FrEdEric Bastiat

If the level of the human race is not continually rising, man is not a perfectible being.

If the social tendency is not a constant approximation of all men towards this progressive elevation, the economic laws are not harmonious.

Now, how can the level of humanity be rising, if each given quantity of labour does not yield a constantly increasing amount of enjoyments, a phenomenon which can be explained only by the transformation of onerous into gratuitous utility.

And, on the other hand, how can this utility, having become gratuitous, bring men nearer and nearer to a common level, if the utility has not at the same time itself become common?

Here, then, we discover the essential law of social harmony.

I should have been pleased had the language of Political Economy furnished me with two words other than the terms production and consumption, to designate services which are rendered and received. These terms savour too much of materiality. There are evidently services, like those of the clergyman, the professor, the soldier, the artist, which tend to the furtherance of morality, education, security, taste, which have nothing in common with mechanical or manufacturing industry, except this, that the end to be attained is satisfaction or enjoyment.

The terms I have referred to are those generally employed, and I have no wish to become a neologist. But let it be understood that by production I mean what confers utility, and by consumption the enjoyment to which that utility gives rise.

Let the protectionist school—which is in reality a phase of Communism—believe that in employing the terms producer and consumer we are not absurd enough to wish to represent the human race as divided into two distinct classes, the one engaged [p324] exclusively in the work of producing, the other exclusively in that of consuming. The naturalist divides the human race into whites and blacks, or into men and women, and the economist, forsooth, is not to classify them as producers and consumers, because, as the protectionist gentlemen sagely remark, producer and consumer make but one person!

Why, it is for the very reason that they do make but one that each individual comes to be considered by the science of Political Economy in this double capacity. Our business is not to divide the human race into two classes, but to study man under two very different aspects. If the protectionists were to forbid grammarians to employ the pronouns I and thou, on the pretext that every man is in turn the person speaking and the person spoken to, it would be a sufficient answer to say, that although it be perfectly true that we cannot place all the tongues on one side, and all the ears on the other, since every man has both ears and a tongue, it by no means follows that, with reference to each proposition enunciated, the tongue does not pertain to one man and the ear to another. In the same way, with reference to every service, the man who renders it is quite distinct from the man who receives it. The producer and consumer are always set opposite each other, so much so that they have always a controversy.

The very people who object to our studying mankind under the double aspect of producers and consumers have no difficulty in making this distinction when they address themselves to legislative assemblies. We then find them demanding monopoly or freedom of trade, according as the matter in dispute refers to a commodity which they sell, or a commodity which they purchase.

Without dwelling longer, then, on this preliminary exception taken by the protectionists, let us acknowledge that in the social order the separation of employments causes each man to occupy two situations, sufficiently distinct to render their action and relations worthy of our study.

In general, we devote ourselves to some special trade, profession, or career, and it is not from that particular source that we expect to derive our satisfactions. We render and receive services; we supply and demand values; we make purchases and sales; we work for others, and others work for us; in short, we are producers and consumers.

According as we present ourselves in the market in one or other of these capacities, we carry thither a spirit which is very different, or rather, I should say, very opposite. Suppose, for example, that corn is the subject of the transaction. The same man has very [p325] different views when he goes to market as a purchaser, from what he has when he goes there as a seller. As a purchaser, he desires abundance; as a seller, scarcity. In either case, these desires may be traced to the same source—personal interest; but as to sell or buy, to give or to receive, to supply or to demand, are acts as opposite as possible, they cannot but give rise, and from the same motive, to opposite desires.

Antagonistic desires cannot at one and the same time coincide with the general good.

In another work,66 I have endeavoured to show that the wishes or desires of men in their capacity of consumers are those which are in harmony with the public interest; and it cannot be otherwise. For seeing that enjoyment is the end and design of labour, and that the labour is determined only by the obstacle to be overcome, it is evident that labour is in this sense an evil, and that everything should tend to diminish it; that enjoyment is a good, and that everything should tend to increase it.

