Incomparably more important in the economic valuation of a piece of land is its capacity for cultivation, because this depends much less on the good or bad quality of the husbandman's art. I mean here the so-called physical constitution of the vegetable soil; its water-holding power, its consistency (light or heavy soil) on which the difficulty of working it depends; its ability to dry, in a shorter or longer time, and its accompanying diminution in volume; its ability to draw moisture from the atmosphere and to absorb the various kinds of gases; its heat-absorbing and heat-containing power (hot, warm and cold soils).(215) Much depends here on the depth of the vegetable soil and on the constitution of the sub-soil, which, for instance, when it is very permeable, improves a very moist soil, but in the form of meadow iron-ore (Wiesenerz), works great injury. The vertical form of the land is also a very important element in estimating the natural fertility of the soil. In mountainous districts, the quantity of land which can be used (and with what labor!) is wont to be relatively smaller than in low lands. Hence it is, that the former become too small for their inhabitants; who, therefore, swarm over the plains lying before them either as settlers or conquerors.(216) In the eastern hemisphere, the northern slopes of mountain regions are most unfavorably situated, although the southern slopes are frequently subjected to more trying and more sudden variations of thawing and freezing weather.(217)

But all these more special qualities of the soil must be distinguished from their general basis, the bearing or carrying capacity which land possesses as a mere superficies, and which the most naked rock (Malta!), and the bed of a flowing stream (the floating gardens of China!) possess to some extent, since there is a possibility of establishing a plant-feeding surface on them. This bearing capacity, which in most instances is given only by nature, and which can be added to only to a very limited extent and at great outlay, is wont, when the population is very dense, to acquire considerable exchange value in the vicinity.(218)(219)



Section XXXVI.

External Nature.—Further Divisions Of Nature's Gifts.

The gifts of nature, we further divide into those which can be directly enjoyed and those which are of use only indirectly, by facilitating production. (Natural means of enjoyment,—means of acquisition.)(220) An extreme superfluity of the former is as disastrous to civilization as a too great scarcity of them. How simple the economy of a tropical country! A banana field will support twenty-five times as many men as a wheat field (K. Ritter); and with infinitely less labor; for all that is needed is to cut the stems with their ripened fruit, to loosen the earth a little and very superficially, when new stems shoot up.(221) At the base of the mountains of Mexico, a father needs labor only two days in the week to support his family. Hence, nothing so much excites the wonder of the traveler there as the diminutiveness of the cultivated ground surrounding each Indian hut.(222) But in these earthly paradises, where, as Byron said, even bread is gathered like fruit, the powers of man slumber as certainly as they grow torpid in polar deserts.(223) The sentence: "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread," has been a blessing to mankind. Athens was not only the literary and political, but also the economic capital of Greece; and yet Attica was one of the most sterile countries in the world.(224) Unfortunate Messina, on the other hand, was the most fertile province of Greece. In modern times, no countries of equal extent have produced as many great captains, statesmen, savants and artists as Holland, whose securest portions are as unfertile as those which are fertile are threatened by the sea. On the other hand, how lately and imperfectly has the so-called black-earth of southern Russia fallen under the influence of civilization!(225)



Section XXXVII.

External Nature.—The Geographical Character Of A Country.

The geographical character of a country is, as a rule,(226) most intimately connected, not only with its flora and fauna, but also with the character of its people. One of the crowning glories of the progress of modern science is, that it has recognized anew the power of this wonderful organism, and that it has made geography an explanatory medium between nature and history. The conditions most favorable to the development of civilization are found in a well developed country which slopes gradually through a series of intermediate terraces from a mountain summit to a plain; especially when they are connected with one another by a good system of streams; since here the opposite peculiarities of the populations of the highlands and coast-lands(227) tend to produce a nationality both one and varied. Where the transitions are too abrupt, as for instance, in New Holland, they easily impede inter-communication; and, still more, where the several parts of the country are of very great extent; as, for example, the desert of North Africa, the plateau of South Africa or that of Central Asia. Europe is favored above all other parts of the world by the happy combination of mountain and plain.(228) We might pursue the parallel existing between the soil and the character of a people into the minutest details, and discover, even in the difference between Spanish, French, German and Hungarian wines, a reflection of the different characters of the people.(229)

But whence is this? Can it be that dead nature has thus irresistibly affected the living mind? We do not need to give a materialistic answer to the question.(230) Almost every people has migrated at some period of its existence. Urged on by their peculiar tastes and tendencies, they settled in the places most in harmony with their character. A higher hand was over them; one which, we should unreservedly trust, placed them in such external circumstances as were most favorable to the development of all their faculties.

But the influences of man on nature are no less notable than those of nature upon man. The greater number of domestic animals and plants which Europe possesses to-day, it has been obliged to introduce from other parts of the globe.(231) In the interior of Gaul, the vine rarely ripened, at the time of Christ.(232) On the other hand, Mesopotamia, formerly one of the gardens of the world, is now covered with dried-up canals, filled a little below the surface with heaps of brick and broken vases, the remains and other vestiges of a once dense population. Its former rich alluvial soil, now almost calcined, produces at present scarcely anything except a few saline plants, mimosas etc.(233) The higher the civilization of a people, the less does it depend on the nature of the country.



Section XXXVIII.

Of Labor.—Divisions Of Labor.

Man's capacity for most economic labor is so closely connected with the exquisite articulation of the human hand, that Buffon could say without exaggeration that reason and the hand made man man.(234) But it is true of economic labor, as of all other labor, that it is more efficient in proportion as mind predominates over matter.

The best division of economic labor is the following:(235)

A. Discoveries and inventions.(236)

B. Occupation of the spontaneous gifts of nature, as, for instance, of wild plants, wild animals, and of minerals.(237) Where this is the only kind of economic labor, man is necessarily dependent on nature in a high degree.

C. The production of raw materials; that is, a direction given to nature in order to the production of raw materials, by stock-raising, agriculture, forest-culture etc., but not by mining.

D. The transformation (Verarbeitung) of raw material by means of manufactories, factories, the trades etc.

E. The distribution of stores of goods among those who are to use them directly, whether from people to people or from place to place (wholesale), or among the individuals of the same place (retail).(238) To this class also belong leasing, renting, loaning, etc.

F. Services, in the more limited sense of the term, which embraces personal as well as incorporeal goods; as, for instance, the labors of the doctor, teacher; virtuoso, of the statesman, judge, and of preachers, whose office it is, by way of eminence, to produce and preserve the immaterial wealth, known as the State and the Church.(239)

The order followed in the above classification is that in which the different classes of labor are wont to be historically developed.



Section XXXIX.

Labor.—Taste For Labor.—Piece-Wages.

Man's taste for labor is conditioned especially by the extent to which, and the security with which, he may hope to enjoy the fruit of his labor himself. Hence it is that, as a rule, the slave ( 71, ff.) and socager work least willingly, the day laborer with less industry than the piece-worker,(240) who is at the same time more satisfied with himself, and gives most satisfaction to his master,(241) since he acquires more both for himself and for his master. The superiority of piece-paid labor is greater in proportion as the workman calculates his own advantage. It is, therefore, smallest in the case of ingenuous uneducated workmen, and in that of the really conscientious.(242) The fear of seeing one's condition grow worse, through want of industry, exerts an influence precisely similar to the hope of improving it. In both respects, free competition ( 97) must be considered one of the principal means of furthering the taste for labor.(243)

