Rural Wealth and Welfare: Economic Principles Illustrated and Applied in Farm Life

Chapter XXV. Imprudent Consumption.

Society interested in imprudence.—This fact, that the wealth of each generation is so largely dependent upon the prudence of the preceding, emphasizes the importance of public sentiment in favor of prudential consumption. Public criticism naturally attacks the most noticeable failures of prudence, and it therefore seems worth while to consider some of those imprudent forms of consumption which society may seek to prevent. It is also proper to consider the ways in which society may act for prevention of imprudence.

Luxurious consumption.—The question of luxury in the same society with extreme poverty is always prominent. Luxury is supposed to be extravagant expenditure in meeting individual wants. Though such wants may be real and legitimate, lavish expenditure by any portion of a community seems at first sight a trespass upon common welfare. Some have considered that person wanting in good will to his fellows who expends upon his own comfort more than his neighbors can afford. Others define luxury to be expenditure for living above the average expenditure in the whole community. Still others regard any expenditure a luxury which is not needed to maintain physical powers.

It is easy to see that all these efforts at definition are [pg 320] imperfect, because the idea of luxury implies such a mode of life as does not contribute to the total welfare, and each one's idea of total welfare enters into his definition of luxury. It is an evident fact that the so-called luxuries of one generation become the actual necessities of the next. This is because the life of the race means more and includes more with each succeeding generation. To live in the twentieth century will mean, as it has always meant in the past, to have such exercise of every ability as circumstances permit. Luxury is therefore always relative to the duties one has to perform, as well as to the society in which one moves. Moreover, luxury is relative to individual abilities and individual plans. It would be luxury for a farmer to go without a needed plow for the sake of buying a lawn mower. It would be luxury for a student to own two coats, if he must go without a dictionary to buy the second.

It is easy to settle the luxuries of others, but less easy to so define luxury that the public can agree in the definition. In general, it is described to be a meeting of fanciful rather than real wants. Any individual in society is spending his wealth in luxury if he allows his imagination to conjure up adornments of person or household which contribute chiefly to display rather than to comfort or enlightenment. All such adornments of person, or home, or the public streets, as cultivate genuine taste and inspire to more of energy contribute to the general welfare far more than mere expenditure for food can do. Yet in times of starvation the food must come first. The world sometimes sneers at the desire among very poor people to cultivate flowers and maintain [pg 321] a canary or other pets; yet every philanthropist knows that these desires are among the strongest incentives to greater thrift and keener exertion.

Legal restrictions upon luxury.—With all this difficulty in definition and the certainty of change from age to age, there is nevertheless a disposition on the part of society to restrict actual luxury. Again and again this has led to enactment of laws prohibiting expenditure in certain definite forms. The dress of ladies of rank has been restricted as to style and quantity of material and ways of making. The variety upon a dinner table has been limited to a certain number of dishes and certain kinds of food.

All of these have been egregious failures, from the impossibility of measuring results upon the general progress of civilization. The indirect effects of ingenuity in dress and cooking have been on the whole so beneficial that the world cannot afford to hinder it. The intricacies of French cooking seem to an ordinary household extreme luxury, yet that very ingenuity has cheapened the cost of living, to a large portion of the world, by rendering palatable the coarser vegetables and cheaper meats which lie within the reach of the poor.

No real student of human nature would now attempt, unless it be in the emergency of a great famine, to restrict expenditures by law upon the plea of luxury. Still, society as a whole has some voice in directing the judgment of individuals. Public opinion is an effective check upon desires. The good will of the multitude is more important to the mass of men than any particular gratification. It is proper, therefore, to discuss at any [pg 322] time and at all times the limits of luxury, both for ourselves and for our neighbors. The sole cure for imprudent expenditure in luxuries is individual culture of mind and heart and conscience, so that each may do his best to secure, not only the good will of his neighbors, but their welfare.

Wasteful consumption.—Wasteful expenditure through ignorance or recklessness is more common and more weakening than luxury. Its limits cannot be described, since it covers expenditures of every kind, from the simplest provision for food and clothing to the most elaborate structures and wildest schemes of development. Though noticeable wastes are seen in the households of the rich, they are relatively larger among the poor.

Yet any attempt to regulate such waste by law is futile, chiefly from the fact that it ignores the personal responsibility and wants which make individual character. It is properly applied to the imbecile and the insane, as well as to children and youth, through the appointment of a prudent guardian. Society can protect itself only by fostering more complete systems of education in the arts of life. The tendency of our times toward a more technical education, especially in reference to the home and the common industries of life, marks the growth of public opinion toward a clearer ideal of prudence against waste. The study of economic principles in every department of life, and especially the clear understanding of everyday facts as to the things men handle and use, cannot but give wisdom for preventing waste.

