[229-10] Dieterici, Statist. Uebersicht, 321 ff., 363, 399.
[229-11] Bernouilli, Technologie, II, 223. It is a striking symptom of the wealth or ostentation of the later period of the Empire that, according to Ammian. Marcell, (XXIII, 258-ed. Paris, 1636) silk goods were a want even among the lower classes, notwithstanding the fact that they had to be imported from China.
EQUALIZING TENDENCY OF LATER LUXURY.
The whole social character of this luxury has something equalizing[230-1] in it; but it supposes particularly that there is not too marked a difference in the resources of the people.
A proper gradation of national wants is best guarantied by a good distribution of the national resources.[230-2] The more unequal the latter is, the more is there spent on vain wants instead of on real ones; and the more numerous are the instances of rapid and even immoral consumption. Where there are only a few over-rich men, more foreign products and products of capital are wont to be called for than home products and productions of labor; and luxury especially despises all those commodities manufactured in large institutions.[230-3] Every change in the consumption-customs of a people, in this respect, should be most carefully observed; thus, for instance, whether brandy is exchanged for beer, tobacco for meat, cotton for cloth, or the reverse.[230-4]
One of the characteristics of this period is the endeavor to possess the best quality of whatever is possessed at all, and to be satisfied with less of it rather than purchase more of an inferior quality. This is, essentially, to practice frugality, inasmuch as certain production-services remain the same whether the commodity is of the best or the worst quality, and that commodities of the best quality are more superior to the worst in intrinsic goodness than they are in price. But this course supposes a certain well-being already existing.
In this period, also, the luxury of the state is wont to take the direction of those enjoyments which are accessible to all.[230-5]
[230-1] Formerly the dress of citizens was a weak imitation of the court costume: at present the reverse is the case, and the court costume is only a heightening of the citizen costume. Compare Riehl, Bürgerl. Gesellschaft, 191.
[230-2] Helvetius, De l'Homme, 1771. sec. VI, ch. 5.