SECTION LIII.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

In this matter, again, there is an important difference to be observed between private or individual economy and economy in its widest sense, in the sense of a world-economy. The productiveness of labor is estimated in the case of the former, according to the value in exchange of its result; in the case of the latter, according to its value in use. There is a great number of employments which are very remunerative to private individuals, but which are entirely unproductive, and even injurious, so far as mankind is concerned; for the reason that they take from others as much as, or even more than they procure to those engaged in them. Here belong, besides formal crimes against property, games of chance,1 usurious speculations (§ 113) and measures taken to entice customers away from other competitors. Again, scientific experiments, means of communication etc., may be entirely unproductive in the individual economy of the undertaker, and yet be of more profit to mankind in general, than they have

several members of the body; personal services to inspiration, and yet all are equally necessary to the life of the body! Thus, Gamith compares agriculture to the root of a tree of which the service rendered by the state is the top. The growth of the latter contributes, as well as that of the former, to the nutrition of the whole, and is far removed from exhausting the tree. Théorie de l' E. P., II, 46 ff. "Natural production" would, indeed, accomplish very little without the legal protection guarantied by the state, or without the tools furnished by industry etc. But it is, besides, in most instances, a distortion of the truth to speak of productive and unproductive men or classes of men. These expressions are proper only when applied to individual kinds of labor. See Murhard, Ideen über Nat. k., 88 ff. Persons seriously ill are temporarily unproductive, and children who die early, are unproductive for their whole life.

1 Not, however, in the case in which the loser estimates the pleasure of the play higher than the loss.

cost the former. In this respect the nation's economy holds a middle place between individual economy and the world's economy.3 Strictly speaking, only those employments should be called productive which increase the world's resources. Hence, the work of government should be called so, only in so far as its expenses are covered by the taxes paid willingly by the more reasonable portion of the citizens; and also only in so far as its work is really necessary to the attainment of its end. The productiveness of an employment supposes, also, that it is not carried on at the cost of other employments which it is more difficult to do without. In a healthy nation we may, in this matter, rely, to a certain extent, on the judgment of public opinion, which knows how to appreciate, at their just value, professional gamblers, pettifoggers and the luxury of soldiers. The greater, freer and more cultivated a nation is, the more probable is it that the productiveness of private economy is also national-economical productiveness, and that national-economical productiveness is world-economical productiveness.5

SECTION LIV.

IMPORTANCE OF A DUE PROPORTION IN THE DIFFERENT BRANCHES OF PRODUCTIVENESS.

Much always depends on the due proportion of the different branches of productiveness to one another. Thus, Spain, for instance, has remained poor under the most advantageous

27. B. Say, Traité, I. ch. 1.

3 v. Cancrin, Ekonomie der menschlichen Gesellschaften, 1845, 10, speaks, in this case, of privative production. Among the Socialists, Bazard's expression l'exploitation de l'homme par l'homme, has found loud echo; instead of which only l'exploitation du globe par l'homme should be allowed to obtain. (Exposition de la Doctrine de St. Simon, 24.) But von Schröder had already warned the world of "imagined food" which led only to idleness. (F. Schatzund Rentkammer, 191, 363.)

4 Therefore, there should not be too many nor too highly salaried offices. See Storch, Nationaleinkommen, 33 ff.

* See v. Mangoldt, Volkswirthschaftslehre, 29 ff.

circumstances in the world,' because it allowed a disproportionate preponderance of personal services. The character of the Spanish people has always given them a leaning towards aristocratic pride and economic idleness. Tradesmen, in that country, sought, as a rule, to amass merely enough to enable them to live on the interest of their capital; after which they, by way of preference, removed it into some other province, where they might be considered as among the nobility; or they withdrew into a monastery. Even in 1781, the Madrid Academy thought it incumbent on it to propose a prize for the best essay in support of the thesis: "The useful trades in no way detract from personal honor."" During the century in which the country was in its greatest glory, the whole people were bent on being to all Europe what nobles, officers and officials are to a single nation. "Whoever wishes to make his fortune," said Cervantes, "let him seek the church, the sea (i. e., go as an adventurer to America) or the king's palace." Under Philip III., there were in Spain nine hundred and eightyeight nunneries, and thirty-two thousand mendicant friars. The number of monasteries trebled between 1574 and 1624, and the number of monks increased in a yet greater ratio. A great many of its manufactories, much of its commerce, and not a few of its most important farms were controlled by foreigners, especially by Italians. There were, it seems, in 1610, one hundred and sixty thousand foreign tradesmen living in Castile. In 1787, there were still 188,625 priests, monks, nuns, etc.; 280,092 servants; 480,589 nobles; 964,571 day laborers; 987,187 peasants; 310,739 mechanics and manufacturers;

1 Remained, and not become, poor, as is generally supposed; for the enormous wealth of Spain, under Ferdinand and Isabella, as well as during the early period of Charles V. is only a fable convenue. Charles V. said France has a superabundance of everything, and Spain is in want of everything. See also the embassy report of Navagero (1526), Viaggio fatto in Spagna e in Francia (Venet., 1563), and Ranke, Fürsten und Völker, I, 393 ff.

2 The prize was won by Arreta de Monteseguro. The author of the history of Portuguese Asia, translated by Stevens, is of opinion (III, ch. 6), that commerce is not a proper subject for serious history to treat.

