limit to their action until 
 cooking becomes a science, and the best use is made of all the 
 land.
 
 24 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE CAUSES OBSCURING THE PRIMARY LAWS OF 
 CONSUMPTION. 
 
 It has been shown that the effect of regular and varied diet, 
 and other causes which lessen the need of food, tend to reduce 
 the appetite for food, and lead to the evolution of a man of 
 weaker appetites and passions. If the point of satiety adjusts 
 itself to the needs of the system, it must be reached more 
 quickly by men who have the smaller need for food. Yet the 
 results of past experience do not seem to support this doctrine ; 
 the strong races who have vigorous appetites have been suc- 
 cessful in displacing their weaker neighbors who demand less 
 food. And among the individuals of the more advanced 
 nations, the men with keen appetites and powerful passions 
 have usually been those who were leaders in progress as well 
 in intellectual as in muscular occupations. These and similar 
 facts have to be faced. They cannot be denied, yet, perhaps, 
 they can be explained. To show why progress has been ac- 
 complished in apparent opposition to the primary laws of con- 
 sumption, it is necessary to go back to primitive times. Only 
 by studying the condition and environment of our distant an- 
 cestors, can we get the facts which explain the apparent para- 
 dox. The primitive man was indolent, and would not work 
 unless forced to action by urgent present needs. Under such 
 conditions, those nations who had the strongest appetites were 
 most likely to work ; they would be more willing to submit to 
 the conditions of regular industry, and the desire to accumulate 
 capital would develop earlier among them than among the less 
 vigorous nations. These advantages are so great that nations 
 possessing them have not much difficulty in driving out other 
 nations who lack the essential qualities for a higher civilization. 
 
 So long as the more vigorous people of a nation obtain an 
 advantage by more work, there is a tendency for a progress in 
 civilization to be accompanied by a survival of that portion of 
 the people who have the strongest appetites. The men whose 
 simple wants can be supplied by a few hours work, each week,
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 25 
 
 must give way to those whose desires are so much stronger that 
 they are willing to work many hours each day to gratify their 
 appetites. The first problem in primitive times was to create 
 wants in men strong enough to induce them to work. For this 
 reason, the appetite for liquor and tobacco was often beneficial 
 in past times. The desire for such articles is so intense that 
 the user was forced into regular habits of work to secure the 
 means by which this appetite could be satisfied. Vigorous ap- 
 petites, and even abnormal cravings for stimulants are thus of 
 use to a progressive civilization, so long as the people are ac- 
 quiring habits of industry. They cease to be an element in 
 progress as soon as a further increase of the hours of daily labor 
 cannot add to the productive power of the nation. 
 
 Among the higher races, the average man is not lazy or in- 
 dolent. His productive power would be greater if he would 
 work fewer hours. Certainly no one can claim that a street-car 
 conductor who works fifteen hours a day through all the year, 
 can be made a better man by a further increase of his appetites. 
 The present strength of his appetites is forcing him to earn his 
 living in a way which must injure him. Is it probable that 
 his children will have any advantage in the struggle for life by 
 which they can excel the children of his neighbor, who refuses 
 to work so long each day ? Can he, by creating in himself a 
 craving for liquor and tobacco, add more hours to his daily 
 labor in a way that he can benefit himself and the nation. It 
 is no longer with the civilized man a problem of labor or idle- 
 ness ; the trouble is that he is so willing to work that he injures 
 himself. He thus weakens his children, and makes them less 
 fitted to survive. 
 
 The vital question of to-day is to decide what can be con- 
 sumed so as to give the greatest sum of happiness for an 
 honest day's work. When a choice must be made between 
 different pleasures, strong appetites are no advantage. Those 
 who possess them no longer have an advantage over those who 
 have weaker appetites and thus make a better use of the food 
 supply. 
 
 Another prominent cause which obscures the operation of the 
 laws of consumption, is the large amount of migration both
 
 26 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 from the lower to the higher nations,. and from the older to the 
 newer countries. The immigrant to the newer countries is of 
 that class who have the strongest appetites. Men are not at- 
 tracted to America because they can have more music or art to 
 enjoy, or for any similar motive. They come to get more to 
 eat and to drink, or for other material ends. We thus have 
 added to our population a powerful element which directs pro- 
 duction and consumption along other channels than it would 
 have gone, had no foreign element been introduced. The ten- 
 dencies of American civilization are covered up by the presence 
 of those who have not been influenced by the American envi- 
 ronment. We apparently have stronger appetites than for- 
 merly, merely because an average is struck between those who 
 eat and drink less, and others who subordinate everything to 
 the cravings of their appetites. In spite of the rapidly grow- 
 ing class who do not use liquor or tobacco, larger quantities of 
 these articles are used than before. 
 
 The constant migration from the country to the city, helps 
 also to conceal the effect which their environment has upon city 
 people. They do less work, and rely more upon fuel and cloth- 
 ing for protection, than do those who live upon farms. The 
 constant influx of country people hides the evidence of that 
 reduction of appetite which naturally follows from the great 
 change in environment. In this case, a false conclusion is 
 again drawn, by averaging the new elements of the population 
 with those families who for many generations have been subject 
 to the influence of city life. 
 
 The present system of taxation is also a leading cause pre- 
 venting a clear perception of the strong tendencies now at work 
 forcing men to modify their appetites and change the form of 
 their consumption. There is so strong a dislike of taxation 
 that every possible means is resorted to, through which the 
 burden of taxation can be transferred to some other class, or at 
 least, hidden from view. The problem statesmen have to solve, 
 is not that of burdening the public as little as possible, but of 
 laying taxes where they will be least seen and felt. As a re- 
 sult, those articles which have been the most reduced in price, 
 are made to bear the greatest amount of taxation. This is es-
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 27 
 
 pecially true of sugar, tobacco, and liquor, which are regarded 
 as luxuries by the public. While this mode of taxation has 
 some temporary advantage, yet it is the cause of great ultimate 
 evils. If all articles were taxed by the Government to an 
 amount equal to the reduction in their cost, there would be 
 no change in the relative cost of commodities, and no modifi- 
 cation in the order of their consumption. Society would re- 
 main stationery and lose all the advantages coming from the 
 reduction of old appetites and the growth of new pleasures. 
 Doubtless some new evils to individuals are avoided in this 
 way, but the public, as a whole, pays too high a price for this 
 exemption, when it is accomplished by checking the orderly 
 growth of society. 
 
 In the case of sugar, a wholesome article is kept out of gen- 
 eral use, and many other articles which need sugar to make 
 their taste agreeable, cannot become a part of the daily diet of 
 the people. Men are thus kept from that gradual modification 
 in the variety of their diet which reduces the appetite, and 
 allows a better use of the land. By taking the tax from sugar, 
 the resulting increase in the productive power would give to the 
 next generation so much more income that ten times the present 
 taxation could be levied with no increase of the burden. 
 
 Even with liquor and tobacco, where the evils of their in- 
 creased use are most apparent, the public suffers a great loss 
 from futile efforts to check their consumption, through an in- 
 crease of their cost. The craving for them is so strong that 
 there is no hope of limiting their use except by such a reduc- 
 tion of the income of the consumers that they cannot buy as 
 much as they desire. And even if the policy could succeed, 
 it would prevent that development in men which can only 
 come through the reduction of the appetite. The source of the 
 evil lies in having strong appetites and not in gratifying them. 
 As long as the desire is so strong it will be gratified at the ex- 
 pense of all other desires. Cheaper liquor and tobacco would 
 not increase the evils which society suffers from them. Put a 
 man under conditions where he can get but half the liquor he 
 wants, and he and his family will drag out a miserable exist- 
 ence ; let him have all he can drink, and if he would live he
 
 28 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 will be forced to reform. Hard drinking is one road to no 
 drinking, because the full satisfaction which follows, weakens 
 the appetite and strengthens the moral reaction against the 
 habit. 
 
 Society, therefore, has nothing to gain from an artificial in- 
 crease in the cost of liquor and tobacco. The nation will not 
 be in a sound condition until the appetites of men are so re- 
 duced that they will have no desire for such coarse pleasures. 
 High taxes may retard the self-destruction of individuals, but 
 they cannot lessen the number of the victims of these habits. 
 They become, moreover, a source of great evil by obscuring 
 the primary laws of consumption, and thus keeping the public 
 from seeing the only solution of this problem. 
 
 The fourth great cause which keeps the appetites of men so 
 strong in spite of the effects of the primary laws of consump- 
 tion, is to be sought in the extended use of cheap labor by 
 which modern productive processes are accompanied. The 
 introduction of machinery, and of production on a large scale, 
 enables employers to make use of a much lower class of 
 labor than they formerly could. With each extension of the 
 division of labor to some new department, many of the higher 
 class of laborers must give up their places to those of a much 
 lower class. The constant increase of the lowest class of 
 laborers in all our industries shows how strong are the influ- 
 ences which compel the employer to reach continually for a 
 still lower class of laborers. These lower classes of laborers, 
 however, are nearer the condition of primitive men, and have 
 stronger appetites and passions than those classes have that 
 they have displaced. 
 
 For these reasons, the results of improved production seem to 
 strengthen the position of those economists who claim that the 
 appetites of men increase with the advance of civilization. 
 Yet all the facts upon which this opinion is based may be ad- 
 mitted without modifying any of those ultimate laws of con- 
 sumption which have been presented. The effects of a better 
 consumption cannot become prominent until the changes which 
 society must expect from strong appetites have been com- 
 pleted. The good effect of strong appetites upon men in the
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 29 
 
 earlier stages of their development, cannot receive too much 
 emphasis. They must first learn to work regularly, and to save 
 and economize their resources. And for this purpose there is 
 no means so efficient as to have such strong appetites that their 
 wants will vastly exceed the quantity of commodities which 
 their labor can supply. Men must feel keenly the pressure of 
 unsatisfied wants before they will work regularly at home, 
 or seek to better their fortunes in other lands. Strong ap- 
 petites force men into occupations and localities where their 
 dread of work is surpassed by the pleasure derived from what 
 they produce themselves. They thus cease to depend solely 
 upon the bounties of nature, and gradually discover that reg- 
 ular production furnishes to them the least objectionable way 
 of supplying their wants. 
 
 As their mental habits and muscular powers are gradually 
 modified to meet these new conditions, a larger number of ob- 
 jects have to them so low a cost of production that the pains 
 of production are less than the pleasure of consumption. They 
 are thus induced to increase their hours of labor until they 
 reach the time-limit of highest efficiency of labor. Further ad- 
 ditions to the hours of labor will be a damage to society, and 
 those persons will suffer the most from over-work whose appe- 
 tites are the strongest. 
 
 When the time-limit of highest efficiency of labor is reached, 
 society enters upon a new epoch in its development. Strong 
 appetites cease to be an element of strength, and become a 
 source of weakness. At this point, the primary laws of con- 
 sumption become the controlling forces in further progress, 
 while the disturbing causes sink to their true position. 
 
