Meanwhile, under the action of this special delusion about consumption, we continue to fill the world with false products, and to spend strenuous lives trying to get them away from one another. Can we not recognise this one thing, that consumption is but a means to an end; that production, Work, is the end to which a legitimate consumption is a necessary means, and that the only natural and practical measure of consumption is the need of the consumer.
XV: CONSUMPTION (II)
Summary
Resistance of false concepts to true. Spread of literature. Use of imagination. Hypothesis as to natural laws in consumption—free clothing—Veblen. An unnatural market. Commodity money a check to distribution and production. Real conditions. Enormous producing power of civilised man. Legitimate consumption. Truffles. Free transportation. Free provision reduces demand and increases productivity. Property rights and personal ownership. Evolution of ownership, ownership a psychic relation, a social condition, based on social needs. True law of ownership: “Society must insure to the individual those things which are essential to his social service.” Decrease of self-interest. Success of our surviving savages. “Making money.” Normal wealth must circulate. Belief in polygamy. Natural relation not Communism. Legitimate personal property is in goods consumed—not in goods produced. Normal ownership inheres in normal consumption. Production belongs to Society. Man does not consume his own product, but that of Society. Human rights social—essential conditions of true social relation. Previous position, based on Ego concept and Want theory, does not work well. Compulsory production not normal. Owner and Employer. “Iron law of wages.” Want not a productive force,—tends only to consumption. Organic action of Society. America’s productivity does not show commensurate greed, but fuller supply of social nourishment and stimulus. Parent’s relation to child, and Society’s. Social duty.
XV
CONSUMPTION (II)
Our minds are so thoroughly accustomed to thinking along false lines in economics that true and natural social processes, when described to them, seem but fantastic dreams.
This is only according to the brain’s working habits; it takes time to change it, and we need much patience with ourselves and one another while changing. Fortunately for the age we live in, there has been so much change in so many lines that further progress is easy, compared to what it was a few centuries ago. Fortunately in especial for the country we live in, its national attitude is that of welcome to the new, suspicion of the old.
In the wonderful spread of the great art, Literature, and particularly the branch art, Fiction, as distributed so universally among us by our libraries, our periodicals, and the daily press, we have far more general use of the imagination-our brains will stretch. This faculty of imagination is no mere factor in telling fairy-tales; it is that power of seeing over and under and around and through, of foreseeing, of constructing hypotheses, by which science and invention profit as much as art. Distance, perspective, proportion, these are obtained, in our consideration of facts, by use of the imagination. The rocks and stars confronted the savage as they did the beast, and with little more result; they were visible facts, that is all. He could not imagine any further content in his observation. We observe, similarly unmoved, the facts in economics.
Now let us use this common faculty of imagination; and, judging by man’s behaviour in conditions we do know, try to measure what it would be in other conditions. Let us take one concrete instance in this process of consumption, a perfectly conceivable hypothesis, and see for ourselves how it would work out.
We will now assume that clothing was free to all. This does not mean that it was dropped from the sky; we are still to produce and distribute it; but the final absorption by the individual is unchecked. What would be the consequence? At first there would be a rushing seizure by the people who have never been satisfied in clothing—they would take and take again—greedily—inordinately—sacking the shops and stuffing their houses. But suppose the supply is maintained, steadily. They would soon find it was inconvenient to stuff their houses, if the stores remained always to draw from. The hoarding instinct does not spring from continued plenty, and becomes foolish in the face of it.
Then, though not carrying off so much, they would perhaps choose the most beautiful and expensive fabrics. Finding that all wore the same, these distinctions would cease to distinguish; if everybody was wearing velvet at will, the result would be that those who did not really like it would leave it off. If everybody was wearing lace, they would find it was too frail for outing costumes. If there was no artificial glamour on one stuff more than another; if the supply was steady and free; then, slowly, gradually, timidly, would appear for the first time among us true personal choice! People would at least know what they personally preferred and have it; clothing would be adapted to genuine need and genuine taste.