suits, and seeking the attainment of that object by means of measures tending to raise the price of labor and land, while reducing that of all the commodities required for the consumption of the land-owner and the laborer. The first place trade at the head of the pursuits of man, while the last seek the extension of commerce.

England herself is the birth-place of the theory of overpopulation, invented to account for the enormous waste resulting from the want of continuous demand for human force. At one time, the mill-owner closes his doors in order to reduce the price of labor and its ruder products; at another, long-continued strikes ruin both workman and employer. Trading centralization is there almost perfect; and centralization and stability are totally inconsistent with each other.*

§ 5. Modern political economy has sought to limit the signification of the word wealth to those material commodities which may be bought and sold; limiting, too, the science itself to the determination of the laws which govern man in trading operations. This has arisen from the fact, that its professors have never properly discriminated between the two very distinct classes into which society is so much divided the one desiring to effect exchanges with their fellow-men, and thus to maintain commerce; the other seeking to effect exchanges for them, and thus to exercise trade.

Extension of the first, as has been seen, brings with it continuity of motion; whereas, increase in the power of the last tends to produce what are called "gluts," the trader seeking

* "Between our Black West Indies and our White Ireland, between these two extremes of lazy refusal to work, and of famishing inability to find any work, what a world have we made of it, with our fierce Mammon-worships, and our benevolent philanderings, and idle, godless nonsenses of one kind and another! Supply-anddemand, Leave-it-alone, Voluntary-principle, Time will mend it: till British industrial existence seems fast becoming one huge poison-swamp of reeking pestilence, physical and moral; a hideous living Golgotha of souls and bodies buried alive; such a Curtius' gulf, communicating with the Nether Deep, as the sun never saw till now. Thirty thousand outcast needlewomen working themselves swiftly to death; three million paupers rotting in forced idleness, helping said needlewomen to die! these are but items in the sad ledger of despair. Thirty thousand wretched women, sunk in that putrifying well of abominations; they have oozed in upon London from the universal Stygian quagmire of British Industrial life; are accumulated in the well of the concern to that extent."-CARLYLE: Latter-Day Pamphlets.

to cause those changes of prices which enable him to buy at low prices and sell at high ones. Some economists have imagined this difficulty of selling to be a consequence of overproduction, when the real cause was to be found in obstacles in the way of circulation. Over-population and over-production thus combine for the formation of that which is most appropriately termed "the dismal science."

From the same omission has resulted considerable difference as to the meaning of the word production, of which no clear definition has ever yet been given. By nearly all economists it is limited to the consideration of those material things which may be made the subject of purchase and sale. Much diversity of opinion has, therefore, existed as to the division of society into productive and unproductive classes. Among the latest exponents of the modern school is Mr. J. S. Mill, whose views are given in the following passage :

"All labor is, in the language of political economy, unproductive, which ends in immediate enjoyment, without any increase of the accumulated stock of permanent means of enjoyment. And all labor, according to our present definition, must be classed as unproductive which terminates in a permanent benefit, however important, provided that an increase of material products forms no part of that benefit. The labor of saving a friend's life is not productive, unless the friend is a productive laborer, and produces more than he consumes. To a religious person, the saving of a soul must appear a far more important service than the saving of a life; but he will not, therefore, call a missionary or a clergyman productive laborers, unless they teach, as the South Sea missionaries have in some cases done, the arts of civilization in addition to the doctrines of religion. It is, on the contrary, evident that the greater number of missionaries or clergymen a nation maintains, the less it has to expend on other things while the more it expends judiciously in keeping agriculturists and manufacturers at work, the more it will have for every other purpose. By the former, it diminishes, cæteris paribus, its stock of material products; by the latter, it increases them." Truth being simple, simple ideas are generally true. Complex ideas, therefore, may generally be regarded as the reverse, the progress of man in knowledge being always in the direction of obtaining expressions that, by reason of their perfect simplicity, suffice for covering all the facts. Such is not here the case. The missionary is productive, if "he add the arts of civilization to the doctrines of religion," that is,

if he carry to the people of the South Sea Islands ploughs and harrows, and other instruments calculated to enable them to increase their stock of material products. Contenting himself, on the contrary, with laboring to produce in his flock a higher feeling of their responsibility towards their fellowmen, and towards their Creator, he is to be regarded as unproductive, even though the effort result in making sobriety, industry, and economy, the normal condition of a little community in which there had before reigned turbulence, idleness, and waste. Again, the labor of saving the life of a man is unproductive; whereas, that devoted to increasing the supply of hogs is productive. The painter is productive when he paints a picture; but unproductive when he teaches hundreds of others to make pictures equal to his own. Fourcroy and Chaptal, Davy and Berzelius, creators of science, were unproductive; but the apothecary, who by means of their discoveries is enabled to make a paper of seidlitz powders, is productive. Watt, who taught us how to avail ourselves of steam, and Fulton, from whom we learned to make it available for the purposes of transportation, were unproductive; while the man who makes steamengines and steamships is productive. The more missionaries, the more Foureroys, Chaptals, Watts, or Fultons, a nation maintains, "the less," we are here assured, "it will have to expend on other things;" whereas, the more it converts its people into mere agriculturists and manufacturers, "the more it will have for every other purpose!" Such is the strange result to which the grossly material character of the doctrines of the Ricardo-Malthusian school has led a writer so deservedly occupying one of the highest positions among the economists of Europe.