 In American civilization, at least, it looks as though the time- 
 limit of highest efficiency of labor has been passed by a large 
 class of its inhabitants, while another large class still needs the 
 goading impulses to action which strong appetites alone can 
 give. There is thus a conflict between the interests of the two 
 classes ; the one class is trying to use America merely as a 
 means of gratifying the craving of their intense desires for 
 food and drink, while the other class seeks to restrain their 
 appetites, and force production into channels through which a
 
 30 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 greater variety of growing desires can be gratified. This con- 
 flict lies in the nature of the transitory state through which we 
 are now passing ; and when it is ended we shall have clear evi- 
 dence as to what is the ultimate time-limit of efficient labor. 
 Should it be proved that additional hours of labor cannot in- 
 crease the gross produce without injuring the laborer, it will at 
 the same time be shown that those persons who have an intense 
 desire for a few articles, no longer have an advantage over those 
 whose weaker appetites force them to resort to a greater variety 
 in consumption. 
 
 It may be a question whether we have yet reached the time- 
 limit of efficiency, but there can be no doubt that there is such 
 a limit, which must be soon reached, in the progress of our 
 race. When it is passed, the ultimate laws of consumption will 
 be as clearly seen in their effect upon society, as the laws of 
 production are at present. Inductive evidence will then be 
 added to the deductive proof we now have, and every one will 
 see that the laws of consumption are as worthy a study as the 
 laws of production or distribution. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE GROWTH OP NEW PLEASURES. 
 
 It is the first principle of all choice in consumption that we 
 seek to gratify our most intense desires first. The ^action of 
 this principle, if it were not aided by secondary causes, would 
 not encourage the growth of new pleasures until the strength 
 of our appetites was so reduced that more pleasure would be 
 obtained in other ways. The higher sources of pleasure exist 
 in the primitive man merely in a rudimentary state. The ap- 
 petites of man would therefore have to be reduced to a mini- 
 mum before other pleasures could secure the needed conditions 
 for their growth. We are yet too far from such a minimum to 
 assume that the growth of new pleasures has been solely due 
 to the changes in our appetites. Even at an early date some of 
 the higher pleasures become important factors in human wel-
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 31 
 
 fare. The peculiar conditions of various civilizations have 
 furnished the means by which single pleasures developed an 
 intensity that greatly exceeded that of the primitive desires. 
 What these conditions are which hasten the growth of higher 
 pleasures, must be discovered before the causes of past progress 
 can be explained. 
 
 One of the most powerful of these conditions lies in the 
 irregularity of the food supply to primitive men. The disas- 
 trous effects of famine, through which they must frequently 
 pass is not entirely forgotten during the seasons of plenty. The 
 memory of past suffering creates a desire to provide for future 
 welfare. The intensity of the desire for food thus becomes the 
 source from which a new pleasure arises. This new pleasure 
 of having the future provided for, gradually grows until it is 
 strong enough to check the wasteful use of present resources. 
 It then becomes so powerful that the pleasures of indolence 
 and idleness are displaced by active habits, reducing the dread 
 of regular work. With the growth of new habits, a longer 
 period of abstinence will offer fewer obstacles, and the pain of 
 regular labor becomes reduced. Should the difficulties at the 
 start be very great, as they are likely to be in a tropical country, 
 but little progress can be made ; only in colder regions where 
 nature is less powerful, can all the variety of natural conditions 
 be found through whose utilization a gradual progress can be 
 made from the shortest to the longest periods of deferred con- 
 sumption. 
 
 The growth of esthetic feeling during the earlier stage of 
 civilization while the appetites are yet strong, also needs the 
 favoring influence of peculiar economic conditions. The initial 
 stages in the development of a new faculty must be made easy 
 by a graded series of steps, along which a people can be carried 
 without great efforts on their part. During the first stage in 
 the development of a new series, the environment of the people 
 must in some form furnish the desired objects free of cost, or so 
 nearly so, that the needed effort does not seriously diminish the 
 power of the individual to secure the means of subsistence. 
 This result can be secured in various ways. It is not at all 
 necessary that the articles should have a small cost of produc-
 
 32 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 tion, if the consumer is in any way deceived so that he is not 
 conscious that he is making a choice between these articles and 
 food for which his desire is so much greater. Religion, national 
 feeling, and other powerful motives which do not have economic 
 causes, often come in to distract the attention from economic 
 considerations ; and thus secure the appropriations of large 
 sums of wealth for higher purposes which would have been 
 expended for food or shelter, if each individual had consciously 
 chosen between the two classes of objects. The peculiar tribal 
 relations of the earty races for this reason were very conducive 
 to the growth of new pleasures. Each person was not an in- 
 dividual, making choices for himself alone ; he was so bound 
 up in his tribal relations that he did not distinctly feel the 
 burden which the new pleasure imposed upon him. The 
 egoism of each person was thus prevented from exerting that 
 influence which it would have done, had the social relations 
 been upon an individual basis. The larger groups of partici- 
 pants in common pleasures, which the tribal relations permit, 
 also allow many new gratifications which would be too costly 
 for the family or the individual of to-day. 
 
 The unequal distribution of wealth which shows itself so 
 early in the progress from barbarism, operates in the same man- 
 ner. The favored classes can satisfy to the fullest extent their 
 appetites and passions without exhausting their revenues. 
 They are thus induced to seek new pleasures which cannot be 
 gratified by other persons. This caste-making spirit is of great 
 utility to primitive races. To the pleasure of consuming an 
 article is added another pleasure, arising from the social posi- 
 tion which the possession of this article gives to its owner. 
 This second pleasure has much greater force than the first, and 
 acts as a powerful check upon the primitive appetites. Without 
 this exclusive spirit, the growth of higher pleasures would 
 have been greatly retarded. Music and literature could not 
 have their present influence with men, but for the patronage of 
 wealthy families seeking some exclusive mark by which they 
 could be distinguished from the common people. 
 
 Among primitive peoples, new desires had for these reasons 
 many powerful influences which aided their growth ; yet it is
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 33 
 
 misleading to view these causes as the primary ones, and over- 
 look the peculiarities of the environment, through which some 
 pleasures have so small a cost that they can be enjoyed without 
 a large reduction of the food supply. The climate is the de- 
 termining cause which decides whether, or not, outdoor sports 
 can become popular. Had Greece had a variable continental 
 climate with sudden violent changes of the weather she would 
 not have perfected those athletic sports and games which formed 
 so prominent a part in her development. Had Athens also a 
 location like St. Petersburg, the climate would have destroyed 
 her statues so quickly that it is not likely that the artists would 
 have been encouraged to make them. Music is not an early 
 period cheap enough to become popular unless the climate is of 
 such a character that the voice is clear and pure. With a free 
 instrument of so much value the basis is secured upon which 
 the future progress of the favored nations rests. 
 
 It is not enough, however, for the development of a new 
 pleasure, that it should be free at the start. Its full develop- 
 ment may be prevented if the necessary conditions for its 
 growth are very costly. The cost can gradually be increased 
 as the strength of the desire grows ; yet should the cost increase 
 more rapidly than the pleasure develops, the condition of future 
 progress is taken away. The climate of Greece and Rome 
 allowed theatrical entertainments to be in the open air, and the 
 strong imaginations of the people gave a realistic character to 
 their simple plays, which at the present time can be secured 
 only by costly costumes and apparatus. It is hard to see how 
 the opera and the drama could have reached their present de- 
 velopment without those favorable conditions attending their 
 development by which they were so nearly free at first, and 
 during the subsequent stages of progress, their cost increased 
 more slowly than the intensity of the pleasure they give. Of 
 late, however, it would seem that the cost is increasing too 
 rapidly since their higher forms attract an audience only where 
 they are assisted by public or private enterprise. 
 
 If we look to American conditions, the causes will be found 
 at work favoring the development of pleasures, which to us are 
 cheap or free, and retarding the growth of other pleasures not
 
 34 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 favored by our present environment. Art and taste have now 
 peculiar advantages which they have seldom or never before 
 enjoyed. The processes of invention have cheapened the pro- 
 cess of reproducing pictures and brought the beautiful within 
 the reach of all. So cheap are many kinds of pictures that 
 they are largely distributed as means of advertisements. Every- 
 where the homes of the poorest people are full of beautiful 
 objects, many of which have no cost ; and when their taste is 
 improved by contact with these objects, others more suited to 
 their new condition can be obtained at a slight increase of cost. 
 
 The improvements in machinery have also caused the factory- 
 made cloth to displace the unattractive homespun cloth. From 
 the many varieties of color and figure, each person can choose 
 the article which is most becoming without any increase in 
 cost. The conditions are thus secured, under which the taste 
 can develop, and it will soon become strong enough to create a 
 large demand for the best products of the art. 
 
 The development of a greater love for music will, I fear, 
 meet serious obstacles. Climatic conditions in America do not 
 seem favorable to the best use of the voice. The kinds of 
 musical instruments which could educate the public taste are 
 costly, and require from the player a vast outlay of time and 
 labor before they can be skilfully used. The conditions under 
 which concerts and* operas are given make them very costly, 
 since music in the open air is impossible during the greater part 
 of the year on account of our variable climate. The people 
 in the country places, and even in the smaller cities, have no 
 opportunities to enjoy music outside of the church, where only 
 the simplest songs can be heard. Such meagre facilities, 
 coupled with the high cost of good instruments, are not likely 
 to do much to cultivate a love for music ; hence we cannot 
 make the progress in this direction that seems possible in mat- 
 ters of taste and dress. 
 
 It may at first sight seem strange to judge that the love of 
 good music will not grow in America where there is so large a 
 sale of musical instruments. The difficulty does not come from 
 a lack of opportunity to make a start in music, but from the 
 lack of incentive to further progress. There is a great gap
 
 The Consumption of Wealth, 35 
 
 between the simple songs of the church and fireside and the 
 music of the opera and orchestra. The better pieces of music 
 are so seldom heard, even by the few, 'that they exert little in- 
 fluence on the 'public taste. The average musician learns a 
 few simple pieces and struggles on in isolation for a few years 
 only to yield to the inevitable, as soon as the duties of life be- 
 come arduous. Until this isolation is broken up by the cheap- 
 ening of concerts, operas and other means by which the public 
 taste can be elevated to a higher standard, there is no hope of 
 progress, even though a cheap organ be in every house. 
 
 I would not have the reader infer, however, that the love of 
 music will die out. Among a large class of the people this 
 love is now so strong that even the present high cost of music 
 will not prevent them from gratifying their desire for it. It is 
 not probable, however, that the love for music will grow among 
 the classes for whom it now has but little attraction. In some 
 way music, like every other new pleasure, must, for a time, at 
 least, be made free and attractive, before the love of it can be- 
 come universal. Our future progress must, in this, as in other 
 respects, follow the economical lines marked out by our environ- 
 ments. We shall thus, as a people, be less likely to develop 
 in music, the drama, and other pleasures which to us are too 
 costly ; and will seek a compensation in books, pictures, dress 
 and home, of which the cost is relatively so small. 
 