And here presents itself the great, the perpetual, the deplorable illusion which springs from the erroneous definition of value, and from confounding value with utility.

Value being simply a relation, is of as much greater importance to each individual as it is of less importance to society at large.

What renders service to the masses is utility alone; and value is not at all the measure of it.

What renders service to the individual is still only utility. But value is the measure of it; for, with each determinate value, he obtains from society the utility of his choice, in the proportion of that value.

If we regard man as an isolated being, it is as clear as day that consumption, and not production, is the essential thing; for consumption to a certain extent implies labour, but labour does not imply consumption.

The separation of employments has led certain economists to measure the general prosperity, not by consumption, but by labour. And by following these economists we have come to this strange subversion of principle, to favour labour at the expense of its results.

The reasoning has been this: The more difficulties are overcome the better. Then augment the difficulties to be conquered.

The error of this reasoning is manifest.

No doubt, a certain amount of difficulties being given, it is fortunate that a certain quantity of labour also given should [p326] surmount as many of these difficulties as possible. But to diminish the power of the labourer or augment that of the difficulties, in order to increase value, is positively monstrous.

An individual member of society is interested in this, that his services, while preserving even the same degree of utility, should increase in value. Suppose his desires in this respect to be realized, it is easy to perceive what will happen. He is better off, but his brethren are worse off, seeing that the total amount of utility has not been increased.

We cannot then reason from particulars to generals, and say: Pursue such measures as in their result will satisfy the desire which all individuals entertain to see the value of their services augmented.

Value being a relation, we should have accomplished nothing if the increase in all departments were proportionate to the anterior value; if it were arbitrary and unequal for different services, we should have done nothing but introduce injustice into the distribution of utilities.

It is of the nature of every bargain or mercantile transaction to give rise to a debate. But by using this word debate, shall I not bring down upon myself all the sentimental schools which are nowadays so numerous? Debate implies antagonism, it will be said. You admit, then, that antagonism is the natural state of society. Here again I have to break another lance; for in this country economic science is so little understood, that one cannot make use of a word without raising up an opponent.

I have been justly reproached for using the phrase that “Between the seller and buyer there exists a radical antagonism.” The word antagonism, when strengthened by the word radical, implies much more than I meant to express. It would seem to imply a permanent opposition of interests, consequently an indestructible social dissonance; while what I wished to indicate was merely that transient debate or discussion which precedes every commercial transaction, and which is inherent in the very idea of a bargain.

As long as, to the regret of the sentimental utopiast, there shall remain a vestige of liberty in the world, buyers and sellers will discuss their interests, and higgle about prices; nor will the social laws cease to be harmonious on that account. Is it possible to conceive that the man who offers and the man who demands a service should meet each other in the market without having for the moment a different idea of its value? Is that to set the world on fire? Must all commercial transactions, all exchanges, all barter, all liberty, be banished from this earth, or are we to allow each of [p327] the contracting parties to defend his position, and urge and put forward his motives? It is this very free debate or discussion which gives rise to the equivalence of services and the equity of transactions. By what other means can our system-makers ensure this equity which is so desirable? Would they by legislation trammel the liberty of one of the parties only? Then the one must be in the power of the other. Would they take away from both the liberty of managing their own affairs, under the pretext that they ought henceforth to buy and sell on the principle of fraternity? Let me tell the Socialists that it is here their absurdity becomes apparent, for, in the long-run, these interests must be regulated and adjusted. Is the discussion to be inverted, the purchaser taking the part of the seller and vice versa? Such transactions would be very diverting, we must allow. “Please, sir, give me only 10 francs for this cloth.” “What say you? I will give you 20 for it.” “But, my good sir, it is worth nothing—it is out of fashion—it will be worn out in a fortnight,” says the merchant. “It is of the best quality, and will last two winters,” replies the customer. “Very well, sir, to please you, I will add 5 francs—this is all the length that fraternity will allow me to go.” “It is against my Socialist principles to pay less than 20 francs, but we must learn to make sacrifices, and I agree.” Thus this whimsical transaction will just arrive at the ordinary result, and our system-makers will regret to see accursed liberty still surviving, although turned upside down and engendering a new antagonism.

