[214-5] Le travail de la faim est toujours borné comme elle. (Raynal.)
[214-6] Compare Adam Smith, I, ch. 11, 2; supra, § 54. In Russia, nearly 80 per cent. of the population live immediately from agriculture; in Great Britain, in 1835, only 35; in 1821, only 33; in 1831, only 31½; in 1841, only 26 per cent. (Porter.) According to Marshall, there were, in 1831, in British Europe, 1,116,000 persons who lived from their rents, etc. In Ireland, there were, in 1831, over 65 per cent. of the population engaged in agriculture (Porter); in 1841, even 66 per cent.
[214-7] In Paris, in 1834, the average income per capita was estimated to be 1,029.9 francs, of which 46 francs were paid out for service; 55.7 for education; 11.5 for physicians' services, etc.; 7 on theatrical shows; 36 for washing; 13.6 for public purposes. (Dingler, Polyt. Journal, LIII, 464.) According to Ducpétiaux, Budgets économiques des Classes ouvrières en Belgique, 1855, and Engel, Sächs. Statist. Ztschr., 1857, 170, the proportional percentage of family expenses for the following articles of consumption is:
| EXPENSES OF | ||||
| Consumption Purpose. | a laborer's family in comfortablecircumstances. | family of the middle class. | a well-to-do family. | |
| In Belgium. per cent. | In Saxony. per cent. | In Saxony. per cent. | In Saxony. per cent. | |
| Food, | 61 ⎫ | 62 ⎫ | 55 ⎫ | 50 ⎫ |
| Clothing, | 15 ⎪ | 16 ⎪ | 18 ⎪ | 18 ⎪ |
| Shelter, | 10 ⎬ 95 | 12 ⎬ 95 | 12 ⎬ 90 | 12 ⎬ 85 |
| Heating and lighting, | 05⎪ | 05 ⎭ | 05 ⎭ | 05 ⎭ |
| Utensils and tools, | 04⎭ | |||
| Education, instruction, | 02 ⎫ | 02 ⎫ | 3.5 ⎫ | 5.5 ⎫ |
| Public security, | 01 ⎪ | 01 ⎪ | 2.5 ⎪ | 3.5 ⎪ |
| Sanitary purposes | 01 ⎬ 5 | 01 ⎬ 5 | 2.0 ⎬ 10 | 3.0 ⎬ 15 |
| Personal services, | 01 ⎭ | 01 ⎭ | 2.5 ⎭ | 3.5 ⎭ |
Hence Engel thinks that when the articles of food, clothing, shelter, heating and lighting have become dearer by 50 per cent., and other wants have not, and it is desired to proportionately increase the salaries of officials, salaries of 300, 600 and 1,000 thalers should be raised to 427.5, 800 and 1,275 thalers respectively. (Preuss. Statist. Zeitschr., 1875.) E. Herrmann, Pricipien der Wirthsch., 106, estimates that in all Europe, 45.6 of all consumption is for food, 13.2 for clothing, 5.7 for shelter, 4.6 for furnishing, 5.3 for heating and lighting, 2.6 for tools and utensils, 13.3 for public security, 6.6 for purposes of recreation. Compare Leplay, Les Ouvriers Européens, 1855, and v. Prittwitz, Kunst reich zu werden, 487 ff. The expenses for shelter, service and sociability are specially apt to increase with an increase of income.
[214-8] The necessity of an equilibrium between production and consumption was pretty clear to many of the older political economists. Thus, for instance, Petty calls the coarse absence of the feeling of higher wants among the Irish the chief cause of their idleness and poverty. Similarly Temple, Observations on the N. Provinces, ch. 6, in which Ireland and Holland are compared in this relation. North, Discourses upon Trade, 14 seq.; Potscr. Roscher, Zur Geschichte der english. Volswirthschaftslehre, 83, 91, 127 ff. Becher, polit. Discurs., 1668, 17 ff., was of opinion that the principal cause keeping the three great estates together, the very soul of their connection, was consumption. Hence the peasant lived from the tradesman, and the tradesman from the merchant. (Boisguillebert, Détail de la France, I, 4, II, 9, 21.) According to Berkeley, Querist, No. 20, 107, the awakening of wants is the most probable way to lead a people to industry. And so Hume, loc. cit., Forbonnais, Eléments du Commerce, I, 364. The Physiocrates were in favor of active consumption. Thus Quesnay, Maximes générales, 21 seq.; Letrosne, De l'Interêt social, I, 12. La reproduction et la consommation sont réciproquement[TN 43] la mesure l'une de l'autre. Some of them considered consumption even as the chief thing (Mirabeau, Philosophie rurale, ch. 1), which could never be too great. Further, Verri, Meditazioni, I, 1-4. Büsch, Geldumlauf, III, 11 ff.
The moderns have frequently inequitably neglected the doctrine of consumption. Thus it appears to be a very characteristic fact that in Adam Smith's great book, there is no division bearing the title "consumption," and in the Basel edition of 1801, that word does not occur in the index. Droz says that in reading the works of certain of his followers, one might think that products were not made for the sake of man, but man for their sake. But, on the other hand, there came a strong reaction with Lauderdale, Inquiry, ch. 5; Sismondi, N. Principes, L., II, passim; Ganilh, Dictionnaire Analytique, 93 ff., 159 ff.; but especially, and with important scientific discoveries, Malthus, Principles, B. II. St. Chamans, Nouvel Essai sur la Richesse des Nations, 1824, is an exaggerated caricature[TN 44] of the theory of consumption. For instance, he resolves the income of individuals into foreign demand or the demand of strangers (29); considers the first condition of public credit to lie in the making of outlay (32); and even calls entirely idle consumers productive, for the reason that they elevate by their demand a utilité possible, to the dignity of a utilité réelle (286 ff.) The view advocated by Mirabeau, and referred to above, again represented by E. Solly, Considerations on Political Economy, 1814, and by Weishaupt, Ueb. die Staatsausgaben und Auflagen, 1819. And so according to Carey, Principles, ch. 35, § 6, the real difficulty does not lie in production, but in finding a purchaser for the products. But he overlooks the fact here that only the possessor of other products can appear as a purchaser. From another side, most socialists think almost exclusively of the wants of men, and scarcely consider it worth their while to pay any attention to the means of satisfying them.
NECESSITY OF THE PROPER SIMULTANEOUS DEVELOPMENT OF PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION.
Hence, one of the most essential conditions of a prosperous national economy is that the development of consumption should keep equal pace with that of production, and supply with demand.[215-1] The growth of a nation's economy naturally depends on this: that production should always be, so to speak, one step in advance of consumption, just as the organism of the animal body grows from the fact that the secretions always amount to something less than the amount of additional nutrition. A preponderance of secretions would here be disease; but so would be a too great preponderance of nutrition. Now, the politico-economical disease which is produced by the lagging behind of consumption and by the supply being much in advance of the demand, is called a commercial (market) crisis. Its immediate consequence is, that for a great many commodities produced, no purchasers can be found. The effect of this is naturally to lower prices. The profit of capital and wages diminish. A transition into another branch of production, not overcrowded, is either not possible at all or is attended with care, great difficulties and loss. It is very seldom that all these disadvantages are confined to the one branch in which the disease had its original seat. For, since the resources of the one class of producers have diminished, they cannot purchase as much from others as usual. The most distant members of the politico-economic body may be thereby affected.[215-2]