 In Australia, however, there seem to be other conditions 
 from those in America through which a different class of pleas- 
 ures is favored. The climate is so dry, and the temperature so 
 even and moderate, that an out-door life is made most enjoy- 
 able. For this reason, there is, perhaps, no portion of the 
 world where so much attention is devoted to all classes of open- 
 air sources of enjoyment. The people have learned to enjoy 
 field sports heartily, and to have a keen appreciation of athletic 
 games. 
 
 The people of Australia and the United States both received 
 from English ancestors a common stock of customs, habits and 
 pleasures. Were it not for the radical differences in their new 
 environments, they would have developed along the same lines. 
 The rapid and violent changes in American climate, have,
 
 36 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 however, caused the American people to become house animals, 
 who do not, as a rule, even enjoy walking as an exercise ; 
 while the climate of Australia has induced its people to live 
 more in the open air. Under these circumstances, the traits of 
 character inherited from common ancestors are rapidly being 
 displaced by others more fitted to the new environment of each 
 nation. The differences in the pleasures of these nations must 
 in each age show themselves more prominently until in the 
 end their common language will be the only link which binds 
 them together. 
 
 We cannot, I think, lay too much stress upon the effect of 
 the environment of each nation upon its consumption and 
 pleasures. Each nation has a strong tendency to love what its 
 environment can furnish with the least expense. It is not an 
 accident that the Germans like beer and music, while the 
 French love art and wine. Nor could Russia imitate either 
 these nations, if she were to try. Her climate is a barrier to 
 such development, and forces her people into another mode of 
 living. 
 
 And it is still less possible to keep European habits and cus- 
 toms here in America. We have our cheap pleasures which 
 we must cultivate, and our dangerous ones which we must . 
 avoid. The newer classes of immigrants seek to remain Euro- 
 pean in their living ; yet the new environment will be too 
 powerful for them. This new influence is most clearly seen in 
 their drinking habits. However strongly they may cling to 
 their beer or whiskey, in the end they will be forced to give up 
 a habit destructive to them in their new environment. Alco- 
 holic drinks do not fit into American conditions, however 
 much they may be suited to those of some parts of Europe. 
 We must find some other means of satisfying our thirst in a 
 way more in harmony with the soil and climate about us. I 
 do not, however, regard this problem as a simple one of easy 
 solution. Drinking water in America has not often that purity 
 which good health demands. Nor is it likely that men will 
 use as a national drink something that is not a large source of 
 pleasure. The instinct to get pleasure out of everything is 
 too strong to let so great a possibility pass by unused. What
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 37 
 
 Americans can drink to get health and pleasure with a mini- 
 mum of pain and disease, is one of the many difficult problems 
 which they must solve before their civilization can be brought 
 into harmony with the continent upon which they live. 
 
 V, 
 
 THE LOVE OF HOME AND COUNTRY. 
 
 Any explanation of the consumption of wealth and of the 
 motives which influence men in production, is defective if it 
 assumes that men work only for material commodities. The 
 commercial spirit has, during this century, gained such a com- 
 plete control over the way in which men think and act, that we 
 are apt to look upon mankind as engaged solely in a struggle 
 for material ends. The sole question seems to be what mate- 
 rial results can be obtained by each one from his labor. The 
 prominence of these tendencies has favored that school of 
 economists who have created an economic man desiring only 
 material wealth. Such a man furnishes them with an ideal to 
 which they think actual men will more nearly conform in com- 
 ing ages. This point of view has been further strengthened 
 by the growth of that cosmopolitan feeling which would sub- 
 ordinate the nation and the locality to what they deem broader 
 ends. All these national and local ties which have been in the 
 past such powerful incentives to human progress, are regarded 
 as remnants of the feelings of a lower type of men which must 
 be outgrown by the future man. 
 
 This narrow conception of economics is based upon a false 
 analysis of human nature. The pleasures of men are not to 
 be narrowed down to one single controlling desire, but all the 
 possible pleasures are to be developed to their fullest extent. 
 Each of these pleasures appeals to some element in human na- 
 ture ; and that civilization is highest which gratifies the largest 
 number of them. It is not the province of the economist to 
 pick out any one of these desires and study what the world 
 would become if this were the only desire. The real problem
 
 38 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 is to discover what must be the intensity of each pleasure, in 
 order that mankind can enjoy the whole earth with the least 
 labor. I have no objection to an abstract method by which 
 any one motive may be placed in such a prominence that its 
 effects can be clearly seen. Yet the same method should be 
 applied to the study of each motive, and not merely to one 
 only, as is done by those that emphasize the love of material 
 wealth. 
 
 It is therefore a problem of prime importance to determine 
 the place which the love of home, locality, and country will 
 take in the future. Are we to expect each man to become so 
 cosmopolitan that he will lose all those feelings which bind 
 him to the place of his birth ? Will our farms cease to become 
 homes, and he leased at regular intervals to the highest bid- 
 ders ? Or will the attachment to home and land so increase that 
 much of the labor done by their occupants will be done not for 
 a material return, but for the love they bear for the place of 
 their birth ? Our age is full of discussions which bear upon this 
 problem ; yet they do not touch upon the vital issue. They 
 assume the correctness of the cosmopolitan idea, and seek only 
 to enunciate the laws of a world where men of strong passions 
 and appetites use the world solely for material ends. Doubt- 
 less the man who thinks only of beefsteak, beer and tobacco 
 cares little for local attachments and would gravitate readily to 
 places where these luxuries were cheapest. Such men would 
 readily turn out the people of Ireland to get their beef, ruin 
 Virginia to get their tobacco, or change India to a wheatfield 
 to get their bread. Yet in spite of many strong tendencies in 
 their favor, such men may not inherit the earth. They may 
 in the end be driven out by those who have such weak appe- 
 tites that other pleasures will control their actions. It is there- 
 fore of interest to see what economic use can still be made of 
 their feelings, and especially of those which bind men to their 
 homes and localities. None will deny that the influence of 
 such feelings has been very powerful in the past. It is only 
 their influence on future progress that needs investigation. 
 
 The chief impediment to a more rapid social progress doubt- 
 less lies in the slow increase of the products of the soil. The
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 39 
 
 cultivation of new regions and the better use of older local- 
 ities do not proceed rapidly enough to prevent a high price of 
 food. It has been customary to explain this high price by the 
 increased cost of cultivating the newer lands. This view of 
 the problem arises from a double sense in which the term "cost 
 of cultivation " is used. In one sense it means'the amount of 
 labor needed to cultivate a field ; in the other sense it includes 
 also a return on the labor spent in 'making the land tillable. 
 If land is once in cultivation, it will not cease to be used if the 
 return is sufficient to repay the annual cost of cultivation. 
 Upon old land the cost of cultivation is reckoned in this way 
 and the return above this cost is called rent. But no one brings 
 land into caltivation unless the price of food is high enough 
 to pay both for the cost of cultivating the land and for making 
 it tillable. 
 
 For this reason the new lands determine the price of food. 
 The older lands have a large rent simply because no attention 
 is paid to the cost of bringing them into cultivation. I regard 
 this way of estimating rent to be correct ; yet it should not 
 blind us to the fact that the higher cost of production upon 
 newer lands comes from adding elements to that cost which 
 are thrown out when the rent of older land is estimated. If 
 these elements were added it is likely that the average farm 
 would yield no rent. It is just as legitimate for Carey to add 
 the cost of clearing, breaking, road-making, and even the ex- 
 pense of migration to the cost of cultivating the older lands, as 
 it is for Ricardo to add these items to the cost of cultivating 
 the land at the margin of cultivation. Carey shows that no 
 land pays rent by the same method of accounting that Ricardo 
 uses for the last land brought into cultivation. Whether the 
 landowners as a class owe the community, or the community is 
 indebted to the landowners, depends entirely upon how the 
 accounts are kept. It is just as proper to get a return for any 
 one expense in opening up a new section of land, as for any 
 other ; and if they are all added, the price of food would have 
 to be much higher than it now is to give a reasonable return 
 for all the capital invested upon it. No stock company could 
 afford to open up a new country for the return they would get
 
 4O 7~he Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 at the present price of food. All such enterprises have failed, 
 and must fail, from the necessity of the case. Even at the 
 margin of cultivation, the value of land is much below the cost 
 f making it tillable. The equality between the value of the 
 products of such land, and the cost of cultivating it, is obtained 
 by a happy system of book-keeping which adds to the cost 
 of cultivating it just enough of the cost of making it tillable to 
 balance the accounts. If the price of the products of the land 
 happens to be high, a few more items connected with the mak- 
 ing of the land are added ; if it is low, enough of them are 
 omitted to make the value of its products equal to the cost of 
 cultivation. 
 
 We have not in this connection the rent problem to solve, 
 but we have one of equal importance. What motive shall 
 society use to get new land brought into cultivation, and why 
 is the value of land below the cost of making it tillable ? The 
 price of food is too high to say that it is determined by the 
 annual cost of cultivation, and it is too low to say that the cost 
 of making land tillable is one of its necessary elements. 
 
 It is therefore evident that commercial motives are not the 
 only motives which cause men to bring land into cultivation. 
 Farmers do not view their land merely as an instrument of 
 production upon which they will work for material ends. They 
 also regard it as a part of their home in which they take a 
 pride. They become attached to their land, and much of their 
 labor expended upon it comes solely from a desire to make 
 their homes pleasant and beautiful. A farmer living upon his 
 own land does to stop working as soon as the return of his 
 labor falls below the average rate of wages. He continues to 
 work for a small return, or even for no return at all from the 
 interest he has in the farm. He often spends much more than 
 the land is worth to remove the stumps and stones from it, 
 from a desire to have it look well. He destroys weeds because 
 he dislikes to see them, and drains his land largely because the 
 waste land is an eyesore to him. Such labor is a part of his 
 consumption, although it adds much to the productive powers 
 of the land. He enjoys his farm as keenly as he does his food ; 
 and labors as earnestly for one end as for the other.
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 41 
 
 The reason then why the value of land is often so much be- 
 low the cost of making it tillable, comes from the motives 
 which induce the farmers to improve it. Inasmuch as the 
 motive which induces men to endure the hardships of frontier 
 life is a love of home, all their efforts for this end will reduce 
 the price of food and the result is the same as though the labor 
 of improving the land was that much less. Increase the love 
 they have for their land, and the nearer will the price of food 
 approach the annual cost of tilling the land. 
 
