The Effects of Civilisation on the People in European States/Section IX
SECTION IX.
OF THE NATURE AND EFFECTS OF WEALTH.
Dr. Smith, in his elaborate work on the "Nature and Cause of the Wealth of Nations," has nowhere given any definition of it.
We have before said that wealth is usually supposed to consist in the possession of such things as mankind, by general consent, set a value on, as land, cattle, gold, silver, precious stones, &c. But it seems doubtful whether such things can be considered as constituting the essence and nature of wealth, since the possession of them may sometimes be so circumstanced that they may be of no value to the possessor; for instance, lands in some uninhabited parts of America. Gold, silver, precious stones, and every other article of that kind, may be, on many occasions, and in many places and circumstances, of no value or use to the owner; and they are to be considered as wealth only in such places where they will be taken in exchange for, and command, such things as the possessor stands in need of, or has an inclination for; all which are the produce of the labour of man. The possession, therefore, of those things which can obtain and command the labour of man, is to be considered as wealth. Wealth, therefore, is the possession of that which gives power over, and commands the labour of, man: it is, therefore, power; and into that, and that only, ultimately resolvable.[1]
It is no argument that wealth is not power, because this power is not extended to the disposal of the lives of the poor; since that would be an extension only of the same power, and differing only in degree.
It will be allowed, that the collected number of persons who possess the aggregate quantity of all such things as compose wealth, have the command and direction of the labour of those who are not possessed of any of them. It is true, that no individual of the poor is obliged to work for any one individual of the rich; but for one or other of them he is obliged to work, under the penalty of their withholding from him the things without which he cannot live. He is not obliged to work for A, B, C, or D, &c, but for some one or other of them he is under the unavoidable necessity of working, and at that kind of work, too, they please to require of him. And this power of the rich is as strong and effective as that of the most absolute monarch that ever lived, as far as relates to the labour of the poor; indeed, probably more so, since it is doubtful whether any power ever existed, in any kind of government whatever, that could impose on the people what is imposed on them by the power of wealth. To condemn so many to the mines; to confine such numbers to such nauseous, irksome, unwholesome, destructive employments—is more than equal to any kingly power on earth. To enforce the execution of such punishments would require an army almost equal in number to the people so punished. The punishments of tyrants are generally confined to those that are near them; but the power of wealth pervades the whole country, and subjects every poor man to its dominion.
If we further consider the nature of the power that wealth gives the rich, in most civilised countries, over the poor, in our times, we shall find it very similar to, and that it arises from, the same source with that which anciently the great allodial lords, and the feudal barons of almost all Europe, exercised over their vassals. This will appear from the following passage, extracted from Dr. Adam Smith:
"The wealth of the great lords and barons (of almost all Europe) consisted almost wholly in lands and the stock on them; and at this time, there being no commerce, or any of the finer manufactures, the great proprietor, having nothing for which he could exchange the greater part of the produce of his lands, which is over and above the maintenance of the cultivators, consumes the whole in rustic hospitality at home. If this surplus produces sufficient to maintain a hundred or a thousand men, he can make no other use of it than to maintain a hundred or a thousand men. He is at all times, therefore, surrounded with a multitude of retainers and dependents, who, having no equivalent to give in return for their maintenance, but being fed entirely by his bounty, must obey him.
"The occupiers of land were in every respect as dependent on the great proprietor as his retainers. Even such as were not in the state of villainage were tenants-at-will, and depended on his good pleasure."
These great proprietors of land, having in their possession all the necessaries of life, forced from the people submission and obedience. Hence, it is evident that it was wealth, both in ancient and modern times, that was the origin, foundation, and essence of power; or, in other words, constituted power itself.
In the times prior to the introduction of manufactures and commerce, few men being employed in them, of course more were left to cultivate the land, and, consequently, we may suppose the produce was more proportionate to the number of the people; besides that considerable numbers of them shared the hospitality of the lords, abbeys, &c. Hence, the poor of those times, besides being exempted from the pernicious employments of the manufactures, enjoyed a much greater plenty of the necessaries of life than in the present times. Adam Smith thinks Mr. Hume has great merit in having been the first that observed that manufactures had abolished the servile dependence of the people on the great feudal barons; but Dr. Smith was not aware of this new species of dependence of the lower orders on the rich, which is established in its stead, in most civilised states.