Among the causes which have contributed to make England the first country in the world, viewed from a politico-economical stand-point, English writers on Political Economy have pointed out as one of the principal, the prevalence there of piece-wages.(244) Payment by the piece should, of course, be practiced, only in cases in which the work may be broken up into a series of isolated tasks, and is completed by such a series. Hence, it is not applicable where a great many different things are required of the same workman; nor in relations in which continuity, as, for instance, of the inclination or disposition of the workman is the chief thing.(245) The further the division of labor is carried in our day, the greater the part money plays in our social economy, and the more lasting relations are dissolved, the more general becomes piece-work, which, with all its material advantages, has, speaking morally, its dark side. (Atomism!)(246) In a great many branches of manufactures it has been relinquished because the excellence of his work suffered from the workman's haste, and because he could not be properly controlled.(247) It is rather the quantity than the quality of work which increases with piece-work, and where the quality of the work is what is desired, this system has not the same field. And where it obtains, as, for instance, in the case of ordinary type-setters, resort is had to payment by the day for compositors engaged on mathematical treatises, fac-similes, inscriptions etc. On the side of the workman, it is generally only the idle and awkward who oppose piece-work on principle. It is a subject of regret that the best and most industrious workmen are carried away by it to an extent detrimental to their health.(248) However, many of the deficiencies of the piece-wage principle may be removed by agreements made with whole groups of workmen; provided, always, that the groups are not too large to prevent the mutual knowledge and surveillance of their members.(249) The quantity of work is greatest, its quality best, and the material(250) employed used most sparingly, when the workman works on his own account, or has a share in the profits. This last is proper only in those branches of the business the success of which depends on the quality of the work. To compel the workman to share in the profits alone will not do, because he is generally too poor to run any risk or to do long without his earnings. The system of paying "commissions," therefore, is to be recommended all the more strongly, since it is a combination of fixed wages with a share in the profits. This system is very prevalent in North America, where a great deal has to be confided to the workmen. It is practiced, also, in the whale fisheries, and on the Greek ships in the Levant engaged in coasting, where much more depends on the care of the sailors than on the ability of the captain.(251) It presupposes good workmen, equal almost to their master in education,(252) for instance, in the case of overseers of labor; since every better inducement to the taste for labor which is not only juster but more complicative, is not only a condition but also the effect of higher culture. But if the economy of a people is ripe for share-wages, and masters begin to introduce them in earnest in individual cases, the work produced will be improved to such a degree that it can not be long before all others will be necessitated to follow them.(253)

If, however, workmen are to enjoy the fruit of their industry, it is necessary, first of all, that public order should be secure. Even the most industrious become discouraged where despotism or anarchy prevails. On the other hand, even the greatest security is no sufficient incentive to a nation of fatalists.(254)



Section XL.

Labor.—Labor-Power Of Individuals.

The average labor-power of individuals varies very much in different nations.(255) The reason of this is, in part, doubtless a difference in natural endowments. Thus, for instance, no people surpass the English and Anglo-American in energy, none the German in intelligence in work or the French in taste. Where we can assume that the same meaning is attached to the expression, "military capacity," by the different recruiting bureaus, important conclusions as to the physical labor-power of different localities may be drawn from the ratio existing between the number of those fit for military service and those who are legally liable to military duty.(256)

But these conclusions are greatly modified by the state of civilization and that of society. Where the laboring classes are despised and paid in a manner unworthy of human beings, the badness of their work will be in keeping with the estimation in which it is held. The reverse of this, also, is usually true under different circumstances. ( 173.) Thus, it has been noticed in France, that native workmen, provided with as substantial food as English workmen, are scarcely inferior to the the latter in the technic value of their labor.(257) A Mecklenburg day laborer eats almost twice as much as a Thuringian workman, but then he accomplishes almost twice as much. Hence, employers gain in the long run by paying their workmen well. As civilization advances, the same number of workmen become, not only more industrious and more capable, but the same quantity and quality of labor becomes, as a rule, cheaper.(258)

The moral culture of a people exerts the greatest influence here. In every private undertaking, a great part of the expense attending it, and in every state, a great part of the expense of its police system, and of its system of administering justice, is occasioned only by the dishonesty of men. If all this expense could be dispensed with, and full confidence placed in individuals, it would be possible to devote much more time and energy to positively useful labor.(259) In estimating the labor-power of different nations or different periods of time, the division of population according to age is also of importance. As a rule, the labor-power of males is greatest from the age of twenty-five to the age of forty-five. The more numerous, therefore, the class of the population between these ages is, the more favorably, other things being equal, is it situated as regards labor.(260)(261) But, as a rule, the relative number of full-grown people is greatest in highly civilized nations. ( 248.)(262)



Section XLI.

Labor.—Effect Of The Esteem In Which It Is Held.

As civilization advances, labor becomes more honorable. All barbarous nations despise it as slavish. Pigrum et iners videtur sudore adquirere quod possis sanguine parare: has been the motto of all medieval times. In heathen Iceland, the owner of a piece of land might be deprived of it by an adversary who could overpower him in single combat. This mode of acquisition was considered more honorable than purchase. It was Thor's own form of investiture. The ideas of the Romans on rightful acquisition may be inferred from the word mancipium (manu capere).(263) Pure Christianity, on the other hand, preached the honorableness of labor from the first (Thess. 4, 11; II. Thess. 3, 8 seq.; Eph. 4, 28). And so in the time of the Reformation,(264) when Christendom was returning to its primitive purity.

In keeping with this is the fact, that the most cultivated nations, and the same may be said of individuals, value time most highly. "Time is money." (Benjamin Franklin.) An English proverb calls time the stuff of which life is made.(265) While in negro nations, individuals do not even know their own age; while in Russia, there are very few clocks to strike the hours, even in the towers of churches, in England, a watch is considered an indispensable article of apparel, even for very young people and for some of the lower orders of society.(266) Railroads operate in this respect as a kind of national clock. The introduction of machinery and the more minute division of labor, make punctuality a necessity. While South Americans and West Indians are frightfully careless in their every movement, a carelessness which betrays itself even in their drawling speech,(267) the life of a New Englander has been compared to the rush of a locomotive. In the markets of Central Asia, nothing strikes the European with so much surprise as the little value put upon time by the merchants of India and Bucharia, who are fully satisfied when, after endless waiting, they succeed in obtaining a somewhat higher price for their wares.(268)



Section XLII.

Of Capital.—The Classes Of Goods Of Which A Nation's Capital Is Made Up.

Capital(269) we call every product laid by for purposes of further production. ( 220).(270)

Hence, the capital of a nation consists especially of the following classes of goods:

A. Soil-improvements, for instance, drainage and irrigation works, dikes, hedges etc., which are, indeed, sometimes so far part of the land itself that it is difficult to distinguish them from it.(271) To this class belong all permanent plantations.

B. Buildings, which embrace workshops and storehouses as well as dwellings; also artificial roads of all kinds.

C. Tools, machines and utensils of every description;(272) the latter especially for personal service, and for the preservation and transportation of other goods. A machine is distinguished from a tool in that the moving power of the former is not communicated to it immediately by the human body, which only directs it; while the latter serves as a species of equipment, or as a better substitute for some member of man's body.(273) To be of advantage, these three kinds of capital must save more labor or fatigue than it has cost to produce them. Tools are, however, older than machines. The aborigines of Australia used only a lance and a club in hunting; the somewhat more civilized American Indians, the bow and arrow; Europeans use firearms: in all of which a gradual progress is observable. Of the blind forces which communicate motion to machines, water was the first used, then the wind, and last of all, steam.(274)

D. Useful and laboring animals, in so far as they are raised, fed and developed by human care.

E. Materials for transformation (Verwandlungsstoffe): either the principal material which constitutes the essential substance of a new product, the yarn of the weaver for instance, the raw wool, silk or cotton of the spinner; or the secondary material which, indeed, enters into the work, but only for purposes of ornamentation, as gold-leaf, lac, colors etc.

F. Auxiliary substances, which are consumed in production, but do not constitute a visible part of the raw product,(275) as coal in a smithy, powder in the chase or in mining, muriatic acid, in the preparation of gelatin, chlorine in bleaching etc.