 These facts have a bearing upon one of the important prob- 
 lems of the day. There are those who would take from the 
 farmers their right to land, and make them merely tenants, at 
 will, of the community. It may, however, be questioned 
 whether the community would make a permanent gain by this 
 change. The price of food under these conditions would have 
 to be high enough to make it profitable for a capitalist to im- 
 prove and cultivate the land. Every weed that was cut, every 
 ditch that was dug, or every stone removed, and every other 
 item of labor would have to be paid for by the community 
 at market rates. To the price of food needed to cultivate 
 the land, must be added a large fraction to pay the interest 
 upon the capital needed to bring the land into a high state 
 of cultivation. On the other hand, if the community would 
 give the increased security to the farmers, and foster those 
 motives in them which increase the love of home and land, 
 there is good reason to believe that the farmers would finally 
 bear all the cost of improving the land. The public cannot 
 seize the land without increasing the cost of food. They will, 
 however, gradually bear a diminishing share of the cost of 
 making the land tillable, and can secure their food at the 
 annual cost of production as soon as men of strong local attach- 
 ment are placed upon all the land. 
 
 These facts have a more general application. The home, 
 locality, and the nation should be improved from the very love 
 we bear them ; and not as an investment. They are sources 
 of pleasure ; and the work we do for them should be regarded 
 as an act of consumption. In fact, it is impossible to get men 
 to act in these matters from other motives. The roads, schools,
 
 42 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 and churches are seldom improved until the community learn 
 to love their locality. Cities do not get free parks, pleasant 
 streets, fine public buildings, and other means of enjoyment, 
 until their people take a pride in them, and love to make them 
 beautiful. In national affairs, also, rivers and harbors are 
 improved only as the love of country increases. Forests are 
 not preserved until the love of nature makes the people willing 
 to bear the cost of restoring the mountains and other waste 
 land to their primal condition. Commercial motives lead only 
 to the exploiting of the land. A short season of artificial 
 cheapness is followed by permanent high prices caused by the 
 exhaustion of the soil. Permanent low prices come from other 
 motives ; they are largely due to the love which the people 
 have for home, nature, and the land. Even the improvement 
 in stock is due mainly to the love for the animals they use. It 
 is the farmer who enjoys his horses while working them who 
 creates a demand for better horses. Cattle and even hogs are 
 things of beauty, and much of the work they cause is a labor 
 of love. It is also said of sheep that they cannot be reared 
 solely from commercial motives. Unless the herder loves his 
 flocks, they do not thrive. 
 
 It is a wrong tendency which would divest men of all their 
 interest in the objects surrounding them. The exclusion of all 
 motives except those that are commercial, would make com- 
 modities dearer and not cheaper. It is only with the cheapest 
 classes of laborers that the value of what they produce always 
 equals the effort of production. Such men get no pleasure 
 from their work, and would cease to work if their wages did 
 not fully compensate them for their labor. The higher classes 
 of men have a love for work ; they take a great pleasure in pro- 
 ducing a good article, and in viewing the results of their efforts. 
 The cost to the public of each article they produce, is the effort 
 of production less the pleasure derived from its production. 
 The price of an article will gradually sink below the effort of 
 production with the growth of pleasure in production. The 
 low price of literary products shows this tendency very plainly- 
 The rewards of orators, musicians, and artists usually follow 
 the same law. The exceptions, which of course are very promi-
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 43 
 
 nent, are due to the prevalent scarcity of the better types of 
 men. The result of their labor is a monopoly so long as their 
 number is so limited. Increase the supply of such men, and 
 the low cost of their labor will be apparent. 
 
 The prevalent separation of the laws of consumption from 
 those of production, has involved economic discussion in two 
 fundamental errors. Consumption has been regarded solely as 
 a source of pleasure and production as a purely painful effort. 
 Our consumption, however, is modified by the different costs of 
 the articles consumed, and the cost of production to consumers 
 depends largely upon the amount of pleasure producers obtain 
 from their work. We cannot therefore adopt the simple rule 
 that the value of commodities depends upon their cost of pro- 
 duction, if by cost is meant the sum of disagreeable efforts. 
 The normal value of many commodities will be below their 
 cost, and the revenue which the owners of permanent improve- 
 ments derive from them, will be reduced as the love of home 
 and country grows among those who live upon the land. 
 When this love reaches its maximum, the home, locality and 
 country will be improved from a liking for them ; and not as 
 an investment. Parks, forests, rivers, churches and schools 
 will be regarded as things of beauty ; and for the labor which 
 each age bestows upon them, its people will expect no other 
 reward than the pleasure they get from their use. In this 
 way each succeeding age can get a better world than their 
 fathers had, and can enjoy it with less labor. 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE STANDARD OF LIFE. 
 
 When we look about for the causes which determine the 
 standard of life it is necessary at first to regard solely the ma- 
 terial environment of men. The first problem in any endeavor 
 to civilize men is to reduce the passions and appetites by which 
 they are controlled. The passions must be regulated by moral 
 restraint. The appetites, however, are the results of the ma- 
 terial environment and can be reduced only as this environment
 
 44 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 is changed. To this distinction I desire to call especial atten- 
 tion ; as it separates the economic problem from the moral one. 
 The two fields are quite distinct ; yet no considerable progress 
 can be made in one direction, without a corresponding improve- 
 ment in the other. There is a limit beyond which moral re- 
 straint becomes powerless, so long as the appetites have their 
 original force. On the other hand, reduced appetites alone 
 cannot lead to a high civilization, if the passions are not regu- 
 lated by the growth of moral motives. 
 
 In seeking the economic causes which reduce appetites, the 
 ideas presented in the preceding sections have great value. 
 The primary cause diminishing the love for food is the in- 
 creased regularity in the food supply. So long as feasting and 
 famine follow each other at frequent intervals, an intense desire 
 for food is a necessity ; the possibility of surviving during a 
 long famine seems to depend solely upon the strength of the 
 appetite during the periods of plenty. Every increase in the 
 regularity of the food supply allows men of weaker appetites 
 to survive. The struggle for existence is now determined by 
 other qualities than appetite ; and a new class of men gain the 
 ascendency, over whom the appetite has less control. 
 
 This primary change in appetite is the cause of vast economic 
 results. So long as the appetite is strong and the sole source 
 of pleasure the tendency in man is irresistible to limit the food 
 supply to a few articles which give the greatest pleasure. 
 These intense pleasures are derived usually from articles which 
 nature can supply in but small quantities. The desire for rare 
 articles is the direct outcome of vigorous appetites. The demand 
 for liquor and tobacco keeps the supply of food and clothing at 
 a minimum. The simple vegetables are set aside for meats and 
 other condensed foods. The more common parts of the animal 
 are neglected for some rare portion, and wild game and animals 
 are preferred to domestic breeds. In these, and in many other 
 ways, strong appetites reduce the food supply to the narrowest 
 limits, and bring on a conflict between the increase of popula- 
 tion and the means of subsistence. 
 
 The ideal of a man controlled by animal appetites is to 
 feast continually upon some rare article and to gratify his love
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 45 
 
 for strong drinks. Necessity may compel him to use more 
 common articles, but with the first increase of income, the ad- 
 ditional means are used to secure some rare article, and not to 
 obtain more in quantity or a greater variety. With every re- 
 duction in the strength of appetite, this evil is reduced. A 
 greater variety is sought, and new pleasures exert more influ- 
 ence, and an increase of population can accompany a fuller 
 satisfaction of human wants. 
 
 A regular supply of food is thus the first condition to an in- 
 crease in the standard of life. It furnishes the only condition 
 through which the appetite can be reduced. There is, how- 
 ever, another condition which comes in to strengthen this ten- 
 dency as soon as the first condition is secured. Variety of food 
 acts in the same manner that a regular food supply does in re- 
 ducing the strength of the appetites. But to secure a varied 
 diet, is not so easy a problem as it appears. Many writers have 
 emphasized the importance of a varied diet, as the condition 
 of a high standard of life. They have, however, thought that 
 the tendency to secure a varied diet was of so primary a char- 
 acter that any improvement in production would always lead 
 to an increase in variety in consumption. This assumption I 
 regard as a great mistake. On the one hand, they overlook 
 the strong tendency of primitive men to use improved produc- 
 tion to enable them to secure rare articles which appeal in the 
 strongest way to the cravings of an abnormal appetite. On 
 the other hand, they overlook the strong tendency to increase 
 population which causes every improvement in production to 
 be used mainly as a means of supporting more people in about 
 the same condition in which the smaller number was formerly 
 supported. After a great improvement, increased prosperity 
 for a time allows a greater variety in consumption ; but the 
 rapid increase of population forces too often the masses back 
 into a condition similar to that in which they were before the 
 improvement was made. 
 
 We cannot, therefore, accept a permanent increase in the 
 variety of consumption, as the necessary result of improved 
 production. Some additional condition must be found before 
 we can feel sure that possible improvement in society will be-
 
 46 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 come a permanent reality. This condition must be sought in 
 the economic order of consumption. We do not always con- 
 sume articles in such an order that those which give the greatest 
 pleasure will come first. We are also influenced by their cost 
 in labor. The influence of labor upon consumption causes 
 those articles to be consumed first which have the smallest 
 ratio of cost to utility. Several articles must have about the 
 same ratio of cost to utility, before a varied diet can become a 
 permanent possibility. The standard of life is equal to the 
 number of articles which have about the same ratio of cost to 
 ulility, as the original food supply has. So long as the con- 
 sumption of a dollar's worth of potatoes or rice will give double 
 the pleasure from the same value in other articles of food, a 
 varied diet for the mass of the people cannot be maintained. 
 A great revolution in industry might for a time so reduce the 
 pressure of population upon subsistence that a variety in con- 
 sumption would result. Yet in time the pressure of popula- 
 tion would be felt, and those articles which have a high ratio 
 of cost to the pleasure of their consumption, would gradually 
 cease to be consumed, and at length the potato or rice diet 
 would again come into general use. 
 
 It is only by a change in the ratio of the cost of commodities 
 to their utility, that such a relapse into old habits can be pre- 
 vented. There is no hope of permanent progress so long as 
 some one source of the food supply has a much lower ratio of 
 cost to utility than other kinds of food. As soon, however, as 
 two or more articles have about the same ratio of cost to utility, 
 it is impossible for the pressure of population to force either of 
 them out of use. There can be no advantage gained in the 
 struggle for existence, by the use of one article of food, if there 
 are other articles of which a dollar's worth will give the same 
 pleasure. On the other hand, there would be a decided disad- 
 vantage. The two articles would in a measure supplement 
 one another, causing a less quantity of two articles to satisfy 
 the needs of a community in a better manner than would a 
 larger quantity of either article. If one man has a quantity of 
 potatoes, and another man has a like quantity of corn, an ex- 
 change between them is advantageous to both parties. This
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 47 
 
 is a fundamental law of economics which must not be over- 
 looked. Should any additional article, say rye, have its cost 
 reduced to a level with that of potatoes and corn, it would be- 
 come a great part of the daily food of the community, and 
 could not be displaced by any pressure of population. 
 