Wealth, or, rather, the unequal distribution of it, having been shown to be attended with such effects, it is necessary to inquire shortly into its origin, as well as into the justice and expediency of it.
Montesquieu considers the system of property, of most of the nations of Europe, as originating in the woods and pastures of Germany. Whilst these tribes of herdsmen and shepherds remained in their own country, certain lands were annexed to each tribe, proportionable to it, and held in common by the whole tribe, and not possessed by individuals in severalty. Afterwards, when they invaded the neighbouring nations, as Italy, France, Britain, in order to insure their conquests, and keep the conquered in subjection, it was thought necessary to make a division of the lands they had now got possession of. In what manner and on what principles this was done, Dr. Robertson thinks cannot now be determined with any certainty. There is no nation of Europe, he asserts, whose records reach back to this remote period, and that there is little information to be got from the uninstructive and meagre chronicles compiled by writers ignorant of the true end, and unacquainted with the proper objects of history. But Dr. Gilbert Stewart, in his "View of Society in Europe," appears to have taken more pains in making inquiries into these remote transactions.[2] The king or leader of the horde, according to him, upon their obtaining possession of any one of the Roman provinces (which all Europe consisted of at that time), as being of the highest dignity, had the most considerable portion, which constituted his domain. Every warrior, in proportion to his rank, had his lot or share, which gave rise to allodiality. That part of the territory which was not parted out to individuals, was considered, agreeably to their ancient ideas, as belonging to the community, and was called the lands of the fisch.
The sovereign took the subsequent division of these, annexing to all of them the burden of presenting themselves in arms at his call. Hence, possession flowed to the chiefs, under the burden of presenting themselves in arms at the call of the sovereign. The chiefs dealt out lands to their retainers, under the like injunction, of continuing to them their aid.[3]
In this manner, the whole land was parcelled out among the first invaders, and those who soon after followed them, together with the stock on it; for it is not to be supposed that those people who seized the land would abstain from taking the stock on it. As the land, and the stock on it, composed at this time almost the whole of property or wealth, the bulk of the people were, by the above division, bereft of all property. The number of the invaders cannot be ascertained, but, whatever it might be, it would bear a small proportion to the natives; hence a state of unequal property, in as great a degree as at present, was at once established, and is the basis of the present system of property in most of the states of Europe. The change, made afterwards by certain conquerors, respected only some individuals of their followers, providing for some of them out of the lands that were not distributed, or taking them from the former great proprietors and bestowing them on certain persons who contributed to their conquests.
Whether any political measure that was unjust at the time of its institution, can become just by time, is a question that ought to be solved. It seems to me, that time can have no effect in changing the nature of it, with respect to its justice or injustice; except it has an effect in altering the evil that first attended it; that is to say, except time removes the hardships and sufferings which the measure brought on the people at its first institution, it can have no effect in removing the charge of injustice imputable to it. If these remain, the same injustice attends the continuance of it that attended the first institution of it.
In such places where an invasion, as that of the Germans on the Roman provinces, did not happen, the appropriation of portions of land to individuals took place probably before any historians arose to record it. In what manner, and on what principles this was done. Dr. Robertson, as we have before seen, thinks cannot now be determined with any certainty. From the earliest accounts that are authentic, we find the land, in large tracts, in the hands of great allodial lords, and other great proprietors, throughout great part of Europe. As this happened long before there was any commerce, or any other means by which large estates are sometimes acquired in our times, they must, most probably, have had their rise in a manner somewhat like the following. Long after men were first placed in the world, the land, no doubt, was common to all, as it is at this day to the inhabitants of many parts of the world, North America, Tartary, &c., where the people, notwithstanding, are very far from being barbarous or savage. In this situation of things, some daring spirits arose, and seized certain parts to themselves, and their conduct was imitated by others. This, probably, must be the original foundation of exclusive property in land; for what other can possibly be supposed? The land being in the first instance common, no person could have any exclusive right to any part of it, except we can suppose that there were certain persons who had, by some public service, obtained a grant of it from the public. Nothing of this kind could probably have happened in those early times, at least to many; or, if it had to some few, could such grant be valid any longer than for the lives of the granters? for they could have no natural right to grant it away from the next generation; every succeeding generation having an equal right to the use of the land with the preceding. No person, therefore, could originally have an exclusive right to any portion of land, except, perhaps, to such a quantity of it as was sufficient to furnish himself and family with the necessaries of life; for to that quotum of the produce he had a right in its common state. This argument is so evident as to require no proof, except to people who, having imbibed the idea of exclusive property in land in their infancy, have suffered it to remain in their minds unexamined the rest of their lives; or to such other people whose interest blinds them so as not to see the clearest truths. Arguments, therefore, to convince the understanding, are probably useless: if any can have effect, it must be such as tend to induce people to prefer justice to their interest.[4]
I shall, however, say somewhat further on the subject.