G. Means of subsistence for the producers, which are advanced to them until production is complete.

H. Commercial stock, which the merchant keeps always on hand to meet the wants of his customers.

I. Money as the principal tool in every trade that is made.

K. There is also what may be called incorporeal capital (quasi-capital according to Schmitthenner), which is as much the result of production as any other capital, and is used in production, but which, for the most part, is not exhausted by use. There are species of this kind of capital which may be transferred, as for instance, the good will of a well-established firm. Others are as inseparably connected with human capacity for labor as soil-improvements with a piece of land; e.g., the greater dexterity acquired by a workman through scientific study, or the greater confidence he has acquired by long trial.(276) The state itself is the most important incorporeal capital of every nation, since it is clearly indispensable, at least indirectly, to economic production.(277)

The greater portion of the national capital is in a state of constant transformation. It is being continually destroyed and reproduced. But from the stand-point of private economy, as well as from that of the whole people, we say that capital is preserved, increased or diminished according as its value is preserved, increased or diminished.(278) Pretium succedit in locum roi et res in locum pretii. "The greater part in value of the wealth now existing in England, has been produced by human hands within the last twelve months. A very small proportion indeed of that large aggregate was in existence ten years ago; of the present productive capital of the country, scarcely any part except farm-houses and a few ships and machines; and even these would not, in most cases, have survived so long, if fresh labor had not been employed within that period in putting them into repair.... Capital is kept in existence from age to age like population, not by preservation, but by reproduction." (J. S. Mill.)



Section XLIII.

Capital.—Productive Capital.

Capital, according to the employment that can be given it, may be divided into such as affects the production of material goods, and such as affects personal goods or useful relations. The former, under the name of productive capital, is, in recent politico-economical literature, usually opposed to capital in use.(279) Evidently any one of the two kinds of capital mentioned above, may be used for both purposes.(280) Indeed, the two classes are, in many respects, coincident. Thus, a livery-stable carriage or a circulating library is productive capital to its proprietor, and capital in use(281) (Gebrauchskapital) to the nation in general; although the circulating library from which an Arkwright obtains technic information, or the livery-stable vehicle which carries a Borsig to his counting-room, has certainly been used in the production of material goods. Almost all capital in use may be converted into productive capital, and hence, the former might be called quiescent capital, and the latter working capital.(282) One of the principal differences between productive capital and capital in use is, that the former, even when most judiciously employed, does not so immediately replace itself, as the latter, by its returns.(283) On the other hand, the real dividing line between capital in use, and objects consumed which are not capital, is, and it is in complete harmony with our definition of capital, that the latter are subject not only to a more speedy destruction and one which is always contemplated, while in the case of the former, its destruction is only the unintended reverse-side of its use.

Among a highly civilized people, a great amount of capital in use, as compared with the productive capital of the country, may be considered a sure sign of great wealth. When this is the case, the people, without losing the desire of further acquisition, think that they have enough to richly enjoy the present. I need only call to mind the munificence displayed by the middle classes in England, in their silver plate and other domestic utensils. But the people of Russia, and Mexico also, can make no mean display of silverware.(284) Here luxury is only a symptom of the disinclination or inability of the inhabitants of the country to use their capital in the production of wealth. How much richer would Spain be to-day, if it had employed the idle capital spent in the ornamentation of its churches in constructing roads and canals!(285) Most nations in a low state of civilization suffer from the absence of legal guarantees. Each one is compelled to turn his property into a shape in which it can be most easily transferred from one place to another and hidden. This is the principal reason why the Orientals possess, relatively speaking, so many precious stones and so much of the precious metals. The same cause accounts for the simplicity of their dwellings.(286) On the other hand, productive capital is to be found in the greatest proportion among civilized nations which are making very rapid strides towards wealth, the people of the United States, for instance.



Section XLIV.

Capital.—Fixed Capital, And Circulating Capital.

Capital, according as it is employed, is divided into fixed capital and circulating capital. Fixed capital may be used many times in production by its owner; circulating capital only once. The value of the latter kind of capital passes wholly into the value of the new product. In the case of the former kind of capital, only the value of its use passes into the new product. (Hermann.) Hence, the farmer's beasts of burthen belong to his fixed capital; their food, and his cattle intended for the slaughter, to his circulating capital. In a manufactory of machines, a boiler intended for sale is circulating capital; while a similar one, held in reserve for the machines used in production, is fixed capital. Ricardo attributes a somewhat different meaning to these two terms: he calls fixed capital that which is slowly consumed, and circulating, that which disappears rapidly.(287) Fixed capital is, indeed, produced and preserved by circulating capital; but it is, for the most part, transformed again into circulating capital.(288) Besides, it is only by means of the latter, that the former can be productively employed.(289) The relative importance of fixed and circulating capital to a country depends upon whether the country is an advanced or only an advancing one. A people with very much and very fixed capital are indeed very rich; but run the risk of offering many vulnerable points to an aggressive enemy, and of thus turning the easily jeopardized mammon into an idol. To make a passing sacrifice of the country that the people and the state may be saved, as did the Scythians against Darius, the Athenians against Xerxes, and the Russians against Napoleon, becomes difficult, in proportion as the nation has become richer in fixed capital.(290) But, as the destination of the latter is changed with much greater difficulty than that of circulating capital, highly cultivated nations would find it very hard to satisfy new wants, if they could not always appropriate the results of additional savings to the production of new fixed capital.



Section XLV.

Capital.—How It Originates.

Capital is mainly the result of saving which withdraws new products from the immediate enjoyment-consumption of their possessor, and preserves them, or at least their value, to serve as the basis of a lasting use.(291) As capital represents the solidarity of the economic past, present and future, it, as a rule, reaches back into the past and forward into the future, through a period of time longer in proportion as its amount and efficiency are greater.(292) Those producers, too, whose products perish rapidly may, also, effect savings by exchanging their products and capitalizing their counter-value. Thus, the actor, whose playing leaves after it nothing but a memory, may use the wheat received by him from a farmer who came to listen to him, in the employment of an iron-worker, and invest the product permanently in a railroad. The transformation may be effected by means of money, bonds etc., but it is none the less real on that account. Order, foresight and self-restraint are the intellectual conditions precedent of saving and capital. The childish and hail-fellow-well-met disposition which cares only for the present is inimical to it. True, the desire of saving can be developed only where there are legal guarantees to ownership;(293) guarantees which are both the conditions precedent and the effect of all economic civilization.(294) The Indians, Esquimaux etc., had to be taught for the first time by the missionaries and merchants—and it was with the greatest difficulty it was done—to save their booty, and spare the natural sources of their acquisition. Originally, they were, in the heat and excitement of their wild hunting and fishing, wont to destroy on the spot what they could not enjoy in the moment.(295) In the lowest stages of civilization, the first saving of capital of any importance is effected frequently through robbery or in the way of slavery.(296) In both cases, it is the stronger who compel the weaker to consume less than they produce. See infra, 68. Where civilization is at its highest, the inclination to save, as a rule, is very marked.(297) It begins to decline where a people are themselves declining in civilization, and especially where legal guarantees have lost their force.

But capital may be increased even without personal sacrifice; as for instance, by mere occupation, as of certain goods, not hitherto recognized as such. Thus, also, by the establishment of valuable relations, the advantages of which either become the common good of all; or which, because at the exclusive command of one individual, obtain value in exchange. The progress of civilization itself may increase the value of existing capital. Thus, for instance, a house, considered as capital, may double in value if a frequented street be opened in its neighborhood. To this category belong all improvements in the arts which enable existing capital to achieve more than it could before. The invention of the compass increased the value of the capital employed in the merchant marine to an extent that cannot be calculated.(298) The increase of capital effected by saving soon finds a limit unless such limit is widened by the progress of civilization.(299)(300)



Chapter II.

Co-Operation Of The Factors.



Section XLVI.

The Productive Cooeperation Of The Three Factors.

All economic production generally demands the cooeperation of the three factors: external nature, labor and capital. But with the political economist, labor is the principal thing; and not merely because all capital presupposes labor, nor because every combination of the three factors is an act of labor; but, in general, because "the human mind's idea of means and ends makes all goods goods for the first time." (Hufeland.)

Leaving the free forces of nature, surrounded by which we live and work, out of consideration, and also the fact that all raw material is due to nature, land is the indispensable foundation of all economy. But how little can unassisted nature do to satisfy human wants! How much less to produce goods possessed of value in exchange! A virgin forest, for instance, sold in its natural state, has, indeed, value in exchange, but only because it is taken into account that it can be cleared, and that there are means of transportation already existing.(301) The greater part of the forces of nature are latent to nomads and nations of hunters. When labor develops, they are set free to assist it.(302) It is very seldom that any thing can be produced without capital. Even the poorest gatherer of wild berries needs a basket and must be clothed.(303) Were there no capital, every individual would have to begin at the very beginning every moment. Life would be possible only in a tropical climate. No man, since the days of Adam, has been able to labor, except on the condition that a considerable advance of capital had been made upon him. There is not a nail in all England, says Senior, which cannot directly or indirectly directly be traced back to savings made before the Norman conquest.(304)



Section XLVII.