 In the ratiQ of cost to utility which different articles have, is 
 to be found the condition which determines the standard of 
 life. All those articles which have about the same ratio of 
 cost to utility which the cheapest article of food has, will form 
 a permanent part of the standard of life. This standard will 
 be low in countries which are especially productive of some 
 one article. The standard will be gradually raised as im- 
 proved production or commerce reduces the cost of other arti- 
 cles so as to give them the same ratio of cost to utility as that 
 article has which forms the original source of food supply. It 
 is not, however, the reduction in cost of every article that is an 
 advantage to the community ; to reduce the cost of a cheap 
 article might produce a disastrous result. It is the cheapening 
 of relatively dear articles that raises the standard of life. 
 Sometimes it might be that an increase of cost would be'advan- 
 tageous, if it is the relatively cheap articles which have their 
 cost increased. This, I think, is the real cause why the colder 
 countries have a higher standard of life. The cost of all kinds 
 of food in these countries is greater than in milder climates ; 
 but the cost of vegetable food is increased much more than 
 that of animal food, and as a result, the ratio of cost to their 
 utility is more nearly equal. The utility of meat is also 
 greatly increased in colder countries because it can be pre- 
 served much more cheaply. Meat cannot become a regular 
 article of diet in warm countries until science discovers some 
 better means for its preservation. 
 
 When we compare different countries in the same latitude, it 
 can be shown that differences in their standards of life result 
 from peculiarities in soil and climate, by which a greater or a 
 smaller number of articles have about the same ratio of cost to 
 utility. The misfortunes of Ireland are largely due to the 
 small relative cost of the potato. Had he* soil been less produc- 
 tive of potatoes, or more productive of other kinds of food, her
 
 48 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 history would have been different. It was the good fortune of 
 England that at an early period, when the habits of her people 
 were forming, several important articles of food had about the 
 same ratio of cost to utility. The potato did not have here 
 that advantage over other crops, which it had in Ireland, 
 while root crops were introduced at too late a period to affect 
 the standard of life. The soil is especially adapted to wheat ; 
 while the splendid pastures caused cattle to have a low cost. 
 Poultry and eggs were abundant and butter was as cheap as 
 lard. For these reasons, all these articles became important 
 parts of the national diet, and they had so low a cost that the 
 pressure of population could not displace them. As a result 
 also, of cheap cattle, leather shoes became a part of the stan- 
 dard of life much earlier in England than in Scotland, where 
 few cattle were raised. The small use of meat by Germans, it 
 seems to me, was largely due to the frequent wars, which made 
 cattle a poor kind of property. Only that perfect security to 
 property which an insular position gave to England, can cause 
 such an increase of cattle as to allow meat to become an article 
 of regular diet. 
 
 The increase of rent also has a tendency to increase the 
 variety of food. Rent causes a like addition to the cost of 
 every crop, and thus affects the cheaper foods more than the 
 dearer. If ten days work will produce the amount of food in 
 potatoes that twenty days' work will in wheat, an increase in 
 rent equal to ten days' work will increase the cost of that quan- 
 tity of potatoes to twenty days' work, while the cost of the 
 wheat will be increased to thirty days' work. In this way, 
 while the cost of potatoes will be doubled, the price of wheat 
 will be increased by only one-half. 
 
 That the standard of life depends upon the regularity and 
 variety of food supply, cannot receive too much emphasis. 
 The value of this fact must be clearly seen or no progress can 
 be made in the analysis of consumption. The increase in the 
 quantity of "the commodities produced does not raise the stan- 
 dard of life unless there is an increase in the variety consumed. 
 Suppose the pleasure derived from a dollar's worth of liquor 
 or tobacco equalled 20 units of pleasure, and that from the
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 49 
 
 same value of food and clothing was 10 units, while the highest 
 pleasure derived from other commodities was 2 units. Should 
 production be improved under these conditions, all the increased 
 income of the consumer would go to the purchase of liquor 
 and tobacco. The supply of food and clothing would remain 
 at its former minimum, and no increase in variety in consump- 
 tion would follow. 
 
 The pleasure derived from liquor and tobacco must be re- 
 duced to about 10 units before a marked change in consump- 
 tion can take place. Then more food and clothing would be 
 consumed, and a few of the other articles in less demand would 
 come in use in a small way. Now the standard of life would 
 be enlarged, and the increased variety could not be reduced by 
 any pressure of population on the food supply. 
 
 Suppose again, that for one person 10 units of pleasure was 
 obtained from a dollar's worth of wheat, and only 5 units from 
 rye bread, while for a second person this quantity of wheat 
 bread gave 8 units of pleasure, and the rye bread 7 units. It 
 is plain that the first person would not enlarge his diet if his 
 income were increased. The second person would modify his 
 consumption, since an increased use of wheat bread would 
 reduce the satisfaction obtained from at least 7 units, and then 
 rye bread would come into use. 
 
 With the cheapening of produce, the standard of life is 
 always enlarged, if there is some new article, not in use, from 
 the consumption of which nearly as much pleasure could be 
 obtained as from the articles in use. If a dollar's worth of 
 wheat bread gave 10 units of pleasure, rye bread 9 units, 
 Graham bread 8 units, and corn bread 7 units, every increase 
 of income would result in an increased variety in the use of 
 bread. A person with such a demand for bread, would make 
 a different use of an increased income from that person who 
 gets 20 units of pleasure from wheat bread and less than half 
 that amount from the other kinds. 
 
 I would not underestimate the influence of moral motives or 
 of improved production in raising the standard of life ; yet they 
 can have but little permanent effect unless they are supple- 
 mented by an improved variety in consumption. The first
 
 50 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 named factors in progress are the active causes which force 
 society into new conditions, and keep it progressive ; the latter 
 is the means by which the results of progress become perma- 
 nent parts of the common heritage. A varied consumption is 
 the anchor which prevents a relapse into former conditions when 
 other forces are inactive or seek for a new position with a better 
 foothold. A nation with a few intense pleasures might also be 
 compared to a tree with a single tap-root, while a second nation 
 with many equal pleasures would be like an oak with a thou- 
 sand roots branching -in all directions. The power of the two 
 nations to resist the destructive tendencies forcing them into a 
 lower scale of living would be as different as is the power of the 
 two trees to resist the uprooting force of a fierce wind. 
 N The reduction of the appetite which follows every increase 
 in the variety of consumption, forces the consumer to seek 
 new pleasures to counterbalance the loss from the old ones. A 
 mere increase in the quantity of articles already in use has no 
 such effect, and can easily be lost by the pressure of hard times, 
 or of population, since no change is made in the appetites of 
 the consumers. It would, however, prostrate a consumer, to 
 have the variety of his food greatly reduced. His appetite, 
 weakened by variety, would give out before the needs of his 
 system were satisfied. The Irish in America cannot be forced 
 back upon the potato diet of their fathers without destroying 
 a large part of them. Nor can the American people be reduced 
 to a diet of corn bread and cabbage without a great loss of 
 vitality and efficiency. The lowered vitality would double the 
 death rate, while the decrease in efficiency would favor a greater 
 use of foreign labor. If our workmen in the future are to live 
 wholly upon cheap coarse foods, they will not be the descen- 
 dants of the present American stock, but of the lower races of 
 Europe and Asia. A new class of cheap labor can be intro- 
 duced much more easily than the better class can be reduced 
 to a lower plain of living. 
 
 The basis upon which the standard of life of each nation 
 rests has, I hope, become evident. Economists have, too often, 
 viewed the old pleasures as fixed, and hoped to reach a higher 
 social state merely by an increase of productive power through
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 51 
 
 which the less intense pleasures could be gratified. They have 
 overlooked the reduction in intensity of old pleasures and the 
 growth of new ones, by which there is an ever enlarging group 
 of pleasures which have about the same cost for each unit of 
 pleasure. It is not the increase of income that raises new 
 wants into a position to be gratified ; but it is the reduction of 
 old pleasures through variety in consumption that forces the 
 consumer to resort to new pleasures to make up for the loss of 
 the old ones. 
 
 A high standard of life has the closest relation to a weak 
 appetite. It is not the increase of goods for consumption that 
 raises the standard of life, but the mental state of a man after 
 the order of his consumption has been changed so as to allow 
 a greater variety. The standard of life is determined, not so 
 much by what a man has to enjoy, as by the rapidity with 
 which he tires of any one pleasure. To have a high standard 
 means to enjoy a pleasure intensely and to tire of it quickly. 
 Any pleasure soon becomes stale unless it can be dropped to 
 make place for something new. Only by a long series of varied 
 pleasures can life be made an object of desire to a man in whom 
 the primitive appetites have lost their original force and sunk 
 in his estimation below the level of other desires. No new 
 pleasure can fill the place of the appetite he has lost. He can 
 secure a greater sum of happiness, but he gets it only by util- 
 izing in turn the multitude of objects offered by nature and 
 learning to derive a pleasure from each of them. 
 
 From this point of view a nation is perfectly safe from an}' 
 tendency to reduce its standard of life, unless there is some 
 great change in the national industries which allows the intro- 
 duction of cheap foreign labor from regions where the newer 
 forms of consumption are not yet in full operation. In this 
 way a lower class may be substituted for a higher class in par- 
 ticular industries ; yet this change does not destroy the higher 
 class, although it may limit their numbers. They are forced 
 into other industries where more energy is needed, or into new 
 localities where the national resources are not yet fully utilized. 
 So poor a use is now made of the land and nature that a person, 
 goaded on by unsatisfied desires, can find some place where his
 
 52 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 mode of living may be maintained. And besides these re- 
 sources in production, he has the power to adjust his consump- 
 tion more closely to the conditions of his environment. The 
 weaker his appetite becomes the easier it is for him to break 
 down the barriers of habit and custom which shut him out 
 from the cheaper kinds of food. 
 
 It is, moreover, impossible for a man with a weak appetite 
 to return to the coarser diet of his ancestors. Th^ir food is re- 
 pugnant to him and his stomach refuses to digest it in quanti- 
 ties large enough to keep his body healthy and his mind clear. 
 
 If the world must be peopled by those who live on such a 
 diet, he and his family will not long form part of it. If com- 
 petition becomes too severe he may injure himself through 
 overwork, limit the size of his family or even remain single ; 
 yet there is no danger that he will resort to a diet that is re- 
 pulsive, or fall back into a mode of living that has ceased to 
 be a source of pleasure. 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE BEST USE OF LAND. 
 
 We cannot ascertain the full effects of a change in consump- 
 tion until we discover its effect upon land and its rent. The 
 available land of a nation is limited in quantity, while our 
 wants are so material that they cannot be gratified without cre- 
 ating a large demand for land through its products. When we 
 eat, drink, and clothe ourselves, we consume commodities for 
 whose production a certain amount of land is required. Fix 
 the quantity of land which each person must have to supply 
 his wants, and the population which a given tract can support 
 becomes fixed also. 
 
 If it takes fifteen bushels of wheat to make bread enough to 
 last one man a year, and if an acre of land will raise only fifteen 
 bushels, it is plain that if a man have only half an acre he 
 must raise something else than wheat or go hungry. So long 
 as a community having land of this kind live on wheat we 
 could say with certainty j ust how many persons its land will
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 53 
 
 support. There could only be as many men as there were 
 acres of land. If, without substituting a more productive crop 
 for wheat they should use one-sixth of their land to raise 
 tobacco, the number of people would be reduced by one-sixth. 
 Should they now acquire a love for beer and use a second sixth 
 of the land to raise barley and hops there would be one-third 
 less population than there was before these habits were formed. 
 