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34,339 merchants. As a counterpart to this, the United States had, in 1840, about 77.5 per cent. of its population engaged in agriculture, 16.8 in manufactures and mining, 4.2 in shipping and commerce, 1.3 in the learned professions.*

3 There is a very fine description of this spirit in Clenard, Epist. I. ad Latomum (1535 ff.) Compare Jovellanos, in Laborde, Itinéraire déscriptif, IV, 176. Townsend, Journey through Spain, II, 207, 117. Buckle, History of Civilization, II, ch. I. The census of 1788 gave the number of priests and monks, soldiers, mariners, nobles, lawyers, tax-gatherers, authors, students and domestics, at 1,221,000, in a total of 3,800,000 men; from which number there was a multitude of beggars, vagrants etc. to be deducted. Laborde, Itinéraire, II, 32 ff. The seventeen universities and the numberless small Latin schools, with their gratuitous instruction, and their many scholarships, misled a disproportionately large number to engage in study. At the beginning of this century, there were at least 200,000 priests, nuns (Geistliche), etc., in a population of from three to three and a half millions only. (Ebeling, Erdbeschreibung von Portugal, 66.) Senior shows that the poverty of the Osman is caused by too many state employees, tax-farmers and retail merchants. (Journal kept in Turkey and Greece, 1857-58.) Thus, also, 7. Tucker, Four Tracts, 1774, 18, contrasts men engaged in industry with rich idlers, whose increase, possibly by immigration, would make the people a nation of "gentlemen and ladies, footmen, grooms, laundresses etc." Schmitthener, N. ŒŒk., 656, calls a condition such as that of Spain, “nationaleconomical phthisis."

4 Tucker, Progress of the U. S., 137. The following data also will serve for a comparison: In Belgium, in 1856, it was estimated that, leaving persons sans profession out of consideration, 45.6 per cent. were agriculturists, 37.2 industrials, 6.7 in commerce, 2.8 in the liberal professions, 1.5 force publique, 2.1 propriétaires, rentiers, pensionnés, 3.7 domesticité. In Prussia, in 1871, of the entire male population, 28.6 per cent. were engaged in agriculture, forest-culture, hunting and fishing: 32.3 per cent, in mining, industry, building, and in founderies: 8.56 in trade and commerce; 20.3 in personal services and handiwork not belonging to any of the groups above mentioned; 2.3 in the army and navy; 3.7 in other callings; 2.7 were renters, pensioners, and persons who lived by selling or renting houses, reserving lodgings for themselves therein, and persons who gave no account of their calling. (Preuss. statisc. Zeitschr., 1875, 32. ff.) It is, however, surprising that Engel's Amtl. Jahrbuch, III, 1867, gives only 48 per cent. as belonging to the first category, and 25 to the second. In the kingdom of Saxony in 1861, 25.1 per cent. of the population were agriculturists and foresters; 56.1 were engaged in industry; 7.7 in trade and commerce; 6.8 in art, science, the service of the state and of private persons; while 4.1 per cent were without any particular calling, or returned none. Bavaria, in 1852, had 67.9 per cent. of its population engaged in agriculture.

We might be tempted, in view of this contrast, to return once more to the unproductiveness of personal services. It is not, however, the direction given to the forces of production, but the squandering of them, that is injurious. When the Magyar, through mere vanity, drives a yoke of from four to six horses where two are enough; or when, as in 1831, Irish agriculture employed 1,131,715 workmen to produce a value of thirty-six million pounds sterling, while that of Great Britain produced one hundred and fifty millions a year, and employed only 1,055,982 workmen, these causes are as sure to impoverish the country, as the waste of the Spaniards in supporting such an army of clergy and servants. Of course, the temptation to waste wealth on parks is greater than to waste it in vegetable gardens! The probability that a man will ruin himself by keeping too many servants is greater than that he

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22.7 in the trades and in manufactures; 5.5 per cent., persons living on the interest of their money, and by performing the higher class of personal services; 1.9 in the army; and 2 per cent. of listed poor. In Hermann, Beiträge zur Statistik des Königreichs Bayern. In France, according to the official reports, there were:

Agriculteurs....

1851

1866

61.46 per cent. 51.49 per cent.

To which it must be added, that, in 1851, there were 2.86 sans profession ou dont les professions n'ont pu être constatées; and that, in 1866, on the other hand, there were 2.87 per cent. in professions se rattachant à l'agriculture, industrie et commerce. (Legoyt.) In England and Wales, leaving the domestic class out of consideration (women without an independent means of employment, school children, servant girls etc.), and also the "indefinite class," there were, in 1861, 25.3 per cent. of the population engaged in agricultural pursuits; 60.7 in industrial; 7.8 in commercial; and 6.06 in professional pursuits. In Italy, omitting housewives, children and infirm persons, there were, in 1862, 57.4 per cent. of the population engaged in agriculture; 22.9 in industrial pursuits; 4 in commerce; and 3.9 per cent. in the army and in the liberal professions. (Annali univ. di Statistica, Febbr., 1866.) On Holland, in the middle of the 17th century, see J. de Wit, Mémoires, 34 seq. 5 Csaplovics, Gemälde von Ungarn II, 1. Torrens, The Budget: On com. mercial and colonial Policy, 106 ff.