Productive Co-Operation Of The Three Factors. The Three Great Periods Of A Nation's Economy.

The relation of the three factors to one another is necessarily very different in different branches of production. For instance, in the case of cattle-raising on a prairie, labor does very little, land almost everything. Hence an extensive, thinly populated country is best adapted to this species of production. But where land is scarce, as in wealthy and populous cities, human activity should be directed into those branches of industry which need capital and labor, as manufactures and the trades. ( 198.)(305)

Looked at from this point of view, the history of the development of the public economy of every people may be divided into three great periods. In the earliest period, nature is the element that predominates everywhere. The woods, waters and meadows afford food almost spontaneously to a scanty population. This is the Saturnian or golden age of which the sagas tell. Wealth, properly speaking, does not exist here, and those who do not possess a piece of land run the risk of becoming completely dependent on, or even the slave of a land owner. In the second period, that through which all modern nations have passed since the later part of the middle ages, the element, labor, acquires an ever increasing importance. Labor favors the origin and development of cities as well as exclusive rights, the rights of boroughs and guilds by means of which labor is, so to speak, capitalized. A middle class is formed intermediate between the serfs and the owners of the soil. In the third period, capital, if we may so speak, gives tone to everything. The value of land is vastly increased by the expenditure of capital on it, and in manufactures, machine labor preponderates over the labor of the human hand.(306) The national wealth undergoes a daily increase; and it is the "capitalism" which first gives an independent existence to the economic activity of man; just in the same way that law is, as it were, emancipated from land-ownership, from the church and the family only in the constitutional state (Rechtsstaat).(307) But, during this period, the middle class with its moderate ease and solid culture may decrease in numbers, and colossal wealth be confronted with the most abject misery.(308) Although these three periods may be shown to exist in the history of all highly civilized countries, the nations of antiquity, relatively speaking, never advanced far beyond the second, even in their palmiest days. A great part of that which is accomplished among us by means of capital and of machines, the Greeks and Romans performed by the labor of slaves. Leaving Christianity out of the question, nearly all the minor differences between the public economy of the ancients and that of the moderns may be reduced to this fundamental distinction.(309)(310)



Section XLVIII.

Critical History Of The Idea Of Productiveness.

In this chapter, the dogma-historical (dogmengeschichtliche) part is of the utmost importance, because it treats of the connection between the deepest fundamental notions and the principal branches of practical life. It is clear that every political economist must construct his exposition of productiveness on his prior notions of goods and value. We must, therefore, draw a distinction between expositions which are logical but altogether too narrow, and wholly erroneous ones.(311)

Thus, the Mercantile System admits every mode of applying the three factors of production, but considers them really productive only in so far as they increase the quantity of the precious metals possessed by the nation, either through the agency of mining at home, or by means of foreign trade. This view stands and falls with the altogether too limited idea of national wealth before mentioned ( 9), which this system advocated.(312) The majority of the followers of the Mercantile System ascribe more power to industry to attract gold and silver from foreign parts, than to agriculture, and to the finer kinds of industry than to the coarser; to active and direct trade, more than to passive and indirect trade.



Section XLIX.

Critical History Of The Idea Of Productiveness.—The Doctrine Of The Physiocrates.

The doctrine of the Physiocrates is to be explained in part by a very natural reaction from the narrow-heartedness of the Mercantile System, and at the same time, by a presentiment, misunderstood, of the true theory of rent. ( 150 ff.). Of the six classes of labor mentioned above ( 38), those only are called productive which increase the quantity of raw material useful for human ends. All the other classes, it matters not how useful, are called sterile, salaried, because they draw their income only from the superabundance of land-owners and the workers of the soil. Tradesmen, in the narrower sense of the term, produce only a change in the form of the material, the higher value of which depends on the quantity of other material consumed for the purposes of the tradesman's labor. If any of this material is saved, the value of their products sinks, although to the advantage of the economy of the whole nation. In any case, industry could create no wealth, but only make existing wealth more lasting. It might, so to speak, accumulate the value of the quantity of food consumed during the building of a house in the house itself.(313)

But if tradesmen really earned, in the value of their products, only what they had consumed during their labor, it would be difficult for them to find employers to provide them with capital. Everyone will acknowledge, that a Thorwaldsen and an ordinary stone-cutter, with the same block of marble, the same implements, the same food, would necessarily, after the same time, turn out exceedingly different values.(314) And, even in the case that industry should add to the raw material only precisely the same amount of value as had been consumed by the workmen, can it be said that the work ceases to be productive simply because it is consumed by the workmen themselves? If that were so, agriculture even, would, in most countries with a low civilization, be unproductive.(315)

Commerce, according to the theory of the Physiocrates, only transfers already existing wealth from one hand to another. What the merchants gain by it is at the cost of the nation. Hence, it is desirable that this loss should be as small as possible. Hence sterility!(316) But, the more important branches of business, especially wholesale trade, are connected with a transportation of goods (Verri), either from one place or from one period of time, into another. Here the genuine merchant speculates essentially on the difference of the values in use which are afterwards greater than before.(317) The ice shipped yearly from Boston to tropical lands met a much more urgent and wide-spread want there than it would if it had remained at home. And thus the storage of grain in large quantities after a bountiful harvest withdraws, indeed, an object of enjoyment from the consumption of the people; but its sale, after a bad harvest, undoubtedly increases their enjoyment in a much greater degree than it was before diminished. Besides, the condition of both parties to the contract is usually improved in all normal trade. (Condillac.)(318) No one parts with exchangeable goods unless they are of less use to him than the ones he receives in return.(319) And so, the value in use of a nation's resources is really increased by commerce. To the other attributes of goods it adds one of the principal conditions of all use, accessibility (Kudler), with which it either newly endows them, or which it increases in degree. To this end, the merchant makes use of tools, just as the manufacturer does. What spinning-wheels, looms and workshops are to the latter, ships, warehouses, cranes etc., are to the former. If production be not complete until the thing produced is made fit for its last end, consumption, commerce may be looked upon as the last link in the chain of productive labor. It, at the same time, constitutes a series of intermediate links; as without it no division of labor is possible, and without a division of labor, no higher economic productiveness.(320) How commerce may increase the value in exchange of goods, and without in any way injuring the purchaser, needs no further illustration.(321)



Section L.

The Same Subject Continued.

Even Adam Smith called services, in the narrower sense of the term ( 3), the grave and important ones of the statesman, clergyman and physician, as well as the "frivolous" ones of the opera singer, ballet-dancer and buffoon, unproductive. The labor of none of these can be fixed or incorporated in any particular object.(322)(323) But how strange it is that the labor of a violin-maker is called productive, while that of the violin-player is called unproductive; although the product of the former has no other object than to be played on by the latter? (Garnier.) Is it not strange that the hog-raiser should be called productive, and the educator of man unproductive (List); the apothecary, who prepares a salve which alleviates for the moment, productive, the physician, unproductive, spite of the fact that his prescription in relation to diet, or his surgical operation, may radically cure the severest disease?