 The principle holds when other articles than wheat are pro- 
 duced. Upon an acre of land only so much rye, corn or pota- 
 toes can be grown. And as the quantities of the crops are 
 fixed by the kind" of soil and the means of cultivation at hand, 
 an acre of land under given conditions will support only so 
 many people. In short, population increases with every 
 change to more productive crops and is checked by a growing 
 demand for rarer articles or useless luxuries. 
 
 In the earlier stages of civilization, the land problem is usu- 
 ally the only vital question. It is true that even primitive men 
 have wants which the products of the soil cannot gratify ; yet 
 these products so nearly satisfy all their desires that there is 
 no conscious opposition between the interests of such men, ex- 
 cept for the possession of land. If the population exceeds the 
 number which can be supported upon a given area of land 
 cultivated in a crude primitive fashion, there is no solution of 
 the difficulty except by war, famine, or emigration. 
 
 With every increase of population, there must be a modifi- 
 cation of the desires of the people, through which their accus- 
 tomed wants become less intense than some new wants which 
 can be satisfied with a less demand for land. When a hunting 
 tribe occupies a region, each individual must occupy many 
 thousand acres to enable him to secure enough deer, buffalo, or 
 game to supply his family. When the demand for food be- 
 comes changed from the wild to domestic animals, a quarter 
 of the former space will afford room for the flocks and herds 
 necessary to supply the same family. A crude cultivation of 
 the soil can accompany another modification of desires, which 
 create a demand for cereal productions ; and with this change 
 comes another large reduction of the quantity of land which 
 each family requires. Every subsequent change by which
 
 54 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 population and production have been increased, has been fol- 
 lowing some change in the demand for food. The demand for 
 some well-known article of diet has fallen off, or at least has 
 been relatively reduced, and in its place some new article is 
 substituted which allows a better use to be made of the land. 
 
 There is thus the most intimate relation between the desires 
 of a people and their demand for land. Only as the desire for 
 less expensive food grows, can the opposition between the indi- 
 vidual interests of different men be lessened. As we progress 
 in civilization, we are obliged to adjust ourselves so that in our 
 eating, drinking, and clothing, we make less demand on land. 
 Every family must occupy a smaller space and, modify their 
 diet so that their demand for food can be satisfied upon the 
 smaller tract to which they are now limited. 
 
 For this reason, the laws of consumption are of prime impor- 
 tance in studying the direction along which the pressure of popu- 
 lation forces the development of mankind. Those individuals 
 or races who have an abnormal desire for the rare kinds of 
 food must give way to their competitors, who can satisfy their 
 appetites with articles of which nature grants a more abundant 
 supply. Those families whose habits, tastes or fancies cause 
 them to reject a large portion of the food supply are surpassed 
 by others, who through a better adjustment to the conditions 
 of nature, have a love for all that variety which nature can 
 provide. Strong appetites limit the diet to those articles which 
 can best satisfy an intense desire for food. Weak appetites are 
 so easily satiated with any one kind of food that many articles 
 must form a part of the regular diet in order that enough may 
 be eaten to meet the demands of the system. Families of 
 weaker appetites are thus better adjusted to the conditions 
 which increase production and create that variety in demand 
 which allows the best use of all the land. As any tract of 
 land can produce a variety of articles at a less cost than it can 
 the same quantity of some one or any few articles, the struggle 
 for existence favors those who can get pleasure from all kinds 
 of food, more than those who have an intense desire for a few 
 of the rarer kinds. 
 
 There is another great evil connected with a strong demand
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 55 
 
 for land, in that it is the cause of a great increase in the amount 
 of rent. Rent is not a fixed quantity, depending solely upon 
 population, or upon the amount of land cultivated. It is paid 
 by consumers of food, not because they eat to live, but because 
 they live to eat. There is plenty of food which can be obtained 
 at a low cost of production, if the consumer would think of 
 food merely as a means of existence, and not as the leading 
 source of pleasure. 
 
 Men with strong appetites limit their food supply to those 
 articles which are most capable of gratifying the intense feelings 
 which they have inherited. The few articles for which their 
 demand is intense are thus raised in value above their necessary 
 price. Wheat, tobacco and food for cattle are examples of 
 crops with double the price they might have if a less quantity 
 would supply the demand. In this way the farmers are com- 
 pelled to cultivate crops more often than the best use of their 
 land permits. Other tracts poorly fitted for these crops cannot 
 be used for what they are best fitted by nature, because the 
 higher price of the desired crops makes them the more profita- 
 ble to cultivate. Such a demand for food reduces the land of 
 a nation to a small part of what it might be, and causes this 
 part to produce much less in quantity than if a greater variety 
 in consumption prevailed. Under such conditions the demand 
 for food increases much more rapidly than the supply ; and the 
 accompanying increase in the price of food takes a large share 
 of the produce of industry from the producers and gives it to 
 landlords as rent. 
 
 The rise of rent is the result of a choice between pleasures. 
 There is no physical cause which necessitates a slower increase 
 of food than of population. The struggle of population for 
 food is the result of a universal choice of exclusive pleasures 
 through which the pleasure of each person reduces the pleasures 
 which other people can enjoy. A single loaf of bread or a 
 single glass of beer can be enjoyed only when all other persons 
 are excluded from their consumption. There must be a new 
 production of bread and beer for each additional participant in 
 their enjoyment. Such pleasures are the source of the conflict 
 between men, by which the rent of land is raised so high that
 
 56 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 their wages will give them but bare living. This opposition 
 between the interests of different men can be reduced only by 
 the growth of new pleasures which they can enjoy in common. 
 A printer, for example, can increase the number of books and 
 newspapers in an edition with but a slight increase of cost. It 
 cost, also, the King of Bavaria as much to hear a favorite opera 
 alone as it would several thousand people who had no desire to 
 exclude other people from a like pleasure. 
 
 In the discussion of rent too much attention has been paid 
 to physical causes. It is perhaps true that the rent of a field 
 can be measured by the difference between its fertility and that 
 of the poorest land in use. Yet, why is the second field at the 
 margin of cultivation ? Is it not because the pleasure derived 
 from the food produced on it is just equal to the pain in labor 
 required to cultivate it ? Reduce the pleasure which men get 
 from food, and this field will go out of cultivation. A more 
 productive field will now be at the margin because the pleasure 
 of consuming its crops is equal to the pain of producing them. 
 If the appetites, however, are increased, a still poorer field will 
 be cultivated. The increase of labor needed to cultivate it will 
 be compensated by the greater pleasure which the consumption 
 of its crops affords. 
 
 The increase in rent is therefore measured by the increase of 
 the appetite. Put men in an environment where those with the 
 stronger appetites have some advantages, and a steady increase 
 of rent would follow. Change this environment so that those 
 with the weaker appetites gain the ascendency, and a fall in 
 rent will accompany each displacement of the partisans of ex- 
 clusive pleasures. The measure of rent is rather to be found 
 in the differences in men than in those of the soil. Had all 
 men just enough appetite to induce them to satisfy their bodily 
 needs, they would not need to pay rent. These men might be 
 termed the no- rent men. The rent that other men will pay for 
 land is measured by the excess of their appetites above the 
 appetites of the no-rent men. There is more rent when the 
 difference in the appetites of men increases ; and rent must 
 fall when the men of strong appetite differ less from those for 
 whom exclusive pleasures have no charm. I do not, however,
 
 Tfip Consumption of Wealth. 57 
 
 wish to infer that in our social state men with the weakest ap- 
 petites are the best. They are used merely as a type to show 
 that if rent is to be measured in terms of differences, the differ- 
 ences in men afford a better measure of rent than do those of 
 the land. 
 
 The choice of the right articles to consume is of no greater 
 importance to the best use of land than is the choice of the 
 right means to produce them. The prominent aids to produc- 
 tion we usually speak of in an objective way as knowledge, 
 skill, and capital. Capital, in particular, we are likely to view 
 from a purely objective standpoint as a material thing or object 
 which we must have for efficient production. It is not, how- 
 ever, the material object which makes production more efficient, 
 but the way in which this object is used. Labor and capital 
 are not different things ; they are merely different ways to 
 secure the same end. The materialization of labor in objects 
 is only an accident of one form of laboring. A man wishes to 
 obtain some meat, and he cannot secure it without painful ex- 
 ertion. If he endeavors to secure it one way, we call the 
 exertion labor ; if in another way, we call it capital. If he 
 goes forth to hunt or trap some wild animal, we call the pain 
 he endures labor. If he herds some cattle so that he can secure 
 a regular supply of beef, the results of past labor, which he 
 does not consume, are regarded as capital. These cattle are 
 capital, not because they are objects, but because they are a 
 part of a series of efforts to secure a supply of beef. 
 
 The series of efforts which the herder makes differs from 
 that of the hunter in that they extend through a longer period 
 of time. Both series of efforts are painful, and thus are units 
 of the same class ; they are, however, of different species. The 
 pain of the hunter is almost wholly that of muscular fatigue. 
 The pains of the herder are of two classes. He must undergo 
 muscular fatigue the same as the hunter ; in addition he must 
 also abstain from consuming his cattle until they are mature. 
 Abstinence means self-control, and self-control is the cause of 
 pain, at least to an uncultivated man. The stronger the appe- 
 tite and passions of men are, the greater are the pains of self-
 
 58 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 control and the more are men inclined to that form of produc- 
 tion which we call labor. Muscular fatigue is not so painful 
 to such men as are the efforts to keep a control over themselves. 
 Hence they utilize only those forms of production which can 
 be effected by short series of efforts. 
 
 With the gradual development of men, the desire to have the 
 future provided for creates a new pleasure ; and the reduction 
 of the appetite makes the struggle for self-control less painful. 
 The series of efforts which men are willing to make in produc- 
 tion, are lengthened out, and that fund we call capital comes 
 into use. Yet we do wrong to think of capital as an objective 
 something which is different from the labor which creates it. 
 Subjectively at least, labor and capital are merely different 
 classes of disagreeable efforts. Both classes of efforts assume 
 an objective form. Even the shortest of those series of efforts 
 we call labor, makes objective changes. It is not scientific to 
 regard the longer efforts as belonging to a separate class merely 
 because the objective form they often assume is of so much 
 more permanent a character, since there are still longer series 
 of efforts having an increase of skill and knowledge as the 
 main result. Any determined effort to educate a people must 
 extend through a longer series of years than any plan to im- 
 prove the land or to increase the supply of commodities. 
 
 If we look at these series of efforts in an objective way, we 
 may call them all capital, and say that skill and knowledge 
 are capital sunk in men as other parts of capital are sunk in 
 land. In a subjective way, we may view all these efforts as 
 forms of skill. Skill is merely a way of economizing muscular 
 exertion ; and the skilful man makes frequent use of objects 
 because they enable him to avoid this exertion. 
 
