[209-3] Compare Ritter, Erdkunde, VIII, 789-815, especially the beautiful collection of passages from the Bible bearing on the locust plague, 812 ff. Pliny, H. N., XI, 85. Volney, Voyages en Syrie, I, 305. For account of an invasion of locusts, which, in 1835, covered half a square mile, four inches in thickness, see v. Wrede, R. in Hadhrammaut, 202. It is estimated that, in England, the destruction caused by rats, mice, insects, etc., amounts to ten shillings an acre per year; i. e., to £10,000,000 per annum. (Dingler, Polyt. Journal, XXX, 237.)
[209-4] Origin of the gulf of Dollart in Friesland, 2½ square miles in area between 1177 and 1287; and of Biesboch of 2 square miles in 1421. On the repeated destruction of lands in Schleswig by inundations, see Thaarup, Dänische Statistik, I, 180 seq. It is a remarkable fact that in relation to the Mediterranean, Strabo, VII, 293, considers all such accounts fables.
[209-5] As to how the grandeur and irresistibleness, etc. of this nature-consumption in the tropics leads men to superstition and the indulgence of wild fancies, see Buckle, History of Civilization in England, 1859, I, 102 ff. Since the conquest of Chili, sixteen earthquakes, which have destroyed large cities totally or in part, have been recorded.
NECESSITY OF CONSIDERING WHAT IS REALLY CONSUMED.
Whenever there is question of consumption, it is necessary to examine with rigid scrutiny, what it is that has been really consumed; that is, that has lost in utility. The person, for instance, who pays twenty dollars for a coat, has consumed that amount of capital only when the coat has been worn out.[210-1] What is called the consumption of one's income in advance is nothing but the consumption of a portion of capital which the consuming party intends to make good from his future income.[210-2] Fixed capital, too, can certainly be directly consumed; for instance, when the owner of a house treats the entire rent he receives from it as net income, makes no repairs, and no savings to put up a new building at some future time. As a rule, however, the owner of fixed capital must, in order to consume it, first exchange it against circulating capital. Thus the prodigality and dissipation, especially of courts of absolute princes, have found numerous defenders who have claimed that they are uninjurious, provided only the money spent in extravagance remained in the country.[210-3] The prodigality itself, that is, the unnecessary destruction of wealth is not, on that account, any the less disastrous.[210-4] If, for instance, there are fire-works to the amount of 10,000 dollars, manufactured exclusively by the workmen of the country, ordered for a gala day; the night before they are used for purposes of display, the national wealth embraces two separate amounts, aggregating 20,000 dollars; that is, 10,000 dollars in silver and 10,000 in rockets, etc. The day after, the 10,000 in silver are indeed still in existence, but of the 10,000 in rockets, etc., there is nothing left. If the order had been made from a foreign country the reverse would have been the case, the silver stores of the people would have been diminished, but their supply of powder would remain intact.
In a similar way, there is occasion given for the greatest misunderstanding when people so frequently speak of producers and consumers as if they were two different classes of people. Every man is a consumer of many kinds of goods; but, at the same time, he is a producer, unless he be a child, an invalid, a robber, a pick-pocket, etc.[210-5] At the same time, Bastiat is right in saying that in case of doubt when the interests of production and of consumption come in conflict, the state, as the representative of the aggregate interest, should range itself on the side of the latter. If we carry things on both sides to their extremest consequences, the self-seeking desire of consumers would lead to the utmost cheapness, that is, to universal superfluity, and the self-seeking wish of producers to the utmost dearness, that is, to universal want.[210-6]
[210-1] Compare Mirabeau, Philosophie rurale, ch. 1; Prittwitz; Kunst reich zu werden, 474.
[210-2] A very important principle for the understanding of the real effects of the spending of a state loan!
[210-3] In this way Voltaire, Siècle de Louis XIV., ch. 30, excuses for instance the extravagant (?) buildings at Versailles; and in a very similar way Catharine II. expressed herself in speaking to the Prince de Ligne: Mémoires et Mélanges par le Prince de Ligne, 1827, II, 358. v. Schröder even thinks that the Prince might consume as much and even more than "the entire capital" of the country amounted to; only, he would have him "let it get quickly among the people again." He is also in favor of the utmost splendor in dress, provided the public see to it that nothing was worn in the country which was not made in the country. (Fürstl. Schatz- u. Rentkammer, 47, 172.) Similarly even Botero, Della Ragion di Stato VII, 85; VIII, 191; and recently v. Struensee, Abhandlungen I, 190. The principle of Polycrates in Herodotus is nearly to the same effect. Compare, per contra, Ferguson, Hist. of Civil Society, V, 5.