That is not what we want, say the organisateurs; what we desire is liberty. Then, what would you be at? for services must still be exchanged, and conditions adjusted. We expect that the care of adjusting them should be left to us. I suspected as much. . . . ..

Fraternity! bond of brotherhood, sacred flame kindled by heaven in man’s soul, how has thy name been abused! In thy name all freedom has been stifled. In thy name a new despotism, such as the world had never before seen, has been erected; and we are at length driven to fear that the very name of fraternity, after being thus sullied, and having served as the rallying cry of so many incapables, the mask of so much ambition, and proud contempt of human dignity, should end by losing altogether its grand and noble significance.

Let us no longer, then, aim at overturning everything, domineering over everything and everybody, and withdrawing all—men and things—from the operation of natural laws. Let us leave the world as God has made it. Let us, poor scribblers, not imagine [p328] ourselves anything else than observers, more or less exact, of what is passing around us. Let us no longer render ourselves ridiculous by pretending to change human nature, as if we were ourselves beyond humanity and its errors and weaknesses. Let us leave producers and consumers to take care of their own interests, and to arrange and adjust these interests by honest and peaceful conventions. Let us confine ourselves to the observation of relations, and the effects to which they give rise. This is precisely what I am about to do, keeping always in view this general law, which I apprehend to be the law of human society, namely, the gradual equalization of individuals and of classes, combined with general progress.

A line no more resembles a force or a velocity, than it does a value or a utility. Mathematicians, nevertheless, make use of diagrams; and why should not the economist do the same?

We have values which are equal, values the mutual relations of which are known as the half, the quarter, double, triple, etc. There is nothing to prevent our representing these differences by lines of various lengths.

But the same thing does not hold with reference to utility. General utility, as we have seen, may be resolved into gratuitous utility and onerous utility, the former due to the action of nature, the latter the result of human labour. This last being capable of being estimated and measured, may be represented by a line of determinate length; but the other is not susceptible of estimation or of measurement. No doubt in the production of a measure of wheat, of a cask of wine, of an ox, of a stone of wool, a ton of coals, a bundle of faggots, nature does much. But we have no means of measuring this natural co-operation of forces, most of which are unknown to us, and which have been in operation since the beginning of time. Nor have we any interest in doing so. We may represent gratuitous utility, then, by an indefinite line.

Now, let there be two products, the value of the one being double that of the other, they may be represented by these lines:—

IB, ID, represent the total product, general utility, what satisfies man’s wants, absolute wealth.

IA, IC, the co-operation of nature, gratuitous utility, the part which belongs to the domain of community.

AB, CD, human service, onerous utility, value, relative wealth, the part which belongs to the domain of property.

I need not say that AB, which you may suppose, if you will, to represent a house, a piece of furniture, a book, a song sung by Jenny Lind, a horse, a bale of cloth, a consultation of physicians, etc., will exchange for twice CD, and that the two men who effect the exchange will give into the bargain, and without even being aware of it, the one, once IA, the other twice IC.

Man is so constituted that his constant endeavour is to diminish the proportion of effort to result, to substitute the action of nature for his own action; in a word, to accomplish more with less. This is the constant aim of his skill, his intelligence, and his energy.

Let us suppose then that John, the producer of IB, discovers a process by means of which he accomplishes his work with one-half the labour which it formerly cost him, taking everything into account, even the construction of the instrument by means of which he avails himself of the co-operation of nature.

As long as he preserves his secret, we shall have no change in the figures we have given above; AB and CD will represent the same values, the same relations; for John alone of all the world being acquainted with the improved process, he will turn it exclusively to his own profit and advantage. He will take his ease for half the day, or else he will make, each day, twice the quantity of IB, and his labour will be better remunerated. The discovery he has made is for the good of mankind, but mankind in this case is represented by one man.