 There is, then, a great variety of choice among the different 
 series of efforts through which men get their food from land. 
 The use which a people make of their land depends upon 
 the relative disagreeableness of the pains of muscular fatigue, 
 and of those of abstinence and self-control. So long as the 
 pains of abstinence and self-control predominate, much of the 
 land has no economic use ; and the part in use does not yield 
 a large return. With the development of a class of men in
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 59 
 
 whom these pains are less a longer series of efforts in the pro- 
 duction of food is chosen. 
 
 Take a class of men who dislike the effort of saving, and of 
 becoming skillful more than they dislike manual exertion. 
 Such men choose for cultivation that class of land the return 
 from which is small, and they cultivate it in a way that every 
 increase of labor reduces the average return. Put in the same 
 region a new class of men who dislike the second class of pains 
 more than the first, and they gradually cease to cultivate those 
 fields whose return depends solely upon manual labor. They 
 now seek only for fields where skill and capital are the con- 
 trolling elements in production. A better use of the land fol- 
 lows, and more of the land becomes good land. Couple with 
 this change the fact that those men in whom these pains are 
 the least, have the weakest appetites, and thus demand the 
 greatest variety of food, and it will be seen how directly the 
 development of men is connected with the best use of land. 
 
 The truth of the law of diminishing returns depends upon 
 this choice between different kinds of pleasures and pains. 
 The causes of limited production can be better understood by 
 grading men according to their economic choices than by grad- 
 ing the land according to its fertility. This law is not so much 
 a law of land as of the men who use the land. The man who 
 increases his capital and skill more rapidly than he does his 
 labor, always gets a greater return in proportion to his whole 
 effort in production. The reduction of the average return for 
 labor is not caused by the increased use of the inferior land, 
 but by a greater employment of inferior men. We need not 
 fear an increase of inferior land ; the quantity is limited, and 
 decreases with every increase of capital and skill. Could we 
 say as much of inferior men, our future would be secure. 
 Such men form the real barrier to progress, and prevent that 
 use of the land in a way which unites an abundant and varied 
 production with the greatest economy of labor. 
 
 The facts which have been presented will, if properly cor- 
 related, furnish the key to the present misuse of land, and the 
 high price of food. Cheap men, who have inherited the strong 
 appetites of their primitive ancestors, are yet so numerous that
 
 60 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 they create a large demand for land through their love of rare 
 foods and stimulating drinks. The same causes retard the 
 accumulation of capital, through which, alone, the inferior land 
 can be changed into good land. As a result, a much larger 
 area of land must be cultivated than would otherwise be neces- 
 sary, and the higher price of food needed to cultivate so much 
 inferior land without the use of the necessary capital, takes a 
 large part of the product of industry from the producers to go 
 as rent to the owners of the better land. Dear food means a 
 poor use of much land, while cheap food means a good use of 
 a little land. 
 
 For this reason the public has the paramount interest in the 
 use made of the land, and a right to restrain those forms of 
 consumption which create a larger demand for land and de- 
 stroy its fertility. The use of liquor and tobacco causes the 
 land of whole States to be diverted from its best use, and its 
 soil made valueless through the loss of its productive elements. 
 The mere waste of land is of less consequence than the divert- 
 ing of other lands from their best use, and the scattering of the 
 population over an immense area through which they are kept 
 from enjoying the best fruits of modern civilization. 
 
 The interest of the public in the use of the land is already a 
 well-recognized right. We would allow no one to shut up our 
 rivers, or prevent the building of railroads, so as to keep the 
 public out of the newer States. Nor are we willing that the 
 cattle barons of the West should fence in large tracts of land 
 for their especial advantage. There is, of course, a great need 
 of beef ; but the cheaper foods are of much more importance, 
 and beef- raising must not stand in the way of a better use of 
 the land. There is even much complaint because settlers are 
 shut out of little Oklahoma, because the Indians do not culti- 
 vate the land. Yet if the Indians and cowboys are not allowed 
 to exclude others who would make the land more useful to the 
 public, the habits and instincts of the cruder portion o*f our 
 population should not be permitted to waste a much larger 
 portion of our country, and make the rest of it much less avail- 
 able for public and private uses. 
 
 The demand for land, which the diet of different persons in
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 61 
 
 a nation creates, is of vital importance in determining which 
 class will be displaced by the increase of population. Hunting 
 tribes have no chance of success in opposition to those who 
 graze cattle ; and the latter are in turn easily expelled by the 
 cultivators of the soil. And among the more civilized races, 
 that class which makes the best use of the land has an advan- 
 tage over all others. The family who need twenty acres to 
 supply their wants cannot compete with a family who get their 
 food from ten acres. The increase of population cuts down the 
 number of acres which each family can have, and necessitates 
 the use of more productive crops. The t relative quantities of 
 the rarer articles are thus reduced ; while a greater variety in 
 consumption is secured. 
 
 This fact will be the determining force in deciding the grow- 
 ing contest between the temperance and liquor parties in this 
 country. The diet of abstainers creates a less demand for land 
 than does that of those who have a love for liquor and tobacco. 
 The latter class not only need twice the land that the same 
 number of the former class does, but they also have double the 
 temptation to spend their earnings foolishly. Abstainers will, 
 thus, gradually acquire a larger share of the land and capital 
 of this country, and force the drinking class into the less 
 favored occupations, where their rate of increase will be reduced. 
 There is no way in which the users of liquor and tobacco can 
 hold their own, when their habits impose upon them so great 
 an economic burden. The temperance people will increase in 
 numbers and wealth until they are able to crowd out or suppress 
 their opponents. Their advantage is as great as that of the 
 power loom over the hand loom, or of the railroad over the 
 canal. Of the ultimate result of such a conflict there can be no 
 doubt. The only question is whether drinkers shall be forced 
 to reform, or gradually be crushed beneath the weight of their 
 growing disadvantage.
 
 62 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 VIII. 
 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE FUTURE. 
 
 If a correct analysis has been made of the laws of consump- 
 tion the obstacles to a rapid improvement of mankind do not 
 lie in the present environment. The habits and appetites of 
 men were formed in the environment of the distant past. 
 Human nature became so adjusted to this environment that it 
 clings to the old and distrusts the new. The feelings and 
 pleasures inherited from a long line of ancestors cannot change 
 as readily as our productive power has done ; and thus the 
 harmony between ourselves and our environment has been dis- 
 turbed. We have built a new mansion on the hill, but we 
 still prefer the cottage in the valley. We know how to pro- 
 duce many new things, but we want to live in about the same 
 manner that our fathers did. We desire to produce the new 
 because it takes less labor ; yet each of us expects that the 
 wheels of commerce will, in some hidden way, give us the 
 rarer old in exchange for the more abundant new. 
 
 The obstacles to progress are, therefore, in men and not out- 
 side of them. The land could give a greatly increased return, 
 if men were willing to produce and consume in a wa} r that 
 they could get the greatest advantage from it. With the mass 
 of mankind, however, the strength of their appetites prevents 
 the best use of the land, and the effort of abstinence is so much 
 greater than that of manual labor, that they avoid those forms 
 of production where a long series of efforts is necessary. In 
 this way they overlook a large part of the opportunities for 
 labor where the return is greatest, and prevent a gradual de- 
 velopment of society into a better state. Such men are cheap 
 men, because the pains of manual labor are so small while the 
 strength of the appetite is so great. They are willing to work 
 very hard for a little food, and through the rapid increase of 
 their numbers, create a great demand for land. The wants of 
 progressive men, however, increase more rapidly than does 
 the efficiency of their labor ; and as a result, the higher classes, 
 though more efficient than the lower, do not have so much 
 surplus revenue to offer as rent for the use of the land.
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 63 
 
 Rent must be paid out of the surplus revenue which producers 
 have after their standard of living has been provided for. 
 Cheap labor thus becomes an obstable to the progress of the 
 better classes, through the high price of food which causes it. 
 This obstacle becomes a positive barrier to progress through 
 the development of a class of capitalists who furnish capital at 
 a low rate of interest. The larger industries unite the advan- 
 tages of cheap labor and low interest, and thus cause cheap 
 products and high rents ; cheap products always mean high 
 rents when the laborers who produce them limit their con- 
 sumption mainly to the products of the soil. These industries 
 economize the use of skilled labor, and are continually finding 
 ways in which they can utilize the still lower classes of men. 
 Improved production thus seems to strengthen the primitive 
 appetites and pleasures of laboring men as long as they are 
 directed in production by a highly intellectual class who are 
 abundantly supplied with capital. 
 
 If we are to seek only in production for the causes which 
 determine who will survive, I fear we must decide that compe- 
 tition favors the cheaper man. The facts upon which this opin- 
 ion is based have been frequently presented with the greatest 
 clearness, and seem to prove that the iron law of wages is an 
 outcome of our present tendencies. This conclusion is defec- 
 tive, however, if the laws of consumption are an integral part 
 of economics. When we have discovered the tendency of 
 competition acting in production, we have only one side of the 
 great problem we desire to solve. It is certainly of importance 
 to know who has the advantage in production, but it is of still 
 greater importance to know who has the advantage in con- 
 sumption. The higher classes cannot pay larger rent than the 
 lower classes, but they can avoid rent by consuming -those 
 articles which allow a better use of the land. If the better 
 man competes squarely with the lower man by using his in- 
 come to satisfy his appetites in the same way that his com- 
 petitor does, he is at a disadvantage in the struggle which 
 follows. He secures an advantage only as he modifies his 
 consumption, and learns to enjoy other pleasures than those 
 which come from the gratification of the appetite. This
 
 64 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 change is the result of a slow and steady development which 
 shows its effects only through a long period. The changes in 
 production are quick, and are thus brought into prominence. 
 Those in consumption are so slow and steady that they are 
 usually overlooked. It takes a long time for an improved 
 consumption to rectify the evils of the increased competition 
 which follow a rapid development in production ; yet the causes 
 modifying consumption never cease to operate. It will doubt- 
 less take many generations to produce as great a change in 
 consumption as one age can make in production ; yet in the 
 end, an equilibrium will be restored, and they will have the 
 advantage who make the best use of the land. 
 
 There is, moreover, one of the great effects of improved pro- 
 duction, which is on the side of the better classes. In former 
 times the consumption of each locality depended entirely upon 
 the produce of that locality, and the standard of life was limited 
 to the few articles which would be cheaply produced at home. 
 The rapid reduction of the cost of transportation has largely 
 increased the number of articles which are as cheap as the 
 home produce. The consumption of all classes is thus im- 
 proved, and their wants become more varied, and prevent that 
 reduction of wages that would otherwise follow the substitu- 
 tion of cheaper men in large industries. 
 