But whether the assumption of lands and other property, as it is called, naturally belonging to the whole people, into the hands of a few, can be supported on the principles of justice and reason, or not, it may, it has been said, on those of expediency or utility. Thus it has been alleged, that if property were not to be acquired, and held out as a reward of labour and industry, mankind would be indolent and inactive, having no stimulus to exertion.
In my apprehension, this is directly contrary to what really happens. Things of every kind being already appropriated and in the possession of certain persons, and firmly secured to them by the laws; the prizes, which might be held out to be gained by the many, are taken, as it were, out of the wheel; and the chance of a man, without education or connexion (which is the condition of the great mass of mankind), of bettering his fortune by any efforts of his own, is a thousand to one against him, so as utterly to act as a discouragement to all attempts of that kind. Whereas, had every man his portion of land, his wants and his necessities would naturally induce him diligently to cultivate that which he sees would infallibly supply them.[5]
But if property or wealth is power, if it appears to be, in most civilised states, a power acting over the great mass of the people, to their disadvantage; it will not be easy to show on what principle, either of justice or expediency, it can be defended.
It seems that means ought to be used to prevent any power, of what nature soever it be, from growing up in the hands of one set of subjects to oppress all the rest; and that the joining liberty and property together, as is so frequently done, is to join two things together which are opposite in their natures, and destructive of each other,
"If you should see," says Dr. Paley, "a flock of pigeons in a field of corn; and if (instead of each pecking where and what it liked, taking just as much as it wanted and no more) you should see ninety-nine out of a hundred gathering all they got into an heap, reserving nothing for themselves but the chaff and refuse; keeping this heap for one, and that the weakest, perhaps, and worst pigeon of the flock; setting round and looking on all the winter, whilst this one was devouring, throwing about, and wasting it; and if a pigeon, more hardy and hungry than the rest, touched a grain of the hoard, all the others instantly flying upon it and tearing it to pieces,—if you should see this, you would see nothing more than what is every day practised and established among men. Among men, you see the ninety and nine toiling and scraping together an heap of superfluities for one; getting nothing for themselves, all the while, but a little of the coarsest of the provision which their own labour produces; and this one, too, oftentimes the feeblest and worst of the whole set—a child, a madman, or a fool; looking quietly on, while they see the fruits of their labour spent or spoiled; and if any one of them take or touch a particle of it, the others join against him, and hang him for the theft.
"There must be some very important advantages, to account for an institution which, in the view of it above given, is so paradoxical and unnatural.
"Inequality of property, in the degree it exists in most countries of Europe, abstractedly considered, is an evil; but it is an evil which flows from the rules concerning the acquisition and disposal of property, by which men are excited to industry, and by which the object of their industry is rendered secure and valuable."—Vid. Arch. Paley's Philos. of Morals.
Dr. Paley here acknowledges the inequality of property to be an evil, but justifies it—
First. By supposing it to flow from the rules for the acquisition of, &c.
Secondly. By supposing it to encourage industry.
As to the first supposition, that inequality of property did flow from any rules or laws of society, or from the necessary or spontaneous operations of society, we have seen to be contrary to historical facts; it being effected, as appears from them, by arbitrarily and violently dispossessing the original possessors of the land, and distributing it amongst a small, comparatively, number of others, in much larger quantities than it is at present; and that the consequences of society, or civilisation, have been directly of the contrary kind—namely, to lessen much that inequality.