If the productiveness of an employment of the factors of production be made to depend on whether it is attended by a material result, no one will deny that the labor of the plowman, for instance, is productive; and no one, of Adam Smith's school, at least, that that of the clerk, who orders the raw material for the owner of the manufactory, is. They have participated indirectly in the production. But, has not the servant of the state, who protects the property of its citizens, or the physician, who preserves the health of the producer, an equally mediate but indispensable share in it? The field-guard who keeps the crows away, every one calls productive; why, not, then, the soldier, who keeps away a far worse enemy from the whole land? (McCulloch.) But the entire division of business into two branches, the one directly, and the other indirectly productive, can be defended only as respects certain kinds of goods. (Schmitthenner.) The labor of the judge, for instance, is only indirectly productive in the manufacture of shoes, inasmuch as he guarantees the payment of the shoemaker's account. On the other hand, the shoemaker contributes only very indirectly to the general security which the law affords, by protecting the judge's foot.(324)

Nor can any effectual inferiority of service be claimed, simply because the productive power of one branch of business is, measured by the duration of its results, greater than another.(325) What is more perishable than a loaf of bread bought for dinner? What more imperishable than the monumentum aere perennius of a Horace? The labor expended on persons and on relations (Verhaeltnissen) is, both as to the extent and duration of its results, much less capable of being estimated than any other; but its capacity of accumulation and its power of propagation are greater than any other. It is in the domain of the "immaterial," that man is most "creative." (Lueder.)(326) Finally, neither should the greater indispensableness of the more material branches of business be too generally asserted. Agriculture produces grain which is indispensable, and tobacco which is not; industry, cloth, as well as lace; commerce draws from the same part of the world rhubarb and edible bird's-nests; and so, to services belong the indispensable ones of the educator and judge, as well as those of the rope-dancer and bear-leader, which can be dispensed with.(327) Indeed, the dividing line between material and intellectual production cannot, by any means, be closely drawn.(328)



Section LI.

The Same Subject Continued.

The greater number of recent writers(329) have, therefore, come to be of the opinion that every useful business which ministers to the whole people's requirement of external goods possesses economic productiveness.(330) But it makes a great difference to science, whether a view is considered true because no one has suggested a doubt of its correctness, or because all doubts as to its truth have been triumphantly removed.



Section LII.

Idea Of Productiveness.

It should never be lost sight of, that the public economy of a people should be considered an organism, which, when its growth is healthy, always develops more varied organs, but always in a due proportion, which are not only carried by the body, but also in turn serve to carry it. The aggregate of the wants of the entire public economy etc., is satisfied by the aggregate activity of the people. Every individual who employs his lands, labor or capital for the whole, receives his share of the aggregate produce, whether he contributed or not to the creation of the kind of produce in which he is paid. Thus, in a pin-manufactory, the workman who is occupied solely in making the heads of pins is not paid in pins or pin-heads, but in a part of the aggregate result of the manufacture, in money. Every department of business, therefore, for the achievements of which there is a rational demand, and which are remunerated in proportion to their deserts, has labored productively. It is unproductive only when no one will need what it has brought forth, or when no one will pay for it; but, in this case, what is true of the writer without readers—that he is unproductive—and of the singer without hearers, is equally true of the peasant whose corn rots in his granary, because he can find no sale for it.(331)



Section LIII.

The Same Subject Continued.

In this matter, again, there is an important difference to be observed between private or individual economy and economy in its widest sense, in the sense of a world-economy. The productiveness of labor is estimated in the case of the former, according to the value in exchange of its result; in the case of the latter, according to its value in use. There is a great number of employments which are very remunerative to private individuals, but which are entirely unproductive, and even injurious, so far as mankind is concerned; for the reason that they take from others as much as, or even more than they procure to those engaged in them. Here belong, besides formal crimes against property, games of chance,(332) usurious speculations ( 113) and measures taken to entice customers away from other competitors. Again, scientific experiments, means of communication etc., may be entirely unproductive in the individual economy of the undertaker, and yet be of more profit to mankind in general, than they have cost the former.(333) In this respect the nation's economy holds a middle place between individual economy and the world's economy.(334) Strictly speaking, only those employments should be called productive which increase the world's resources. Hence, the work of government should be called so, only in so far as its expenses are covered by the taxes paid willingly by the more reasonable portion of the citizens; and also only in so far as its work is really necessary to the attainment of its end.(335) The productiveness of an employment supposes, also, that it is not carried on at the cost of other employments which it is more difficult to do without. In a healthy nation we may, in this matter, rely, to a certain extent, on the judgment of public opinion, which knows how to appreciate, at their just value, professional gamblers, pettifoggers and the luxury of soldiers. The greater, freer and more cultivated a nation is, the more probable is it that the productiveness of private economy is also national-economical productiveness, and that national-economical productiveness is world-economical productiveness.(336)



Section LIV.

Importance Of A Due Proportion In The Different Branches Of Productiveness.

Much always depends on the due proportion of the different branches of productiveness to one another. Thus, Spain, for instance, has remained poor under the most advantageous circumstances in the world,(337) because it allowed a disproportionate preponderance of personal services. The character of the Spanish people has always given them a leaning towards aristocratic pride and economic idleness. Tradesmen, in that country, sought, as a rule, to amass merely enough to enable them to live on the interest of their capital; after which they, by way of preference, removed it into some other province, where they might be considered as among the nobility; or they withdrew into a monastery. Even in 1781, the Madrid Academy thought it incumbent on it to propose a prize for the best essay in support of the thesis: "The useful trades in no way detract from personal honor."(338) During the century in which the country was in its greatest glory, the whole people were bent on being to all Europe what nobles, officers and officials are to a single nation. "Whoever wishes to make his fortune," said Cervantes, "let him seek the church, the sea (i.e., go as an adventurer to America) or the king's palace." Under Philip III., there were in Spain nine hundred and eighty-eight nunneries, and thirty-two thousand mendicant friars. The number of monasteries trebled between 1574 and 1624, and the number of monks increased in a yet greater ratio. A great many of its manufactories, much of its commerce, and not a few of its most important farms were controlled by foreigners, especially by Italians. There were, it seems, in 1610, one hundred and sixty thousand foreign tradesmen living in Castile. In 1787, there were still 188,625 priests, monks, nuns, etc.; 280,092 servants; 480,589 nobles; 964,571 day laborers; 987,187 peasants; 310,739 mechanics and manufacturers; 34,339 merchants.(339) As a counterpart to this, the United States had, in 1840, about 77.5 per cent. of its population engaged in agriculture, 16.8 in manufactures and mining, 4.2 in shipping and commerce, 1.3 in the learned professions.(340)

We might be tempted, in view of this contrast, to return once more to the unproductiveness of personal services. It is not, however, the direction given to the forces of production, but the squandering of them, that is injurious. When the Magyar, through mere vanity, drives a yoke of from four to six horses where two are enough; or when, as in 1831, Irish agriculture employed 1,131,715 workmen to produce a value of thirty-six million pounds sterling, while that of Great Britain(341) produced one hundred and fifty millions a year, and employed only 1,055,982 workmen, these causes are as sure to impoverish the country, as the waste of the Spaniards in supporting such an army of clergy and servants. Of course, the temptation to waste wealth on parks is greater than to waste it in vegetable gardens! The probability that a man will ruin himself by keeping too many servants is greater than that he will do the same by employing too many operatives.(342) And all the more, as there are many and especially important services which regulate their own remuneration: thus, as a rule, those of the statesman, those of the military in times of war, and those of the priest in the age of superstition.(343)



Section LV.

The Degree Of Productiveness.

Concerning the degree of productiveness, it may be remarked that that application of the factors of production is most productive, which, with the least expenditure of means, satisfies the greatest want in the economy of a people. Here, there is a continual change, corresponding precisely to the change in wants and faculties. After a bad harvest, for instance, the labor which procures grain from foreign countries or the supplies of former years, is most productive; and, after an earthquake which has destroyed a large city, the labor of the builder. Agriculture is, as a rule, the more productive labor of undeveloped nations, and industry of highly developed nations.(344)(345)



Chapter III.

The Organization Of Labor.



Section LVI.

Development Of The Division Of Labor.

The larger a tree grows to be, the more boughs and branches does it put forth. The more perfect any species of animal is, the more does it stand in need of a special organ for each special purpose. And thus the division of labor has developed and kept pace with the development of human society. While Crusoe was obliged to provide for all his wants by his own labor, we find that in the wildest Indian family the male is employed in war, the chase, in fishing, in the manufacture of arms and boats, and in the transportation of the latter during long marches; the female, on the other hand, in the preparation of food, in the hewing of wood, the curing of skins, the sewing of clothes, in the building and preservation of the wig-wam, the care of children, and the carriage of baggage when on the march.(346) These occupations, at first entirely domestic, became, by degrees, separate industries, which are constantly subject to further subdivision.(347)



Section LVII.