 Improved consumption also helps to maintain the rate of 
 wages in spite of the adverse tendencies of improved produc- 
 tion by putting in operation several causes which are destruc- 
 tive of the lower classes of men. While cheap men have the 
 best talents of the nation to organize and direct them in pro- 
 duction, they are left to themselves in consumption. Under 
 the new conditions in which they are placed, they sacrifice 
 their permanent interests to gratify their present feelings. 
 Their instincts are no longer a true guide to keep them from 
 acts of self-destruction. The way in which they crowd to- 
 gether in tenement houses, the disregard they have for cleanli- 
 ness and sanitation, and the indifference they show to the 
 wholesomeness of their food, soon reduce their vitality, and 
 increase the death-rate among their families. The short-sight- 
 edness of their employers in forcing them to work under un-
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 65 
 
 healthy conditions adds greatly to the destructive tendencies 
 by which they are surrounded. The growing love of strong 
 drinks and tobacco increases the use of these articles at the 
 expense of more healthy pleasures, and causes them to reduce 
 the quantity and quality of their food and clothing to gratify 
 these abnormal appetites. In fact, there is the same exploit- 
 ing of the advantages of cheap labor as there is of cheap land. 
 The permanent interests of the lower classes have little weight 
 in the minds of those who profit most by their labor and trade ; 
 the employer works them too many hours, and the landlords 
 cut them off from pure air and light ; the saloon seeks to create 
 in them a craving for liquor ; the grocer adulterates their food, 
 and the merchant hides the defects in his goods by cheap colors 
 made from poisonous dyes. This combination of interests 
 which preys upon cheap laborers hastens the destruction of the 
 lowest classes, and shortens the period through which their 
 gains might be extended by a more far-sighted policy. 
 
 The influence of improved consumption will either destroy or 
 develop the laborers according as their choice in consumption 
 is good or bad in their modified condition. One part of them 
 gratify their present appetites, and are thus forced into an 
 environment which soon destroys them and their families. 
 The other part learn to adjust their desires more fully to their 
 surroundings, and thus avoid the destructive influences to 
 which others are exposed. The combined influences of both 
 tendencies is to raise the standard of life. The lowest portion 
 of the laborers are led on to extermination, and they cease to 
 leave behind them any descendants with their characteristics. 
 The higher portion thus become the whole laboring popula- 
 tion, with a greater variety in their standard of life. 
 
 The tendency, therefore, of improved production to substi- 
 tute a lower for a higher man, is in harmony with a gradual 
 increase in the standard of life. Employers will always seek 
 the cheapest laborers, yet the cheapest man of one age will be 
 a better man than the cheapest man of the preceding age. 
 A larger proportion of the cheapest men will doubtless be used 
 with every improvement in production ; but it must not be 
 overlooked that the development of the cheaper man is one of
 
 66 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 the conditions which helps him drive out his superior. The 
 tendency to employ cheaper men is a permanent disadvantage 
 only where the environment is favorable to the survival of a 
 lower class of men. If the laborers could be isolated in the 
 country, where pure air and sanitation are of little moment, 
 and where there is but little variety in consumption, very 
 inferior men could live and rear healthy families. Under these 
 conditions, improved production, if the scale of the industry was 
 not enlarged, might lead to a permanent reduction of thestandard 
 of life. Our large cities, however, do not give an environment 
 free from temptation and disease. They offer so many choices 
 in consumption that men steadily degenerate or improve. The 
 first class are swept off by disease and vice, and the second class 
 are left to enjoy the advantages of improved consumption. 
 
 This tendency for progressive nations to develop, even if it 
 must come through the self-destruction of the lowest classes, 
 cannot be disproved by the many available examples to the 
 contrary from primitive races in countries like China or 
 India. There cheap men survive because they are kept from 
 disease by a pleasant out-door life and from new forms of 
 temptation, like whiskey and opium, by their seclusion from 
 the rest of the world. Their institutions and habits are so 
 firmly fixed that they are protected from the worse as well as 
 shut out of the better. The barriers to progress are also the 
 obstacles to decay. Break down these barriers, and each one 
 becomes free to choose between health and vice. The weak 
 are thus cut off, and the progressive create a new society more 
 in harmony with their present environment. 
 
 The conflicting tendencies which come from the opposing 
 forces in improved production and consumption, need perhaps 
 a fuller illustration to bring out the resulting tendencies more 
 plainly. 
 
 Suppose a b c , etc. , represent a graded series of standards of 
 life of which a is the highest. As improvements in production 
 g tend to favor a cheaper man because they make the pro- 
 cesses of production more mechanical, with every improve- 
 * ment the standard of life would tend to sink to some lower 
 g point : beginning from, say d, it would gradually sink
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 67 
 
 through e and/ to g. As soon, however, as the results of 
 improved consumption became prominent, an opposite tend- 
 ency would make itself felt. Laborers having g as their 
 standard of life, would either develop enough to make/ their 
 standard of life, or yield to reductive influences of improved 
 consumption, and gradually die out. The standard of life 
 would now equal /, and wages must rise to that amount. 
 With the next large improvement in consumption, the laborers 
 with / as their standard of life would yield to the snares of 
 their new conditions in consumption, or rise in the scale of 
 existence until e became their standard of life. Employers 
 would now be forced again to increase wages, unless they 
 could import laborers from regions where the new forms of 
 consumption had not yet made their influence felt. With 
 each farther improvement in consumption a change of like 
 degree would come over the lowest class of laborers. The 
 weaker part come under more destructive influences, while 
 the better part are aided in their endeavors to get into the class 
 above them. 
 
 Were it not for the migration of the laborers, these influ- 
 ences would quickly bring their effects into prominence. The 
 permanent evils of improved production arise from this source. 
 The less civilized localities are sending a constant stream of 
 laborers to our great industrial centres, where they drive out 
 the old workmen, or at least keep their wages at a minimum. 
 Under these conditions, the influence of improved consump- 
 tion operates but slowly, as the new-comers feel the full effect 
 of their new environment only after several generations have 
 passed away. It also often happens that as soon as they feel 
 enough of the effects of improved consumption to require an 
 increase of wages, they are in turn displaced by a fresh class 
 of immigrants. Yet even in this extreme case the future is 
 not without hope, although doubtless the time for a radical 
 improvement in the condition of the laboring classes is very 
 much delayed. A permanent solution of these difficulties can 
 come only when improved processes in production are made 
 use of in the states from which the migration can come. When 
 all nations give up their isolated ways of living, and make
 
 68 The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 property and liberty so secure that the best methods of pro- 
 duction can be introduced, each nation can employ its own 
 laborers in its own industries. The source of cheap labor will 
 thus be cut off, and the laws of consumption will no longer be 
 obscured. 
 
 The fact that improved production will in the end cure its 
 own evils, does not relieve society from the obligation to work 
 for the same end. The period needed for the universal intro- 
 duction of improved production is a long one at its best, and 
 can be much shortened by intelligent action on the part of 
 society. The process, too by which a natural evolution is 
 carried through, is a very heartless one. It destroys the weak 
 while it protects the strong. The man of the future must 
 have a very large group of qualities strongly developed in 
 him, to make him conform to nature. Skill, economy, self- 
 control, and forethought must be combined in every man, with 
 a love of home and nature, and future welfare. Whoever has 
 the greater number of these and other needed qualities, dis- 
 places his a weaker brother by forcing him to work and live 
 under conditions which lower his vitality, and encourage dis- 
 ease and vice. Without some aid from society, the lower 
 classes of to-day will be pushed to the wall, and the world 
 will be peopled only by the descendants of those who unite in 
 themselves the greatest number of productive qualities. This 
 change grinding along so slowly will create much friction be- 
 tween the different classes in society if the immigration of 
 cheap men is not restricted. 
 
 In aiding the development of the lower classes, rather than 
 allowing them to be destroyed in the struggle for existence, 
 the motive should be a love for humanity, and not the neces- 
 sities of social progress. There need be no fear that society 
 will cease to progress. The problem is to shorten the period 
 of transition as much as possible, and to bring as large a pro- 
 portion as possible of our present population into harmony 
 with their environment. I think also, that the laboring classes 
 have a claim upon society, due to the peculiar circumstances 
 which now impede their progress to a much greater extent 
 than formerly. Production on a small scale, and a low price
 
 The Consumption of Wealth. 69 
 
 for land, afford remarkable inducements for labor and saving. 
 The smaller producer readily finds opportunities to secure a 
 large return for his labor, in a way that will develop his ability 
 and skill. Under present conditions, it takes a much more 
 able man than formerly to seize right opportunities to enable 
 him to pass from the laboring to the employing class. 
 
 In consumption, also, the difficulties of improvement are 
 much increased. Drinking, smoking, and other amusements 
 which tend to the wrong direction are much cheapened ; while 
 music, art, and education have become in their higher forms 
 more costly. The standard of life of the lowest classes has, at 
 best, remained what it was. There is thus a growing gap be- 
 tween the two classes, which it is hard for individuals to 
 bridge. They are, thus, cut off from development througn 
 the continuity of the graded scale of growing pleasures by 
 which society as a whole is passing from a lower to a higher 
 order of consumption. The first steps in the natural scale by 
 which the better classes were themselves aided in their de- 
 velopment have been destroyed by the changes due to pro- 
 gress. Society must rebuild them, if it wishes the lower 
 classes to develop in the same way that the higher classes 
 have done. Men with intense appetites and passions cannot 
 be induced to modify their consumption unless the first steps 
 in the education to a better state are made free. When the 
 higher classes were in the same mental state that the lower 
 classes now are, their environment furnished, without any cost, 
 the pleasures needed for their development. In the environ- 
 ment of to-day, these pleasures are costly to individuals, and 
 will not be chosen by them unless society is willing to educate 
 in them an appreciation of these pleasures. The farther so- 
 ciety as a whole is separated from the primitive conditions of 
 our forefathers, the greater is the gap over which society must 
 carry its weaker members, if they are to be made a healthy 
 progressive part of the social organism. 
 
 All our religious bodies, for example, owe their origin to 
 periods when religious instruction was free. The States main- 
 tained the churches, while the dissenters worshiped in houses, 
 or even in the woods ; and the newer sects have arisen under
 
 yo The Consumption of Wealth. 
 
 similar conditions. The name of camp-meeting shows how 
 inexpensive was the mode in which the Methodists made their 
 beginnings. Church services to-day are very costly, and the 
 lower classes will be cut off from them, if more effort is not 
 made to make the churches free. The want of harmony in 
 religious opinion compels society to leave religious instruction 
 wholly to private enterprise ; but on this account there is much 
 greater reason why the State should furnish other education as 
 free as possible. It is now too late to expect that a better con- 
 sumption of wealth will come of itself to the lower classes. 
 With every step in social progress, more of this free education 
 will be needed, if the weaker portions of society are to be led 
 along the road the more progressive have already traversed. 
 Society must adopt a vigorous educational policy, or shut its 
 eyes while the destructive tendencies of modern civilization 
 slowly force the weak and unwary into a life of misery and 
 vice.
 
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