What is wealth?
Are we rich in proportion to the utilities which we have at our disposal,—that is, in proportion to the wants and desires which we have the means of satisfying? “A man is rich or poor,” says Adam Smith, “according as he possesses a greater or smaller amount of useful commodities which minister to his enjoyments.”
Are we rich in proportion to the values which we possess,—that is to say, the services which we can command? “Wealth,” says J. B. Say, “is in proportion to Value. It is great if the sum of the value of which it is composed is great—it is small if the value be small.”
The vulgar employ the word Wealth in two senses. Sometimes we hear them say—“The abundance of water is Wealth to such a country.” In this case, they are thinking only of utility. But when one wishes to reckon up his own wealth, he makes what is called an Inventory, in which only commercial Value is taken into account.
With deference to the savants, I believe that the vulgar are [p181] right for once. Wealth is either actual or relative. In the first point of view, we judge of it by our satisfactions. Mankind become richer in proportion as they acquire a greater amount of ease or material prosperity, whatever be the commodities by which it is procured. But do you wish to know what proportional share each man has in the general prosperity; in other words, his relative wealth? This is simply a relation, which value alone reveals, because value is itself a relation.
Our science has to do with the general welfare and prosperity of men, with the proportion which exists between their Efforts and their Satisfactions,—a proportion which the progressive participation of gratuitous utility in the business of production modifies advantageously. You cannot, then, exclude this element from the idea of Wealth. In a scientific point of view, actual or effective wealth is not the sum of values, but the aggregate of the utilities, gratuitous and onerous, which are attached to these values. As regards satisfactions,—that is to say, as regards actual results of wealth, we are as much enriched by the value annihilated by progress as by that which still subsists.
In the ordinary transactions of life, we cease to take utility into account, in proportion as that utility becomes gratuitous by the lowering of value. Why? because what is gratuitous is common, and what is common alters in no respect each man’s share or proportion of actual or effective wealth. We do not exchange what is common to all; and as in our every-day transactions we only require to be made acquainted with the proportion which value establishes, we take no account of anything else.
This subject gave rise to a controversy between Ricardo and J. B. Say. Ricardo gave to the word Wealth the sense of Utility—Say, that of Value. The exclusive triumph of one of these champions was impossible, since the word admits of both senses, according as we regard wealth as actual or relative.
But it is necessary to remark, and the more so on account of the great authority of Say in these matters, that if we confound wealth (in the sense of actual or effective prosperity) with value; above all, if we affirm that the one is proportional to the other, we shall be apt to give the science a wrong direction. The works of second-rate Economists, and those of the Socialists, show this but too clearly. To set out by concealing from view precisely that which forms the fairest patrimony of the human race, is an unfortunate beginning. It leads us to consider as annihilated that portion of wealth which progress renders common to all, and exposes us to the danger of falling into a petitio principii, and studying [p182] Political Economy backwards,—the end, the design, which it is our object to attain, being perpetually confounded with the obstacle which impedes our efforts.
In truth, but for the existence of obstacles, there could be no such thing as Value, which is the sign, the symptom, the witness, the proof of our native weakness. It reminds us incessantly of the decree which went forth in the beginning—“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” With reference to Omnipotence, the words Effort, Service, and, consequently, Value, have no meaning. As regards ourselves, we live in an atmosphere of utilities, of which utilities the greater part are gratuitous, but there are others which we can acquire only by an onerous title. Obstacles are interposed between these utilities and the wants to which they minister. We are condemned either to forego the Utility, or vanquish these obstacles by Efforts. Sweat must drop from the brow before bread can be eaten, whether the toil be undergone by ourselves or by others for our benefit.