That labor is productive which tends to enable man more thoroughly to direct the forces of nature to his service, the power so to do constituting wealth. Such is the effect of the efforts of the missionary, of the man who saves his neighbor's life, of Fulton and Watt, Fourcroy and Berzelius; and the more such men a nation maintains the more it will certainly have "to expend on other things," the more rapidly will consumption follow production, and the greater will be the power of accumulation.

32

CHAPTER XXXII.

OF ACCUMULATION.

1. Power of accumulation exists in the ratio of the rapidity of the circulation. Capital the instrument by means of which man is enabled to direct the natural forces to his service. Power of association grows as he obtains increased command over the instrument.

2. Movable capital declines in its proportions as compared with that which is fixed, that decline being an evidence of advancing civilization. Centralization produces the reverse effect. Increase of movable capital in all the present free-trade countries.

3. Errors of modern economists in regarding saving as the cause of the growth of capital. 4. That growth due to the economy of human effort. That economy a consequence of diversification of employments, and consequent combination of action.

5. Errors of Adam Smith in regard to the origin of capital.

26. Chief difficulty of social science. Summary of the definitions thus far given in the present work.

§ 1. CONSUMPTION and production being always equal, how, it may be asked, can there be accumulation? To this it may be answered, that the power of accumulation depends entirely on the rapidity with which consumption follows upon production.

The food consumed by Crusoe was capital, obtained by means of human effort. Did it then cease to be capital? Certainly not. On the contrary, it had assumed a higher form, that of mental and physical force. Next, it reappeared in the form of a bow, to the construction of which such force had been applied. Reappearing once again in the form of increased supplies and higher quality of food, and thus enabling him to devote more time and mind to the study of nature and her powers, it promotes the further accumulation of capital in the form of that higher intelligence by means of which he compels wind and water to do his work, thus obtaining that mastery over nature which constitutes wealth. Capital is the instrument by means of which that mastery is acquired, whether existing in the form of food, of physical or mental force, of bows, canoes, ships, lands, houses, mills, or furnaces. Every increase of command over the instrument is attended by corresponding increase in the power of association, in the development of individual faculties, and in the power of further accumulation.

§ 2. The tendency towards improvement is in the ratio of the increase of fixed, as compared with circulating, capital.

With every swamp drained, every new mine opened, every bed of marl worked, every new water power made to labor in the service of man, every new development of the wonderful forces of nature, the home has greater attractions, the family is more enabled to revolve around its own centre, the township acquires greater individuality, and the revolution of the various societary bodies becomes more continuous, with constant increase of the societary force.

Centralization, on the contrary, tends to increase the proportion of movable, while diminishing that of fixed, property. The great landholder compels the weak to labor for him, holding men and women as mere chattels, to be bought and sold in open market. Land is then, as now in India and Carolina, nearly valueless. The products of labor then pass through the hands of the traders in men's services on their way towards distribution. In this state of things nearly all property is purely personal, as we see to be the case in the cotton States.

The warrior-chief imposes heavy taxes on his subjects, applying to the support of armies what his people would otherwise have fixed in the form of improvements on their little farms.

The trader opposes all exchanges not made through himself, knowing that the more he can separate the producer from the consumer the greater will be the quantity of goods waiting demand, the larger his proportion of their price, and the greater his power to purchase ships and cannon with which to enforce submission to his demands.

The western settler obtains land for little money, but his horses, cattle, wagon, and furniture, cost him much. Obliged to send his produce to a distant market, he pays for the use of wagons, horses, cars, and ships; and the cost of all this circulating capital prevents increase in the value of his land.

The capital of England, in the days of the Plantagenets, consisted in large proportion of its flocks and herds. The markets being distant, produce accumulated in one part of the kingdom, while in another men perished for want of food. Land and man were cheap, but cloth was dear. Now, the value of fixed property certainly thrice exceeds that of floating capital; and this in despite of a policy based on the idea that ships, wagons, and other machinery of trade, are more profitable than land, the machinery of production.

Looking to Ireland, India, Portugal, or Turkey, countries whose policy tends towards giving power to the trader, we