As to the second supposition, viz., that it promotes industry, we have endeavoured to show that it has a contrary effect, and greatly discourages it, by rendering the attainment of property so difficult to the bulk of mankind, as to be nearly impossible, and therefore hopeless.
Dr. Paley adds, "that if there be any great inequality unconnected with this origin, it ought to be corrected." From which passage we may infer—that, as it implies a doubt whether there be any great inequality, not occasioned by the rules, &c., or not, it ought to be made a subject of inquiry; and further, that Dr. Paley's opinion differs not substantially from Mr. Hume's, viz., that it depends on its utility.
But if we admit both the suppositions above mentioned, we still think that inequality of property is injurious to mankind; the effect of it being to bring poverty and misery on the many; whilst it only gives riches to the few, and does not render them happy.
It may be said that wealth might be justly acquired by industry and economy.
If wealth is power; if men are born equal and independent of each, other; and that equality[6] and independence are inalienable; if wealth is a power destroying that equality and independence; if it reduces the bulk of mankind under the subjection of the few; all those authors who have defended the inequality of property, not having considered wealth in that light, will by many be considered as having said nothing on the subject. What they have said is of something else, not of wealth, of which they had formed no just idea. They had no idea that the chief acting and effective power in most civilised states was that of wealth; and that most other powers sprung from and were supported by it. Neither had they conceived any notion of the effects of it; all arguments, therefore, which they have drawn in its favour, from the utility and expediency of it, even if these were real, are of little weight.
Property, as it is established in most civilised states, may be considered in a light in which it has been seldom seen. The possession of land, cattle, corn, and other things which the land produces, at the same time that it confers a benefit and an advantage on the possessor, occasions a prejudice and a disadvantage to the non-possessor; it is acquisition in the one, it is deprivation in the other. Further, it gives an influence and a power to the person possessing, over the person not possessing. It subjects the non-possessor to an influence and power to be exercised over him by the possessor, and the consequences of it are highly injurious to him. Wealth is an advantage to the possessor only as it is a disadvantage to the non-possessor; and exactly in the same proportion. If it gave no claim on, no power over, brought no disadvantage to the non-possessor, it would give no claim to, no power to, no advantage to, the possessor. What the possessor has, the non-possessor is deprived of.
The situation of the rich and the poor, like the algebraic terms plus and minus, are in direct opposition to, and destructive of each other. The original acquisition or assumption of land, therefore, to be just, required merit in the person on whom it was bestowed, or by whom it was assumed, equal to the value of it; and a demerit in the person, or the public, from whom it was taken, by which they had forfeited their right to it. To prove the two cases, the one positive, the other negative, is incumbent on those that pretend to support the justice of the original foundation of the exclusive property in land. But how can this be done? What action or service could the original great proprietor of land do the people, by which he could deserve a large proportion of the land of the nation, and a great part of the labour of the people, appending to it? On the other hand, what crimes could the whole of the people commit, that they should have forfeited their right to it? or if they could, how could their prosperity be affected by it?
Whatever things a man makes with his own hands, out of such materials as his proportionate share of land yields, must be allowed to be his own; and these may be accumulated, if they are not consumed by the maker of them; or they may be exchanged for other things, made by and belonging to other people, of an equal value; to be strictly estimated by the quantity of the labour employed in making the things exchanged. These things, so made or obtained by fair exchange, and accumulated, may be given to children or others.
The goods, chattels, or personal effects, as they are called, acquired in this manner, cannot easily be heaped up to any great degree. The person that succeeds to the chattels, made and saved by the first person, can only add to them what his own hand makes, and, not being consumed by himself, accumulates. And, as this industrious turn never happens to be the disposition of several succeeding generations, the accumulation can never be considerable.
But if we should even suppose that the chattels made in several generations were accumulated in the hands of certain persons, they would be attended with no great inconvenience. The goods would remain a harmless heap, giving no power to the possessor, by which only wealth is hurtful: because, if every person had an allotment of land, the labour of the people would remain free and under their own direction, and the necessaries of life would be attainable by every one; and, of course, none of the evil of the present state of property, which exists in most civilised nations, would be experienced.