And here let us remark, in passing, how fallacious is the axiom of the English Economists that value comes from labour, if thereby it is intended to represent value and labour as proportionate. Here we have the labour diminished by one-half, and yet no change in the value. This is what constantly happens, and why? Because the service is the same. Before as after the discovery, as long as it is a secret, he who gives or transfers IB renders the same service. But things will no longer be in the same position when Peter, the producer of ID, is enabled to say, “You ask me for two hours of my labour in exchange for one hour of yours; but I have found out your process, and if you set so high a price on your service, I shall serve myself.”

Now this day must necessarily come. A process once realized [p330] is not long a mystery. Then the value of the product IB will fall by one-half, and we shall have these two figures.

For, as regards John, who here represents the producer, he is reinstated in his former condition. With the same effort which it cost him formerly to produce IB, he can now produce twice as much. In order to obtain twice ID, we see him constrained to give twice IB, or what IB represents, be it furniture, books, houses, or what it may.

Who profits by all this? Clearly Peter, the producer of ID, who here represents consumers in general, including John himself. If, in fact, John desires to consume his own product, he profits by the saving of time represented by the suppression of AA´. As regards Peter, that is to say as regards consumers in general, they can now purchase IB with half the expenditure of time, effort, labour, value, compared with what it would have cost them before the intervention of natural forces. These forces, then, are gratuitous, and, moreover, common.

Since I have ventured to illustrate my argument by geometrical figures, perhaps I may be permitted to give another example, and I shall be happy if by this method—somewhat whimsical, I allow, as applied to Political Economy—I can render more intelligible to the reader the phenomena which I wish to describe.

As a producer, or as a consumer, every man may be considered as a centre from whence radiate the services which he renders, and to which tend the services which he receives in exchange.

Suppose then that there is placed at A (Fig. 1) a producer, a copyist, for example, or transcriber of manuscripts, who here represents all producers, or production in general. He furnishes to society four manuscripts. If at the present moment the value of each of these manuscripts is equal to 15, he renders services equal to 60, and receives an equal value, variously spread over a multitude of services. To simplify the demonstration, I suppose only [p331] four of them, proceeding from four points of the circumference BCDE.

This man, we now suppose, discovers the art of printing. He can thenceforth produce in 40 hours what formerly would have cost him 60. Admit that competition forces him to reduce proportionally the price of his books, and that in place of being worth 15, they are now worth only 10. But then in place of four our workman can now produce six books. On the other hand, the fund of remuneration proceeding from the circumference, amounting to 60, has not changed. There is remuneration for six books, worth 10 each, just as there was formerly remuneration for four manuscripts, each worth 15.

This, let me remark briefly, is what is always lost sight of in discussing the question of machinery, of free-trade, and of progress in general. Men see the labour set free and rendered disposable by the expeditive process, and they become alarmed. They do not see that a corresponding proportion of remuneration is rendered disposable also by the same circumstance.

The new transactions we have supposed are represented by Fig. 2, where we see radiate from the centre A, a total value of 60, spread over six books, in place of four manuscripts. From the circumference still proceeds a value, equal to 60, necessary now as formerly, to make up the balance.

Who then has gained by the change? As regards value, no one. As regards real wealth, positive satisfactions, the countless body of consumers ranged round the circumference. Each of them can now purchase a book with an amount of labour reduced by one-third. But the consumers are the human race. For observe that [p332] A himself, if he gains nothing in his capacity of producer,—if he is obliged, as formerly, to perform 60 hours’ labour in order to obtain the old remuneration,—nevertheless, in as far as he is a consumer of books, gains exactly as others do. Like them, if he desires to read, he can procure this enjoyment with an economy of labour equal to one-third.

But if, in his character of producer, he finds himself at length deprived of the profit of his own inventions, by competition, where in that case is his compensation?

His compensation consists, 1st, in this, that as long as he was able to preserve his secret, he continued to sell 15 of what he produced at the cost of 10; 2dly, In this, that he obtains books for his own use at a smaller cost, and thus participates in the advantages he has procured for society. But, 3dly, His compensation consists above all in this, that just in the same way as he has been forced to impart to his fellow-men the benefit of his own progress, he benefits by the progress of his fellow-men.

