INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER I. • FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS. SECTION I. GOODS-WANTS. The starting point, as well as the object-point of our science is Man,1 Every man has numberless wants, physical and intellectual.2 * Wants are either necessaries, decencies (Anstandsbedürfnisse) or luxuries. The non-satisfaction of necessary wants causes disease or death; that of the wants of decency endangers one's 1 1 Schäffle, Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift (1861), emphasizes this. Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776), very characteristically, begins with the yearly labor of the nation; J. B. Say (Traité d' Economie Politique, 1802), with richesses; Ricardo (Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, 1817), with the idea of value. ? The sum total of the wants (Bedarf) of the Bavarian people, for a whole year, is estimated by Hermann, Staatswirthschaftliche Untersuchungen (2d ed., 1870, p. 81), at 177,000,000 florins for food (77 millions for wheat and potatoes, 69 millions for meat, 15 millions for milk etc., 16 millions for eggs, vegetables, salt and spices); 50 millions for clothing, 45 millions for shelter, 37.5 millions for fuel, 60 millions for beverages. *The original adds: deren Gesammtheit sein Bedarf heisst; the aggregate of which is called his [man's] Requisite (Bedarf). There being no exact equivalent in English for the word Bedarf in this connection, this note is appended. - Translator. social position. The much greater number, and the longer continuance of his wants are among the most striking differences between man and the brute: wants such as clothing, fuel, tools, and those resulting from his much longer period of infancy; which last, together with other causes, has contributed so largely to make marriage necessary and universal. While the lower animals have no wants, but necessities, and while their aggregate-want, even in the longest series of generations, admits of no qualitative increase, the circle of man's wants is susceptible of indefinite extension. And, indeed, every advance in culture made by man finds expression in an increase in the number and in the keenness of his rational wants. No man who distinguishes himself in anything, but feels spurred thereto by a peculiar want; and this want is both the cause and the effect of the power which is peculiar to him. No one but the poet feels the want of poetizing; no one but the philosopher, of philosophizing. every particular, intellectual or physical, in which the man is in advance of the child, he experiences new wants unknown to the child. Our education consists, for the most part, in awakening wants and providing for their satisfaction. In 3 According to Boisguillebert (ob. 1714) Traité des Grains, I., c. 4, the wants nécessaire, commode, délicat, superflu, magnifique, arise in successive order with increasing welfare or prosperity, and are surrendered in a reverse order, with increasing need. Tucker distinguishes necessaries, comforts, and conveniences of the respective conditions, elegancies and refinements, and lastly, 'grand and magnificent." (Two Sermons, 1774, 29 ff.); F. B. W. Hermann, loc. cit., 1st, ed., 1832, 68; necessary goods (Güter der Nothdurft), goods that contribute to pleasure and recuperation, to culture and splendor. 4 Compare Tucker, On the Naturalization Bill (1751 seq.), IV, note. 5 No people without fire (Prometheus!); and it seems that broiling was the earliest mode of preparing food; then followed baking in heated cavities, and lastly came boiling in vessels. (Klemm, Allgemeine Kulturgeschichte, I, 180, 343-) There is an interesting attempt by Faucher, in the Vierteljahrsschrift für Volkswirthschaft und Kulturgeschichte, 1868, III, 148 ff., to determine the relative place of our various wants according to their capacity for extension or contraction. Goods are anything which can be used, whether directly or indirectly, for the satisfaction of any true or legitimate human want, and whose utility, for this purpose, is recognized. Hence, the idea goods is an essentially relative one. Every change in man's wants, or knowledge, is accompanied by a rapid, corresponding change, either in the limits of the circle' of goods, or in their relative importance. Thus, the tobacco plant has, probably, existed thousands of years. It became goods, however, only from the time that man recognized its use for smoking, snuffing, etc., and experienced the want of it for these purposes. In a similar way, the limestone of the Solenhofen quarries has become goods, of considerable importance, only since the invention of lithography; decaying bones, only since that of bone-dust manure; caoutchouc since about 1825, and gutta-percha, only since 1844. On the other hand, charms,10 philters, and even relics, since the decay of faith in their efficacy, have lost the quality of goods. If the aggregate income of all mankind were, by some sudden revolution, to be equally divided among all, diamonds, for instance, would "The qualification "true," excludes from the circle of goods, not only all those things which might satisfy only irrational or immoral wants (compare Mischler, Grundsätze der Nationalökonomie, 1856, I, 187), but also vindicates the fundamental idea of the whole system of Political Economy, as a subject of moral as well as of psychological investigation. 9 Even Aristotle (Eth. nicom. V, 8), considers that all things intended to enter into commerce, should be susceptible of comparison with one another, and that the measure of this comparison is want, which is the foundation of all association among men. 'An Arab helped pillage a caravan, and carried away, as his share of the booty, a chest of pearls. He thought it a box of rice, and gave them to his wife to cook, but finding they did not boil tender, he threw them away. (Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, 383). See a similar anecdote in Ammian. Marcell., XXII. Compare Strabo, VIII, 381. 10 As soon as the Persians renounce the superstition that the daily contemplation of a turquoise is a talisman against the "evil eye" (K. Ritter, Erdkunde, VIII, 327), that precious stone will lose much of its value. On the other hand, the amulets of antiquity, although they have long lost the quality of goods as objects of superstition, have now a real value for the archæ ologist. |