Fortunes may be acquired in a kind of intermediate way, that is, by a method between that by which wealth is raised, by assuming land in the manner as before represented; and that by which a fortune is made, by accumulating only such things as are the work of a man's own hand. This third or intermediate method is by trade.
Trade or traffic consists in buying and selling articles already produced by the poor, and gaining a profit on them. These articles are all the product of the hands of the labourers, manufacturers, &c., from whom they are obtained for less than their full value: a profit otherwise could not be made on them. The tradesman, therefore, shares or takes part of the fruits of the labour of the poor. The justice of this mode of acquiring wealth is by no means so clear as of the latter of the two above mentioned.
The means enabling tradesmen to share a part of the product of the labour of the poor, is their capital, which puts it in their power to furnish materials to the artificers to work on, and to provide them with immediate subsistence; and on that account is supposed to give the tradesmen a just claim to a part of the productions of the workmen's hands. It becomes necessary, therefore, to inquire into the nature of this capital.
The capitals of tradesmen consist of stores of such article as they get up by means of the labour of artificers that work under them. They may have other wealth, but that is not the subject of the present disquisition. From those stores of goods they can supply the people that are in want of them. A very great proportion of such people are the owners of land, and the occupiers of it; those, to wit, that have in their possession the necessaries of life: the tradesmen or manufacturers, therefore, having such things as the possessors of the necessaries of life stand in need of, or have a desire for, and are supplied with, have a claim on these necessaries of life, and may be considered as possessed of a certain share of the land, and the produce of it. They have a claim on it resembling that of a mortgagee, who has a property in land equal to the interest of the sum he advances on it; that is, he has a claim on a part of the productions of it to that annual amount. Now, therefore, this capitalist, this manufacturer, is in reality a possessor of land, and, like him, has in his power and disposal a certain quantity of the necessaries of life, and can grant or withhold these in the same manner as his joint proprietors, as they may be called, may do.[7] The manufacturer, therefore, forces his workmen to work for him, and to give him a share of what the work produces, in the same manner as we have shown the other proprietors of land or possessors of the necessaries of life do; for, the poor are under a necessity of working for him on the terms held out, or go without the things on which they subsist. They have no alternative but to work for him, or for another from whom they can have no other terms. There is no voluntary compact equally advantageous on both sides, but an absolute compulsion on the part of masters, and an absolute necessity on the part of the workmen to accept of it; and which, therefore, might be considered just as the taking so much from the workman by the master: and, of course, fortunes amassed in this manner cannot be just.
It is easily seen that the acquisition of fortunes by tradesmen is in reality nothing but a participation of landed property, which is the basis, the source, and substance of all wealth, and into it all must be resolved.
- ↑ It is remarkable that an old poet should say—Δύναμις πέφυκε τοῖς βροτοῖς τὰ χρήματα.
- ↑ We must refer to the authorities produced by him.
- ↑ This distribution of the land was intended as a military arrangement, in order to keep the people in subjection, which effect it equally has at present.
- ↑ If the principle of exclusive and perpetual property in land be just, the person that possesses it, having an absolute dominion over it, may direct it to lie barren; and if one possessor has a right to do so, all have; and thus they have a right to destroy the rest of mankind. But this consequence being absurd, the premises must be false.
- ↑ "Property is founded on the good of society; if we abstract from that, it is entirely without foundation."—Hume's Essays, vol. ii., note T, page 253.
Does the husbandman, who works for his shilling a-day, without having any interest in the produce of his work, and knowing that eight-tenths of it will go to other people—does he, I say, work so cheerfully and industriously as he would do if he worked on his own land, and would be entitled to the whole produce—the corn, the wine, and the oil—that come from it? In the present system, the people of landed property being few in number, few only receive encouragement to industry on it, from the possession of it. The people of no property being the many, the many receive discouragement from being deprived of it. - ↑ This is true, if by this word an equality of rights only be understood.
- ↑ Or the manufacturer and tradesman may be considered, in the view of the land proprietor, only as agents, or locum tenentes, to whom they delegate a part of their authority; that is, they make over to them, as it were, a part of the necessaries of life, which their estates produce; the disposal of which gives them the command over the labour of the poor.