“The mill will never grind with the water that”—hasn’t come!
If this position be reluctantly admitted, there follows the alarmed demand: “But if the consumption of the individual is not measured by his previous output, how shall we measure it—how shall we prevent him from an inordinate, a disproportionate, socially wasteful consumption?”
How do you measure the dinner for your family and friends? What prevents them from eating a bushel apiece? The natural limit of consumption is capacity, the natural measure is necessity and appetite. A constant and sufficient supply of anything does not provoke inordinate consumption—quite the contrary. A refined and moderate selection is the result of full and adequate provision. Inordinate consumption is the result of a deranged supply. People who customarily do not have certain things cannot develop taste and judgment in selecting them.
People who generally have too little, are quite apt to take too much when occasion offers. Knowing that the supply is uncertain leads to taking more than is wanted, so as to store for future use; and the “pecuniary canons of taste,” so ably described by Veblen (“Theory of the Leisure Class”), lead to that meretricious display and cultivated wastefulness which form another phase of our abnormal consumption.
Natural production tends to fill the world with constantly improving supplies. Natural distribution tends to place those supplies where they will do the most good. Natural consumption tends to appropriate all that is good and beneficial, and thereby promotes production—a spiral of social progress.
We have seen how production and distribution are injuriously affected by our misbeliefs, notably by the attitude of the obsequious caterer to the desires of the purchaser. The reason these desires are so deteriorating to the world’s production is in our false attitude toward consumption. The combined effect of our popular economic superstitions reaches a considerable height of injury to society.
Here is the producer limiting his output, as far as possible, to something well within his income, each man striving to get out of the world more than he puts in: whereas all our wealth and progress is conditioned upon our putting in more than we take out—and thanks to the marvellous productivity of the race, we do, we must, so put in, in spite of our ego-centric struggles. Here is the producer, again, guiding the kind and quality of his output, not by real human needs, or by the laws of improvement inherent in the product, but by the weaknesses and artificially fomented tastes, as well as by the purchasing power of “the market.”
If “the market” has a small purchasing power, that means, under our economic system, that the human beings composing it are low-grade stock, cannot produce much themselves. Under sociological law it would follow that they be supplied with the best things, in order to improve their productive power, in order, again, so to add to the social wealth. But in our method, measuring what a man shall have by what he can do, we give the least to those who need the most! Surely anyone can see how stupid this is—to limit consumption to the value of previous output, and so steadily to maintain a low output. Conversely, by seeking to increase consumption in proportion to output, we again do evil; for consumption has its own inexorable limits, bearing no relation whatever to output, after the needs of the producer are really supplied.
Surely, this too, is plain.
So much fertiliser to the acre will increase the crop—but not indefinitely. So much fuel to the fire will increase the steam pressure—but not indefinitely. So much oats to the horse will increase his speed—but not indefinitely. And so much of our great stock of social goods will increase a man’s social value, his health, happiness, and working power—but not indefinitely. Because I am the better worker for a house suited to my needs, I am not therefore ten times the better worker for ten houses suited to my needs.