Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 1 (of 3)

by Theodore Parker

Let us look a little at the causes of poverty. Some things we see best on a large scale. So let us look at poverty thus, and then come down to the smaller forms thereof.

I. There may be a natural and organic cause. The people of Lapland, Iceland and Greenland are a poor people compared with the Scotch, the Danes, or the French. There is a natural and organic cause for their poverty in the soil and climate of those countries, which cannot be changed. They must emigrate before they can become rich or comfortable in our sense of the word. Hence their poverty is to be attributed to their geographical position. Put the New Englanders there, even they would be a poor people. Thus the poverty of a nation may depend on the geographical position of the nation.

Suppose a race of men has little vigor of body or of mind, and yet the same natural wants as a vigorous race; put them in favorable circumstances, in a good climate, on a rich soil, they will be poor on account of the feebleness of their mind and body; put them in a stern climate, on a sterile soil, and they will perish. Such is the case with the Mexicans. Soil and climate are favorable, yet the people are poor. Suppose a nation had only one third part of the Laplander's ability, and yet needed the result of all his power, and was put in the Laplander's position, they would not live through the first winter. Had they been Mexicans who came to Plymouth in 1620, not one of them, it is probable, would have seen the next summer. Take away half the sense or bodily strength of the Bushmans of South Africa, and though they might have sense enough to dig nuts out of the ground, yet the lions and hyenas would eventually eat up the whole nation. So the poverty of a nation may come from want of power of body or of mind.

Then if a nation increases in numbers more rapidly than in wealth, there is a corresponding increase of want. Let the number of births in England for the next ten years be double the number for the last ten, without a corresponding creation of new wealth, and the English are brought to the condition of the Irish. Let the number of births in Ireland in like manner multiply, and one half the population must perish for want of food. So the poverty of a nation may depend on the disproportionate increase of its numbers.

Then an able race, under favorable outward circumstances, without an over-rapid increase of numbers, if its powers are not much developed, will be poor in comparison with a similar race under similar circumstances, but highly developed. Thus England, under Egbert in the ninth century, was poor compared with England under Victoria in the nineteenth century. The single town of Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, or even Sheffield, is probably worth many times the wealth of all England in the ninth century. So the poverty of a nation may depend on its want of development.

Old England and New England are rich, partly through the circumstances of climate and soil, partly and chiefly through the great vigor of the race, with only a normal increase of numbers, and partly through a more complete development of the nations. Such are the chief natural and organic causes of poverty on a large scale in a nation.

II. The causes may be political. By political, I mean such as are brought about by the laws, either the fundamental laws, the constitution, or the minor laws, statutes. Sometimes the laws tend to make the whole nation poor. Such are the laws which force the industry of the people out of the natural channel, restricting commerce, agriculture, manufactures, industry in general. Sometimes this is done by promoting war, by keeping up armies and navies, by putting the destructive work of fighting, or the merely conservative work of ruling, before the creative works of productive industry. France was an example of that a hundred years ago. Spain yet continues such, as she has been for two centuries.

Sometimes this is done by hindering the general development of the nation, by retarding education, by forbidding all freedom of thought. The States of the Church are an example of this when compared with Tuscany; all Italy and Austria, when compared with England; Spain, when compared with Germany, France, and Holland.

Sometimes this is brought about by keeping up an unnatural institution—as slavery, for example. South Carolina is an instance of this, when compared with Massachusetts. South Carolina has many advantages over us, yet South Carolina is poor while Massachusetts is rich.

Sometimes this political action primarily affects only the distribution of wealth, and so makes one class rich and another poor. Such is the case with laws which give all the real estate to the oldest son, laws which allow property to be entailed for a long time or forever, laws which cut men off from the land. These laws at first seem only to make one class rich and the others poor, and merely to affect the distribution of wealth in a nation, but they are unnatural and retard the industry of the people, and diminish their productive power, and make the whole nation less rich. Legislation may favor wealth and not men—property which is accumulated labor, rather than labor which is the power that accumulates property. Such legislation always endangers wealth in the end, lessening its quantity and making its tenure uncertain.