Just as the progress accomplished by A has profited B, C, D, E, the progress realized by B, C, D, E has profited A. By turns A finds himself at the centre and at the circumference of universal industry, for he is by turns producer and consumer. If B, for example, is a cotton-spinner who has introduced improved machinery, the profit will redound to A as well as to C, D. If C is a mariner who has replaced the oar by the sail, the economy of labour will profit B, A, E.

In short, the whole mechanism reposes on this law:—

Progress benefits the producer, as such, only during the time necessary to recompense his skill. It soon produces a fall of value, and leaves to the first imitators a fair, but small, recompense. At length value becomes proportioned to the diminished labour, and the whole saving accrues to society at large.

Thus all profit by the progress of each, and each profits by the progress of all. The principle, each for all, all for each, put forward by the Socialists, and which they would have us receive as a novelty, the germ of which is to be discovered in their organizations founded on oppression and constraint, God himself has given us; and He has educed it from liberty. [p333]

God, I say, has given us this principle, and He has not established it in a model community, presided over by M. ConsidÉrant, or in a PhalanstÈre of six hundred harmoniens, or in a tentative Icarie,67 on condition that a few fanatics should submit themselves to the arbitrary power of a monomaniac, and that the faithless should pay for the true believers. No, God has established the principle each for all and all for each generally, universally, by a marvellous mechanism, in which justice, liberty, utility, and sociability are mingled and reconciled in such a degree as ought to discourage these manufacturers of social organizations.

Observe that this great law of each for all and all for each is much more universal than my demonstration supposes it. Words are dull and heavy, and the pen still more so. The writer is obliged to exhibit successively, and one after the other, with despairing slowness, phenomena which recommend themselves to our admiration only in the aggregate.

Thus, I have just spoken of inventions. You might conclude that this was the only case in which progress, once attained, escapes from the producer, and goes to enlarge the common fund of mankind. It is not so. It is a general law that every advantage of whatever kind, proceeding from local situation, climate, or any other liberality of nature, slips rapidly from the hands of the person who first discovered and appropriated it—not on that account to be lost, but to go to feed the vast reservoir from which the enjoyments of mankind are derived. One condition alone is attached, which is, that labour and transactions should be free. To run counter to liberty is to run counter to the designs of Providence; it is to suspend the operation of God’s law, and limit progress in a double sense.

What I have just said with reference to the transfer of advantages holds equally true of evils and disadvantages. Nothing remains permanently with the producer—neither advantages nor inconveniences. Both tend to disseminate themselves through society at large.

We have just seen with what avidity the producer seeks to avail himself of whatever may facilitate his work; and we have seen, too, in how short a time the profit arising from inventions and discoveries slips from the inventor’s hands. It seems as if that profit were not in the hands of a superior intelligence, but of a blind and obedient instrument of general progress.

With the same ardour he shuns all that can shackle his action; and this is a happy thing for the human race, for it is to mankind [p334] at large that in the long-run obstacles are prejudicial. Suppose, for example, that A, the producer of books, is subjected to a heavy tax. He must add the amount of that tax to the price of his books. It will enter into the value of the books as a constituent part, the effect of which will be that B, C, D, E must give more labour in exchange for the same satisfaction. Their compensation will consist in the purpose to which Government applies the tax. If the use to which it is applied is beneficial, they may gain instead of losing by the arrangement. If it is employed to oppress them, they will suffer in a double sense. But as far as A is concerned, he is relieved of the tax, although he pays it in the first instance.

I do not mean to say that the producer does not frequently suffer from obstacles of various kinds, and from taxes among others. Sometimes he suffers most seriously from the operation of taxes, and it is precisely on that account that taxes tend to shift their incidence, and to fall ultimately on the masses.

Thus, in France, wine has been subjected to a multitude of exactions. And then a system has been introduced which restricts its sale abroad.