Development Of The Division Of Labor.—Its Extent At Different Periods.

In the middle age of a people, the division of labor is not carried to any great extent. The courtiers of King Frotho III. advised him to marry, "since otherwise his majesty's ragged linen would never be mended." Saint Dunstan, although he occupied a high position in politics and in the Church, was an excellent blacksmith, bell-founder and designer of ladies' robes. Chriemhild in the Nibelungenlied was an industrious and skillful milliner. In the corresponding period of Grecian and Roman history, we find Penelope and Lucretia at the loom, Nausicaa, a laundress, the daughter of the king of the Lestrigons, fetching water from the spring, Odysseus, a carpenter, a queen of Macedonia as a cook, and finally the distaff of Tanaquil.(348) In the highlands of Scotland, in 1797, there were a great many peasants all of whose clothing was home-made, with the exception of their caps; nothing coming from abroad except the tailor, his needles and iron tools generally. But the peasant himself was the weaver, fuller, dyer, tanner, shoemaker etc. of his own family:(349) every man jack of all trades.(350)

In present England, on the other hand, the manufacture of watches is divided into one hundred and two branches which have to be specially learned; only the so-called "watch-finisher" carries on other branches besides. In Wolverhampton, it may happen that a man, employed in the manufacture of keys, may not be able to make a whole key after an apprenticeship of ten years, for the reason that during all that time he may have been engaged only in filing.(351) In English agriculture there are, according to German notions, very few complete wholes. A well-marked distinction exists there between the cultivators of corn and breeders of cattle; and the latter are again divided into breeders of young cattle, into fatteners of cattle etc. Its industries are, in large part, separated into provinces. Thus, linen manufactures are confined almost exclusively to Leeds and Dundee, woolen manufactures, to Leeds,(352) cotton manufactures, to Manchester, and Glasgow, pottery to Stafford, coarse iron to South Wales, hardwares to Birmingham, cutlery to Sheffield. And so in the different quarters of the city. Thus, in large towns, the banks, stores, offices etc., are found in one portion, with scarcely any intervening dwelling houses.

On the division of labor depends all differences of estate and class, and all human culture. It cannot be claimed that a division of labor does not exist among animals;(353) but those animals among which something analogous to a division of labor among men exists, are raised far above all others by their human-like economy and the relative importance of their achievements.(354)



Section LVIII.

Advantages Of The Division Of Labor.

The advantages of all suitable division of labor, consequent upon the natural differences of human faculties and dispositions, are the following:

A. The greater skill of the workman. Even physically, many capacities are, by an indefinite number of repetitions of the same operation, enhanced to an extraordinary degree; which, however, renders the performance of other operations more difficult. Thus, the man who has developed his muscles and hardened his hands working in a smithy, renders himself incapable of becoming a violin-player or an operating oculist.(355) Here belongs especially the possibility of turning every kind of labor-power to greatest account. Even children(356) and old men may be made, in this way, to play a part in the production of goods. It becomes practicable, too, to relieve men endowed with superior faculties from common labor, and allow them to devote themselves exclusively to the development of the peculiar powers with which nature has gifted them.(357)

B. A great saving of time and trouble. The simpler the operation performed by a single workman, the more easily is it learned; the smaller is the price paid or apprenticeship, which depends on this, at least, that beginners perform poorer work and are paid more poorly. "The shortest way to the end is most easily found when the end itself is near, and can be kept continually in view." (J. B. Say.) Where the same workman combines different operations, a great deal of time is lost in changing tools etc. Besides, it always takes some time for a workman to get rightly under way of his work. The person who changes thus frequently becomes more easily indolent. Lastly, there is a great number of operations which demand the same aggregate amount of effort, no matter what the number of objects on which they are performed. It is thus, for instance, with shepherds, mail-carriers etc.(358) The post carries a thousand letters with almost as much ease as one; and the entire life of a wholesale dealer would scarcely suffice to carry all the letters which he mails in a single day, to their place of destination. During the middle ages, every man was obliged to watch over his own personal safety and the maintenance of his own rights; while in 1850, in Great Britain, twenty-one million people are protected in their persons and property, in an infinitely more effectual manner, and at less cost, by fifteen thousand soldiers, and by a much smaller number of policemen, whose place it is to preserve public order. (Senior.) Something similar takes place among merchants, and it may be admitted as correct in principle, that every new intermediary, freely recognized by both sides in commerce,(359) makes labor better or less expensive.

C. As the land of a country is, in a sense, the natural extension of the national body, the international division of labor affords an indirect means, but frequently an indispensable one, of procuring the products of foreign countries and climates.(360) If the English people wished to obtain themselves, and without having recourse to any intermediary, the quantity of tea which they annually consume, it is possible that its whole agricultural population would not suffice to procure it; while, at present, it is obtained by the labor of forty-five thousand industrial workmen. (Senior.) Moreover, the division of labor increases not only the aptitude of the workman but also his incentive to productive labor, since it guarantees to every one the certainty of being able, by means of exchange, to enjoy the productions of every other person.(361)



Section LIX.

Conditions Of The Division Of Labor.

It is by its division, that labor, considered as a factor of production, is raised to the highest degree of efficiency. Its results in any given industry are, therefore, more important in proportion as the element labor predominates in it. Hence, these results are much smaller, in agriculture, for instance, than in the trades, or in personal services.(362) The most expert sower or harvester cannot be employed the whole year through in sowing or harvesting. Some kind of rotation of crops, some kind of combination of tillage and stock-raising is necessary to every agriculturist. On this depends the importance of the technic secondary industries of agriculture, which are, in principle, opposed to the division of labor. Hence, too, almost any person engaged in a trade, no matter of what kind, supposes a greater number of customers than a tiller of the land of the same rank.

The more labor is divided, the greater is the amount of capital necessary to it.(363) It may be even said, that all preparatory labor becomes capital in its relation to subsequent labor. If ten isolated workmen can produce ten dozen articles of any kind, daily, and, after the introduction of a more efficient division of labor, fifty dozen, the employer must provide them, in the latter case, not only with five times as much capital, but probably with fifty times as much, as then, five hundred dozen are making continually.



Section LX.

Influence Of The Extent Of The Market On The Division Of Labor.

But it is the extent of the market especially which determines the limits of the division of labor; for there is a direct and necessary relation between the division of labor and the exchange of its surplus. Hence, the division of labor may be carried farthest in the case of those products which are most easily transported from place to place, and which, at the same time, possess the utility that is most widely recognized. The smallness of the market may depend upon the scantiness of the population, or upon its scattered condition;(364) upon their smaller ability to pay, or upon the bad means of communication at their disposal.(365) Hence it is, that in villages, small cities, and still more on isolated farms, many branches of business are carried on by one person, which are divided among many in larger cities; and this is especially true in the case of businesses which have a chiefly local demand.(366) While, in small places, the barber is also frequently the physician, in larger ones there are dentists, oculists, accoucheurs, surgeons etc.(367); and while, in the former, the tavern keeper is both dry goods merchant and grocer, there are, in the latter, tea merchants, cigar-dealers, dealers in mourning goods (in London childbed-linen warehouses) etc., and hotels for all the different classes of travelers. There can be a distinct class of porters, hack-men etc., only where commerce is very active.(368) And even in cities like Paris, where the costly industries that minister to luxury, that of the jeweler, for instance, admit of only a limited division of labor, this effect depends on the smallness of the market; a market, indeed, which geographically may extend over the whole earth, but which, in an economic sense, must always remain small, on account of the small number of customers who have the ability to pay for their products. The real wonders produced by the division of labor and the employment of machinery we must look for in the manufacture of the cheapest and commonest commodities.(369)



Section LXI.

The Division Of Labor—Means Of Increasing It.

