Chapter XXIII. Wealth Used By Individuals.
Wealth to be consumed for welfare.—The only economic motive for the accumulation of wealth is its use in promotion of welfare. While the old maxim says, “A penny saved is worth two gained,” every one recognizes the penny as absolutely worthless except in view of some utility to be gained in spending it. So with every form of wealth. All economic value disappears when the thought of use is wanting. Such use, whether practically instantaneous, like the destruction of the gunpowder projecting the bullet, or extended through hundreds of years, as in the wearing out of a castle, or a bridge, is properly called consumption of wealth.
A majority of the great problems concerning social welfare are connected with the use of wealth, and therefore fall under the discussion of consumption. Indeed, so long as there is little accumulated wealth, as in the savage state, social problems have little significance. The statement of the Apostle Paul, “The love of money [pg 308] is the root of all evil,” while not confined in application to wealth already accumulated, has its most important bearing in the fact that wealth accumulated is itself a power to be used or abused by whoever controls it. The saying of Emerson, “The best political economy is care and culture of men,” applies most strictly to the uses of wealth and the methods of its consumption. The great question of today in every civilized land is, How can the accumulations of power in the shape of wealth made by this generation be used to establish a continuous welfare, not only for this generation, but for its successors? The wants of society today include not only a reasonable provision for life and health and wisdom and virtue during the life of those who are now active, but an equal provision for the same wants increased with each succeeding generation. In all thought of consuming wealth, we must remember that power in this form is rightly used only when power in some other form results. Thus wealth is consumed, according to natural laws, either for reproducing itself in more advantageous form or for sustaining human power in form of health or wisdom or virtue.
We have social welfare as the result of wealth consumed, or used up. Society is interested in all the wealth accumulated, and the methods of its accumulation and its fair distribution are a part of social machinery; yet these have their chief significance in the final consumption. It is not what we have, but what we do with it, that makes society interested in our possessions. It is not what society has, but how it uses it, that settles the chief questions of welfare or illfare. Not only gunpowder, [pg 309] but every conceivable power in material wealth, has blessing or bane in the use to which it is put. So the welfare of a community cannot be judged by the amount and kind of wealth produced or by the methods in production or by the distribution of ownership. These may be significant in showing the trend of social customs as to individual control, but the last inquiry will still have to be, What welfare comes to the entire community when all this wealth is used? Moreover, no analysis of qualities in any substance called wealth can measure the welfare involved in its use. Its relation to the individual using it and his relation to the whole community, with a careful analysis of wants met and character developed, must be considered. The final question is, How many and what kind of wants are satisfied?
Use of wealth individual.—It is necessary to realize that the social organization is maintained solely for the sake of individuals. All study of welfare and illfare is a study of individual human beings. The mutual relations of these human beings in society are means to individual life, growth and enjoyment. Even the total power of a generation in society is dependent upon how the individual wants of individual members of that society are met. Some of the greatest mistakes in estimating social welfare arise from overlooking the essential individuality of wants, upon which all wealth depends for its use.
This individuality makes the proper consumption of wealth largely a question of right and wrong. The possessor of any form of wealth is obliged to recognize [pg 310] his place in society as a promoter of welfare, and society compels, as far as it is able, a recognition of individual needs. Yet the very nature of consumption, as concerned with individual wants, makes individual judgment supreme in the use of wealth. It is my ideal of good health, high culture and sound morals that must be met for my enjoyment. My welfare, so long as I have rational powers, is the meeting of my ideal. Society rightly hesitates to interfere with my ideals by force as long as my actions do not disturb the welfare of my neighbors. The necessity of human liberty for actual welfare limits the control of society to very evident infringements upon others' welfare in every activity, including the use of wealth as well as other powers. This very restriction is in the interest of highest total enjoyment of welfare in the whole community.
Individual responsibility for use of wealth.—In estimating the proper uses of wealth, it is necessary to remember that mere animal existence is a very small part of human welfare. It would not be enough for any human society that every individual in it be fed, clothed, warmed and maintained in reasonably long life. The highest uniformity of mere animal enjoyment would not make a society worthy to be called human. Even uniformity of wants far higher, with uniform supply for those wants, would give but little organization and but little total welfare if that uniformity was brought by curtailment of natural powers or by constraint that hinders growth. The most natural fact among human beings, as in all the rest of nature, is variety; and every conception of proper consumption of wealth must involve [pg 311] this thought of variety of individuals in wants and powers left free to grow. It is a purely false assumption that the ideal community toward which all ought to strive is a community of equals in either ability or capacity. That is the ideal community which gives to every member of it opportunity to make most of himself; that is, to make himself most useful, and able to enjoy the truest use of his powers.
Hence we find the tendency in every community, with reference to wealth as to other individual forces, to recognize early and complete personal responsibility. This personal responsibility makes the question of consumption of wealth a question of morals as well as of wisdom. The whole discussion here turns upon the wisdom or unwisdom of certain personal uses or social uses of what the world has accumulated. We can ask what use of wealth is prudent, what imprudent; then what social organization best develops the wisdom which secures a prudent use of wealth; and finally, how far and in what ways society can act as a unit in the place of individuals. The machinery of government then becomes a part of every person's welfare, and his relation to its maintenance by contribution of his wealth is a part of prudent consumption. The economic question in consumption, then, involves not so much what one can get from society as what he can give to society, since his welfare comes largely through organization in the use of accumulated wealth.