All the things made or used by man may be divided into two classes, under the heads of necessaries and luxuries.
I should count as necessaries all those things which are essential to the highest form of human life.
All those things which are not necessary to the highest form of human life I should call luxuries, or superfluities.
For instance, I should call food, clothing, houses, fuel, books, pictures, and musical instruments, necessaries; and I should call diamond ear-rings, racehorses, and broughams luxuries.
Now it is evident that all those things, whether luxuries or necessaries, are made by labour. Diamond rings, loaves of bread, grand pianos, and flat irons do not grow on trees; they must be made by the labour of the people. And it is very clear that the more luxuries a people produce, the fewer necessaries they will produce.
If a community consists of 10,000 people, and if 9000 people are making bread and 1000 are making jewellery, it is evident that there will be more bread than jewellery.
If in the same community 9000 make jewellery and only 1000 make bread, there will be more jewellery than bread.
In the first case there will be food enough for all, though jewels be scarce. In the second case the people must starve, although they wear diamond rings on all their fingers.
In a well-ordered State no luxuries would be produced until there were enough necessaries for all.
Robinson Crusoe's first care was to secure food and shelter. Had he neglected his goats and his raisins, and spent his time in making shell-boxes, he would have starved. Under those circumstances he would have been a fool. But what are we to call the delicate and refined ladies who wear satin and pearls, while the people who earn them lack bread?