It is curious to observe what skips and bounds such burdens make in passing from the producer to the consumer. No sooner has the tax or restriction begun to operate than the producer endeavours to indemnify himself. But the demand of the consumers, as well as the supply of wine, remaining the same, the price cannot rise. The producer gets no more for his wine after, than he did before, the imposition of the tax. And as before the tax he received no more than an ordinary and adequate price, determined by services freely exchanged, he finds himself a loser by the whole amount of the tax. To cause the price to rise, he is obliged to diminish the quantity of wine produced.68 . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..

The consumer, then,—the public,—is relatively to the loss or profit which affects in the first instance certain classes of producers what the earth is to electricity—the great common reservoir. All proceeds from it, and after some detours, longer or shorter as the case may be, and after having given rise to certain phenomena more or less varied, all returns to it again.

We have just shown that the economic effects only glance upon the producer, so to speak, on their way to the consumer, and that consequently all great and important questions of this kind must [p335] be regarded from the consumer’s point of view if we wish to make ourselves masters of their general and permanent consequences.

This subordination of the interests of the producer to that of the consumer, which we have deduced from the consideration of utility, is fully confirmed when we advert to the consideration of morality.

Responsibility, in fact, always rests with the initiative. Now where is the initiative? In demand.

Demand (which implies the means of remuneration) determines all—the direction of capital and of labour, the distribution of population, the morality of professions, etc. Demand answers to Desire, while Supply answers to Effort. Desire is reasonable or unreasonable, moral or immoral. Effort, which is only an effect, is morally neuter, or has only a reflected morality.

Demand or Consumption says to the producer, “Make that for me.” The producer obeys. And this would be evident in every case if the producer always and everywhere waited for the demand.

But in practice this is not the case.

Is it exchange which has led to the division of labour, or the division of labour which has given rise to exchange? This is a subtle and thorny question. Let us say that man makes exchanges, because, being intelligent and sociable, he comprehends that this is one means of increasing the proportion of result to effort. That which results exclusively from the division of labour and from foresight, is that a man does not wait for a specific request to work for another. Experience teaches him tacitly that demand exists.

He makes the effort beforehand which is to satisfy the demand, and this gives rise to trades and professions. Beforehand he makes shoes, hats, etc., or prepares himself to sing, to teach, to plead, to fight, etc. But is it really the supply which precedes the demand, and determines it?

No. It is because there is a sufficient certainty that these different services will be demanded that men prepare to render them, although they do not always know precisely from what quarter the demand may come. And the proof of it is, that the relation between these different services is sufficiently well known, that their value has been so widely tested that one may devote himself with some security to a particular manufacture, or embrace a particular career.

The impulse of demand is then pre-existent, seeing that one may calculate the intensity of it with so much precision. [p336]

Moreover, when a man betakes himself to a particular trade or profession, and sets himself to produce commodities, about what is he solicitous? Is it about the utility of the article which he manufactures, or its results, good or bad, moral or immoral? Not at all; he thinks only of its value. It is the demander who looks to the utility. Utility answers to his want, his desire, his caprice. Value, on the contrary, has relation only to the effort made, to the service transferred. It is only when, by means of exchange, the producer in his turn becomes the demander that utility is looked to. When I resolve to manufacture hats rather than shoes, I do not ask myself the question, whether men have a greater interest in protecting their heads or their heels. No, that concerns the demander, and determines the demand. The demand in its turn determines the value, or the degree of esteem in which the public holds the service. Value, in short, determines the effort or the supply.

Hence result some very remarkable consequences in a moral point of view. Two nations may be equally furnished with values, that is to say, with relative wealth (see chap. vi), and very unequally provided with real utilities, or absolute wealth; and this happens when one of them forms desires which are more unreasonable than those of the other—when the one considers its real wants, and the other creates for itself wants which are factitious or immoral.

Among one people a taste for education may predominate; among another a taste for good living. In such circumstances we render a service to the first when we have something to teach them; to the other, when we please their palate.

