We see, then, that it is simple folly to approve of consumption for its own sake, or because it benefits trade. In spending our wealth we ought to think solely of the advantage which people get out of that spending.
15. The Fallacy of Non-consumption. Some people fall into the opposite fallacy of thinking that all spending is an evil. The best thing to do with wealth is to keep it and let it grow by interest, or even to neglect the interest and keep the gold itself. Thus they become what we call misers, and there are always a certain number of people, who deprive themselves of the ordinary pleasures of life, in order that they may have the pleasure of feeling rich. Now these kind of people do no positive harm to their fellow-men; on the contrary they increase the wealth of the country, and some one or other will sooner or later benefit by it. Moreover, if they put their wealth into banks and other good investments, they do great service in increasing the capital of the nation, and thus enabling so many more factories, docks, railways, and other important works to be constructed. Most people are so fond of spending their money on passing amusements, entertainments, eating and drinking, and fine dressing, that it is a distinct advantage to have other people who will put their wealth into a more permanently useful form.
Nevertheless, there could be no use in abstaining from all enjoyment in order that we might lay up a store of wealth. Things are not wealth unless they are useful and pleasant to us. If everybody invested his savings in railway shares, we should have so many railways that they could not be all used, and they would become rather a nuisance than a benefit. Similarly, there could be no good in building docks unless there were ships to load in them, nor ships unless there were goods or passengers to convey. It would be equally absurd to make cotton mills if there were already enough to manufacture as much cotton goods as people could consume.
Thus we come to see that wealth must be fitted for use and consumption in some way or other. What we have to do is to endeavour to spend our means so as to get the greatest real happiness for ourselves, our relatives, friends, and all other people whom we ought to consider.
CHAPTER III.
PRODUCTION OF WEALTH.
16. The Requisites of Production. The first thing in industry, as we now see, is to decide what we want; the next thing is to get it, or make it, or, as we shall say, produce it, and we ought obviously to produce it with the least possible labour. To learn how this may be done, we must inquire what is needful for the production of wealth. There are, as is commonly and correctly said, three requisites of production; before we can, in the present state of society, undertake to produce wealth, we must have the three following things:—
(1) Land,
(2) Labour,
(3) Capital.
In production we bring these things together; we apply labour to the land, and we employ the capital in assisting the labourer with tools, and feeding him while he is engaged on the work. We must now proceed to consider each of the three requisites in succession.