CHAPTER III. PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE LABOR. 1. THERE is no very general agreement as to what constitutes the difference between productive and unproductive labor. Some deny that there is any such thing as unproductive labor others restrict productive labor to that which results in material wealth. According to the latter, Daniel Webster, Horace Greeley, and Professor Agassiz were not producers, but the men who made their shoes and furnished their provisions were. Still other writers enlarge the sphere of productive laborers by reckoning as such all who indirectly contribute to production. If we accept the definitions previously given of labor, production, and value'; and if we admit, even without accepting it as a definition, that "wealth is the power which man has to command the gratuitous services of nature," then we shall be obliged to admit, that not only all the various classes of laborers to which reference is made in the last chapter, but that all who labor in any art the design of which is to gratify any legitimate desire of man, are productive laborers. For, this capability of gratifying desire is an essential condition of wealth; and when furnished by any kind of effort, whether the product takes on a permanent form awaiting future consumption, or is consumed at the instant of production, it is all the same; for nothing can be regarded as a product which is not destined to be, sooner or later, consumed. 2. Notwithstanding these strictures on the doctrine which makes so many and important kinds of effort unproductive, there are still numerous instances of unproductive labor. The following are the most prominent of these: 1. Misdirected labor, or that which does not secure the object at which it aims. If a man should devote months of time to the construction of a machine of which the mechanical principle on which it depends is impossible, his labor is, of course, ineffective. 2. All of that labor the ultimate object of which is destruction. Such almost wholly is war. It is admitted that wars may be waged to prevent a greater destruction than that involved in their prosecution. But, whatever may be the design of any war at the beginning, it must be acknowledged, that the destruction of wealth has been incalculably greater than the conservation or creation of it. Evidently most of the energy expended in war is unproductive. Here, too, must be reckoned the labor implied in maintaining vast standing armies. Could all this labor be turned into productive channels, it would incalculably augment the resources of the civilized world. 3. All purely speculative projects. By these I mean all such buying and selling as involve no increase of wealth to any one except by the same amount of diminution to others; in other words, where all that is gained by one party is necessarily lost by another. All trade which does not furnish some utility to society, not otherwise possessed, is unproductive. 4. Finally, we may rank here all labor expended in ministering to any desire the gratification of which will diminish the productive power of its subject, or of any under his control. Such would include the manufacture of, and traffic in, intoxicating beverages. And by beverages here is meant only what the word implies. It does not include such alcoholic commodities as are used in the arts, or for mechanical or medicinal purposes. Nor is this the only business which has this character, though doubtless it has it more obviously and conspicuously than any other. All the labor of furnishing a depraved literature to the perversion and enervation of the mind, and every system of effort by which is stimulated or gratified any passion or proclivity that diminishes man's power over himself, and so over the means which nature freely furnishes to all who are competent to command them, are of this kind. 5. The statement in the previous paragraph respecting intoxicating beverages possibly needs some modification. It may be plausibly objected that these commodities come within the limits of the definition of wealth, that is, that they possess utility in the sense of power to gratify desire, and that their attainment involves sacrifice; and hence, since the labor which produced them results in wealth, it must be productive labor. This, doubtless, is true so far as the first effect is concerned. But productive labor, in the broad, economical sense of the expression, must ultimate in the increase of the wealth of the community : labor which does not do this is not productive labor. Now, I suppose that it will be admitted by nearly every one that the labor expended in the manufacture of intoxicating beverages does not result in the ultimate increase of the wealth of the community, but the contrary. It is therefore unproductive labor. We find ourselves here, too, on the border line between economics and ethics, where thinkers are apt to get into confusion. For instance, Dr. Chapin tells us that every man has a right to do what he will with his own, and that the protective system violates this right, and is therefore to be condemned. This may be all true, but it is an ethical, and not an economical, argument. It is true that many measures may be economical and ethical at the same time, but economics and ethics should be kept clearly distinct in our reasoning on these subjects. It is furthermore undoubtedly true that most things that are immoral are at the same time uneconomical. I am inclined to think that no really immoral measure is in the long run economical. CHAPTER IV. CAPITAL. 1. WE have already seen that capital is essential to any considerable production. We have also seen that capital is the result of previous labor reserved to aid in future production. We have further learned that capital implies saving. But mere saving is not the sole condition of capital; indeed, a narrow penuriousness prevents the rapid accumulation of capital. The man who is accustomed to bring his water from a spring a quarter of a mile from his house, instead of digging a well at the cost of a few dollars or a few days' work, acts uneconomically. In the long-run, the bringing of the water from the spring costs him much more than the digging of the well. The man who has extensive grain-fields, and who, for the sake of saving the expense of a reaper or even a cradle, continues to use the sickle, will find that his saving results in a loss instead of a gain. 2. A man does not need to be rich in order to be a capitalist. When the savage has invented a bow and arrows, he has the rudiments of capital. The laborer who has reserved out of his earnings enough to buy him a set of tools, or a few acres of land, is as really a capitalist as the owner of factories and railroads. It is only as foresight discerns the valuable consequences of self-denial, that there arises a sufficient inducement to reserve from present consumption for 24 |