[222] Book III, Chapter II.
CHAPTER VI[ToC]
SOLIDARITY
I think it was Miss Martineau who said that if her generation was better than that which preceded her, the betterment was due to the teachings of Carlyle; and much though we may differ with John Ruskin in matters of detail, no one will dispute the apostolic fervor with which he endeavored to push on the work of Thomas Carlyle. It is a significant fact, therefore, that both Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin had nothing but abuse to give to political economy. Nevertheless, I think we all must agree that this hostile attitude was due to a misconception of the scope of political economy, a misconception due in great part to its name; for the words "political economy" seem to indicate that it deals with the economy of the state, and that it becomes the duty of its teachers to show us not only what the rules regarding the production and distribution of goods are, but what they ought to be.
In fact, however, although economists do discuss how—if at all—the system of production and distribution of goods can be improved, they have always regarded it as their principal function to describe accurately what the rules that govern production and distribution really are, rather than what they ought to be. And as existing industrial conditions are extremely complicated, those who have thrown light upon them are highly to be honored. And although they have contributed nothing to the solution of such problems as unemployment, pauperism, and the conflict of labor and capital, it may be as unreasonable to complain of this as to quarrel with the "crossing-sweeper of Piccadilly" because he is unable "to tell you the road to Highgate."
Again, political economy has encountered a great deal of unmerited abuse because critics have confounded authors with their subject, and have held economists responsible for the industrial conditions they describe; whereas, these economists have earned our sincerest thanks for demonstrating that the competitive system offers no solution for the conflict between capital and labor, or the problem of unemployment and all the other problems as those of pauperism, prostitution, and economic crime which result therefrom.
Mr. Ruskin is certainly wrong when he denounces political economy as the "science of getting rich," and when he adds that "persons who follow its precepts" do actually become rich; "all persons who disobey them become poor"; for our ablest political economists have always been and still are relatively poor men, and our richest millionaire is a past master of the rules in the game which it is his particular business to play; but he is not concerned with a science which does no more than study wealth under the competitive system and demonstrate how inevitably a few grow rich and the rest grow poor under it.