Whoever, therefore, would increase the division of labor among the people, must, first of all, extend their market; and this is done most efficiently by improving the means of communication. Even in our day, it is over the water-highroads that the heaviest articles are carried with the least expenditure of force;(370) but where civilization is not advanced, these highroads possess still greater advantages, because of their safety, convenience and priority. And here is the explanation of the intimate connection of the beginnings of all civilizations with the existence, near the scene of such beginnings, of good natural water-roads. "Even the wildest inhabitant of the sea coast very soon obtains the idea of distance, which is altogether wanting to the inhabitant of the primeval forest. No sooner does he catch sight of the far-off island than his yearning after the distant assumes a well-defined character. Bits of wood floating past him suggest to his mind the best material to buoy himself up upon the water, and a fish the best form for his craft." (Klemm.) Hence the Mediterranean sea, especially the eastern portion, with the various peoples and products of its coasts, with its numerous islands, peninsulas and bays, its easy navigation, but little influenced by the tides or by ocean currents, was the principal seat of ancient civilization.(371) The literal meaning of Attica is coast-land. (Strabo.) The colonization of a new country is wont, where possible, to begin on the coast, especially on islands near the coast; and to follow the course of rivers into the interior. Even whole continents occupy, for the most part, in the history of the world, the position assigned them by their coast-development.(372) While it is hard to determine whether, in the case of the European continent, its limbs predominate or its trunk, Africa may be said to be a trunk without members. Its islands, most of them insignificant in themselves, are almost entirely cut off from it by ocean currents. This explains why Madagascar had not, by any means, the influence on African civilization which Crete, Sicily and Britain have had on the civilization of Europe. Asia occupies, in this respect, about a middle position between Europe and Africa. The trunk of that continent bears to its members about the proportion of 670,000 to 150,000 square miles. And what is worst of all, the middle of the whole is an almost insurmountable wall between north, south, east and west Asia. Hence the tenacious peculiarity and isolated development of the Chinese, Malayan, Indian and Arabic civilizations; while the three peninsulas of southern Europe, for instance, have affected one another so largely, and in so many different ways.(373) The northern hemisphere compared with the southern, presents a contrast similar to that between Europe and Africa, or of the rich coast-groups of the Atlantic compared with the poor ones of the Pacific.(374) But it is most especially, large, well-watered plains that are best adapted to the construction of roads, and thus to facilitate the division of labor. And while we find, in many countries, that the mountainous regions reached a certain stage of development earlier than any others, because they were more easily protected by military force, we find, too, that even here, plains, have, for the most part, had the largest share of power and of civilization (northern Italy, northern France, the plains of Switzerland and north Germany). See 36.(375) We must not, however, fail to consider the reverse side of the picture of the great highways of the world. The same reasons that raise them to the dignity of lines of commerce, make them lines of war; and even the contagion of great plagues and of the ruling vices follows, as a rule, the avenues of trade.



Section LXII.

The Reverse, Or Dark Side Of The Division Of Labor.

There are hardships often attending the highly developed division of labor, the dark and bright sides of which are most strikingly observable only in large cities. However, when it is charged with adding to the natural inequality of men, the accusation can be met only by the answer, that, without the division of labor, we should be all equally poor and equally coarse; for each one would be absorbed by the necessity of providing for his lower wants, and no one would be in a way to develop his higher faculties. Even the poorest man has more enjoyment in consequence of the division of labor, than he could have living in a state of isolation from his fellow men. The most wretched among us, the invalid without property of any kind, the father of a family with more children than he can support, would simply starve in the primeval forest.

Those socialists who never tire of preaching "association," overlook for the most part, the great, free association which our needs, wants or tastes are ever changing, and which is given us, as of course, by the division of labor.(376) Yet the skill produced by the division of labor is unavoidably connected with a corresponding one-sidedness. The Russians, for instance, are exceedingly apt, but they rarely distinguish themselves in any thing.(377) Love of his avocation, or pride in it, is a thing unknown to the Russian workman. He shirks all continuous labor.(378) Experience has shown that the Neapolitans and Italians, in general, exhibit great skill when they work alone; but that when a great many of them work together, they become rapidly confused. The English, on the other hand, are slow to learn anything new, or to overcome unlooked for difficulties; but they have no equals as workmen in organized industries.(379) The difficulty experienced in seeking a new calling, where a high division of labor obtains, arises as much from the fact that each person here has received a more one-sided training, as from the necessity he is under of competing from the first with only consummate workers. Rousseau's school has laid too much stress on the tendency of higher civilization to diminish individual independence. _Quand on sait creuser un canot, battre l'ennemi, construire une cabane, vivre de peu, faire cent lieues dans les forets sans autre guide que le vent et le soleil, sans autre provision qu'un arc et des fleches; c'est _ alors qu'on est un homme!_(380) We might reply that to build a steamship or a palace, and to travel around the world are far better. (_Dunoyer._) Even physically, civilized man is superior to the savage, as might be inferred from the greater average duration of life of the former. Of course, extremes should not be compared, nor should we contrast the frame of a weaver or student with that of a savage chief.(381)

In a similar way, the one-sidedness of the international division of labor may be pregnant with great danger to national independence.



Section LXIII.

Dark Side Of The Division Of Labor.—Its Gain And Loss.

Where, indeed, the one-sidedness produced by the division of labor goes so far as to cause the degeneration(382) of the workman's personality, the human loss of the nation is greater than the material gain purchased by it. Thus the occupation of polishing metals or gilding, when continued for a long time without interruption, invariably ruins the health. What must be the aspect of the soul of a workman who, for forty years has done nothing but watch the moment when silver has reached the degree of fusion which precedes vaporization! who is blind to all else, but receives a good fat salary for his services.(383) Schleiermacher rightly declared all human action which is purely mechanical, through which man becomes a living tool (slave!) immoral. When the division of labor has reached this point, machines should take the place of men. The morality of a profession may be measured by the degree in which it corresponds with the universal calling of the race.(384) It is not, therefore, a piece of inconsistency but rather a deeply felt want, when, where civilization is at its highest, so many demands are made that the division of labor should take a retrograde path. The practice of gymnastic exercises by the sedentary classes, universal military duty, the participation of citizens in municipal government and in political affairs, of laymen in the government of the church, of the wealthy in the administration of charity; all these things are, from a materialistic stand-point, considered a great squandering of time. It may be, that, if the division of labor were more rigidly carried out, we might, by its means, obtain more perfect results with less economic expense. But the whole man is of more importance than the sum of his achievements and enjoyments. (Luke, 9:25.) Wo to the nation where only jurists have a developed sense of the right, where political judgment and cultivated patriotism are the portion of only officials and placemen, where only the standing army has warlike courage, and the clergy only conscious religiousness; where parents leave all care for education to the teachers of the various branches of learning, and where physical vigor is to be found only among the proletarians. Hence there is nothing more ruinous than premature one-sided education in a single trade or profession—a thing which often happens from poverty before the foundations of the general education becoming a human being have been laid. The higher a man's position, the more should he, so to speak, be a representative of the whole human race. Who, for instance, would wish to see a ruler brought up as men are to a special branch of science or to a special profession?(385)(386) The best corrective for the one-sidedness produced by a high division of labor consists in the extension and many-sided employment of leisure time, both of which are made more easy by the same high civilization which always accompanies the division of labor.(387)



Section LXIV.

The Co-Operation Of Labor.

The cooeperation or combination(388) of labor must, however, always correspond to the division of labor. Both are but different sides of the one idea of social labor; the separation of different kinds of labor, in so far as they would disturb one another, and the union or combination of them so far as they help one another.(389) The vintner or grower of flax would necessarily die of hunger if he could not certainly count on the grower of corn. The workman in a pin-factory, who prepares only the heads of pins, must be sure of his colleagues who sharpen the points, if his labor would not be entirely in vain. The labor of the merchant is not even thinkable without that of the different producers between whom he mediates. Where the production of a certain article depends on the services of six different kinds of labor, one of which, however, demands thrice the time, and another twice the time of the rest, it is clear, that, in order that the business may be properly carried on, so many workmen should be employed that their number divided by 9 should leave no remainder. (Rau.) The union or combination of different kinds of labor is most perfect when the workmen live nearest together; when, therefore, they are not separated by great difficulties of transportation; or in different countries, in which case, a war might tear all to pieces.



Section LXV.

The Principle Of Stability, Or Of The Continuity Of Work.