Now, services are remunerated according to the degree of importance we attach to them. If we do not exchange, if we render these services to ourselves, what should determine us if not the nature and intensity of our desires?

In one of the countries we have supposed, professors and teachers will abound; in the other, cooks.

In both, the services exchanged may be equal in the aggregate, and may consequently represent equal values, or equal relative wealth, but not the same absolute wealth. In other words, the one employs its labour well, and the other employs it ill.

And as regards satisfactions the result will be this, that the one people will have much instruction, and the other good dinners. The ultimate consequences of this diversity of tastes will have considerable influence not only upon real, but upon relative wealth; [p337] for education may develop new means of rendering services, which good dinners never can.

We remark among nations a prodigious diversity of tastes, arising from their antecedents, their character, their opinions, their vanity, etc.

No doubt there are some wants so imperious (hunger and thirst, for example) that we regard them as determinate quantities. And yet it is not uncommon to see a man scrimp himself of food in order to have good clothes, while another never thinks of his dress until his appetite is satisfied. The same thing holds of nations.

But these imperious wants once satisfied, everything else depends greatly on the will. It becomes an affair of taste, and in that region morality and good sense have much influence.

The intensity of the various national desires determines always the quantity of labour which each people subtracts from the aggregate of its efforts in order to satisfy each of its desires. An Englishman must, above all things, be well fed. For this reason he devotes an enormous amount of his labour to the production of food, and if he produces any other commodities, it is with the intention of exchanging them abroad for alimentary substances. The quantity of corn, meat, butter, milk, sugar, etc., consumed in England is frightful. A Frenchman desires to be amused. He delights in what pleases his eye, and in frequent changes. His labours are in accordance with his tastes. Hence we have in France multitudes of singers, mountebanks, milliners, elegant shops, coffee-rooms, etc. In China, the natives dream away life agreeably under the influence of opium, and this is the reason why so great an amount of their national labour is devoted to procuring this precious narcotic, either by direct production, or indirectly by means of exchange. In Spain, where the pomp of religious worship is carried to so great a height, the exertions of the people are bestowed on the decoration of churches, etc.

I shall not go the length of asserting that there is no immorality in services which pander to immoral and depraved desires. But the immoral principle is obviously in the desire itself.

That would be beyond doubt were man living in a state of isolation; and it is equally true as regards man in society, for society is only individuality enlarged.

Who then would think of blaming our labourers in the south of France for producing brandy? They satisfy a demand. They dig their vineyards, dress their vines, gather and distil the grapes, without concerning themselves about the use which will be made of the product. It is for the man who seeks the enjoyment to [p338] consider whether it is proper, moral, rational, or productive of good. The responsibility rests with him. The business of the world could be conducted on no other footing. Is the tailor to tell his customer that he cannot make him a coat of the fashion he wants because it is extravagant, or because it prevents his breathing freely, etc., etc.

Then what concern is it of our poor vine-dressers if rich diners-out in London indulge too freely in claret? Or can we seriously accuse the English of raising opium in India with the deliberate intention of poisoning the Chinese?

A frivolous people requires frivolous manufactures, just as a serious people requires industry of a more serious kind. If the human race is to be improved, it must be by the improved morality of the consumer, not of the producer.

This is the design of religion in addressing the rich—the great consumers—so seriously on their immense responsibility. From another point of view, and employing a different language, Political Economy arrives at the same conclusion, when she affirms that we cannot check the supply of any commodity which is in demand; that as regards the producer, the commodity is simply a value, a sort of current coin which represents nothing either good or evil, whilst it is in the intention of the consumer that utility, or moral or immoral enjoyment, is to be discovered; consequently, that it is incumbent on the man who manifests the desire or makes the demand for the commodity to weigh the consequences, whether useful or hurtful, and to answer before God and man for the good or bad direction which he impresses upon industry.

Thus from whatever point of view we regard the subject, we see clearly that consumption is the great end of Political Economy; and that good and evil, morality and immorality, harmonies and dissonances, all come to centre in the consumer, for he represents mankind at large. [p339]