Cooeperation in time is of equal importance: the principle of the stability, or of the continuity of labor. When a workman dies, it is necessary to be able to calculate on a substitute. It is well known that it is much harder to begin a business, than it is, afterwards, to improve and enlarge it; and this, the more complicated it is. A new enterprise will take root easily, only where there are several similar ones already in existence; a new manufacturing establishment, for instance, where by the existence of other such establishments, the requisite habits of the workmen, of capitalists and of the public in general, have been previously developed. The skill of workmen is propagated especially by observation and the personal emulation of the young; whence it is, that the introduction of new industries is best made by the immigration of skilled workmen.(390) Hence the baleful influence of such interruptions, as for instance, the repeal of the edict of Nantes. Hence too, it is, that despotism and the reign of the populace are so unfavorable to the economy of a country, where there can be no guarantee of a consistent observance and development of the laws. To the best applications of the principle of the continuity of labor belong the church-building of the middle ages, the national canals, the street and fortification systems of modern times; all of which have been created only by the cooeperation of several generations to the same end.(391) The most striking means by which such a cooeperation has been advanced in modern times is public credit, "a draft on posterity;" yet, all saving is, in principle, the same. The most powerful element in the cooeperation in time of labor is the economy in common of the family, although it differs in degree, according to the different kinds of family inheritance. Where, as among the English middle classes, it is customary to secure the business property of the family to one child by will, and to entrust the conduct of the business, during the life of the father, to the devisee, to provide for the other children by insurance, by savings etc., made from the surplus of the business, there may be old firms which remain always new, however; because they combine the experience of age with the energy of youth, and are never broken up by a division of the inheritance. But the compulsory equality of heirs, which actually obtains in France, compels almost every new generation to begin with a new firm. (See 85 seq.)(392)



Section LXVI.

Advantage Of Large Enterprises.

On the results of the division and cooeperation of labor rests the superior advantage of all great undertakings, and they are, therefore, smaller in agriculture than in industry. "It is harder to acquire the first thousand than the second million." Abstraction made of the conditions of capital and of the market, the limit up to which the growing magnitude of an enterprise becomes more advantageous, lies in the increasing difficulty of superintendence. Numberless commercial improvements, such as the post-office, railroads, telegraphs, exchange, banks etc., have operated powerfully to extend these limits. It is frequently possible, even in small enterprises, to secure the advantages of large enterprises, by association among those concerned. They must, of course, possess the necessary capital. If they have not got it, as property, they must borrow it. It is, of course, peculiarly difficult here to preserve the necessary unity, without which the cooeperation of labor becomes the confusion of labor. The more moral and intelligent the participants are and the simpler the business, the more extensive may it become, and the more probable will be its success. ( 90.)(393)(394)(395)



Chapter IV.

Freedom And Slavery.



Section LXVII.

The Origin Of Slavery.

An institution like that of personal bondage, which, it can be shown, has existed, among all nations of which history gives us information, at one time or another, must have very general causes. Among these may be mentioned especially subjection through war. It is not possible to calculate how much the principle, that it was proper to reduce the man to slavery whom it was considered right to kill, contributed to make war less bloody in an uncivilized age.(396) A nation of hunters is almost compelled to grant no quarter; the conqueror would be obliged either to feed his prisoner or to put arms in his hands. It is certainly a great humanitarian advance, when this state of things is superseded by slavery among nomadic nations.(397)

In times of peace, economic dependence is the result of poverty, excessive debt etc.(398) Where there is no division of labor, the individual has no means of supplying his wants, except by cultivating a spot of ground. But, how can the poor wretch who has neither capital(399) nor land exchange anything of value for either? Such an advance, where there is no security in law, can be made only on the credit of a very important pledge. But the man who is destitute of all property can offer nothing but the productive power of himself or of his family.(400) And so it is with the small landed proprietor who has lost all his capital;(401) for, considering the superabundance of land, the part which he possesses has value in exchange only to the extent that it is joined with the certainty of being cultivated; and here is the origin of the glebae adscriptio. The hereditary transmission of the relation to the children seems to be equally useful to them; or who, were this not the case, would think of providing them with food? It also frequently happens that poor parents prefer to sell their children to seeing them starve.(402) Hence the strange fact that most nations have the most rigid system of slavery precisely at the time that the soil produces food most readily. We need only cite the instance of the South Sea Islands, at the time of their discovery. In many negro countries, where the people have not yet learned to use animals for transportation, the lowest classes, although they enjoy a nominal liberty, are used as beasts of burden.(403)



Section LXVIII.

The Same Subject Continued.

In all very low stages of civilization, the greatest absence of the feeling of wants, and the greatest indolence, are wont to prevail, and in the highest degree. As soon as their merest necessities are provided for, men begin to look upon labor as a disgraceful occupation, and indolence as the highest kind of enjoyment. ( 41, 213 ff.) Sustained and voluntary efforts, in any number, then become possible only by the creation of new wants; but these new wants suppose a higher civilization. Escape from this sorry circle is then effected in the most humane manner, through the agency of foreign teachers; inasmuch as the representatives of a more highly cultivated people (missionaries, merchants etc.), by their own example, make the nation acquainted with more wants, and at the same time help toward their satisfaction.(404) But, in the case of nations whose civilization is completely isolated, or having intercourse only with others equally low, progress is the creature of force exclusively. The barbarous isolation of families ceases when the strongest and most powerful force the weaker into their service. It is now that the division of labor really begins: the victor devotes himself entirely to work of a higher order, to statesmanship, war, worship etc.; the very doing of which is generally a pleasure in itself. The vanquished perform the lower. The one-half of the people are forced to labor for something beyond their own brute wants. And it is, here as elsewhere, the first step that costs.(405) ( 45.)



Section LXIX.

Origin Of Slavery.—Want Of Freedom.

It is not to be supposed that slavery, at this stage, is so oppressive even to those who have been deprived of their freedom. The feeling of moral degradation which slavery, abstraction even made of its abuses, awakens in us, is unknown in a very uncivilized age.(406) The child willingly obeys the orders of strangers, and is hired out to service by his parents etc. The want or craving for liberty keeps pace with the intellectual growth of a people. The systematic over-working of servants or slaves, in the interest of their masters, is scarcely thinkable in an uncultured age, when, in the absence of commercial intercourse, every family consumes what it produces.(407) The only thing which the slave has to fear is an occasional outburst of tyranny on the part of the master, a thing which is far from unfrequent in all the relations of low civilizations. Fear restrains masters to a certain extent; for, in those early days, how few were the institutions of state which could protect them against the vengeance of their slaves!(408)(409)



Section LXX.

Emancipation.

As states grow greater and men's manners gentler, the ranks of slavery are less and less liable to be recruited through the agency of war.(410) It then becomes necessary to have recourse to the family to keep up their number, which makes their condition much more endurable, and which supposes that it has been made more endurable in other respects beforehand. Modern states, are, as a rule, larger than the ancient were. The Germans had, long before the time of Charlemagne, treated prisoners of war of German origin more mildly than those of Gallic or Slavic origin.(411) The condition of the latter even improved from the time that nations began to think of making permanent conquests. Since the Slavic wars of the tenth century, certainly since the Lithuanian contests, it seems that prisoners of war were not reduced to slavery.(412) Chivalry, and allowing prisoners to go free, on their word of honor, contributed largely to this result.

The more productive agriculture is, the more numerous the wants of land owners, the more extensive the division of labor and commercial intercourse become, the easier it is for a large class of the community to obtain support for themselves and families without cultivating land of their own. (Wages.) When exchanges through the medium of money become customary, the chief argument for slavery disappears; and the strong, rich and able man can, without having recourse to force, command the labor of other men. Every further advance in economic culture must necessarily help forward in this direction. Thus, without the plow, for instance, we should all be really only so many glebae adscripti. It is due especially to the ever increasing perfection of tools, machines and operations, that the slave of antiquity was transformed into the serf of the middle ages, and afterwards into the day laborer of modern times.(413) It is more particularly to be remarked, that machines, since 1750, "first made the constitutional liberty of many, instead of the feudal freedom of a few, possible." (Schaeffle.)