[pg 323]

Vicious consumption.—It is customary to distinguish from all other forms of imprudent consumption of wealth such vicious indulgence of appetites as not only consumes accumulated wealth but diminishes power in production. Such vicious indulgence is the result of cultivating unnatural and destructive appetites. Familiar illustrations are those connected with the drink habit, the opium habit, or any other vice whose chief effect is seen upon the individual life of the one indulging himself. These involve the very highest wastefulness, because they destroy not only wealth, but ability. Nobody can begin to compute in terms of money the actual waste of our country through indulgence in strong drink. The value of liquors consumed is no measure of the entire wastefulness. Yet this is more than enough to furnish all with bread.

The wrongfulness of such indulgence, from its harm to society through reducing the power of the race, is seldom disputed. Yet the right of society to restrict the individual indulgence is quite generally disputed. The larger need of freedom in the exercise of judgment among mature members of a community outweighs the need of preventing even vice. Society does well to bring the restraints of law upon the immature, whose judgment is not yet formed, thus supplementing by law the directive energy of parental control. It may yet go further, and prohibit such indulgence to all who have lost the power of self-control. But in general it has been found impossible to enforce restriction upon vicious indulgence except where such acts occasion direct suffering upon others, or help to maintain an immoral business. [pg 324] The right of restraint and constraint, even to prohibition, of that which fosters vice and extends its range must be admitted by all thoughtful persons. Still, the right to prohibit and the power to prohibit are not identical. The only sure preventive is early education of public conscience through the training of youth to a clear understanding of the vicious practices and their relation to the poverty and weakness and crime of humanity.

Destructive consumption.—A more obvious trespass upon prudential consumption is criminal destructiveness of every kind. Until society outgrows a condition in which fraud, theft, robbery and murder must be warded off by locks and bars, by immense bodies of policemen and armed militia, its wealth cannot be wholly invested for welfare. The possibility of such crimes as arson or train obstruction and destruction shows the condition of the best of modern communities to be far from ideal. Nobody pretends to measure the actual waste in society resulting from such criminal purposes. It extends to almost every detail of production and trade, and occupies a large portion of the inventive and executive energy of the people. Organized society attempts to restrain such waste by its police force, or by restraining laws and in actions enforced by severe penalties. Every honest man is financially interested in the conviction of every knave. Sympathy with fraud, even in trifles, is contributing toward such destructive waste.

In this connection the enormous expenditure in maintenance of standing armies and navies for the protection [pg 325] of national boundaries is of special importance. Reduction of this waste of wealth and power should be desired by every class of society. Though war has been the means by which human liberty has grown, it has also been the means of crushing it. It would seem that every incentive is offered each citizen to make an appeal to arms and the maintenance of armies a most remote necessity. Yet it seems that the mass of men of every rank are tenacious of national honor. While most communities have abandoned the duel as both wasteful and immoral in personal difficulties, the spirit of the duel is still rife in the differences between nations. A clearer perception of mutual interests in national welfare will bring nations, like individuals, to accept some method of enforcing neutral judgment for settling disputes, in place of war. The farmers of a country, being nearly 50 per cent of its people, and bearing a large proportion of the expense of armies and wars, have a tremendous interest in maintaining peace. This can be done not so much by reducing the provision for armies as by cultivating the spirit of fair settlement, against the false patriotism which claims everything for one's own nation.

False notions of waste.—Wasteful expenditure and luxury and possibly even vicious indulgence are often excused with the plea that expenditures of this kind make employment for labor, and so aid the poor. While it is true that multitudes are employed in catering to the vices of others, all must grant that the same wealth might be much better employed in other occupations. More than that, the larger wealth resulting from accumulation [pg 326] in place of waste would provide capital needed for fuller employment of all who can work. All imprudent expenditure reduces the power of society to accumulate wealth for giving occupation to all who will work. Moreover, such wastefulness creates a tendency toward thriftless character among the people. The welfare of the whole community depends upon the thrift of the whole community. The thriftlessness of rich men's sons is more damaging than the thriftlessness of tramps, because it is more tempting to others. Any man who lives simply to spend, however busy he keeps himself, is one of the wasteful ones in the community, unless he has some higher object than gratifying his desires. The energetic idler may be doing his worst for the community without being ranked as a spendthrift, because he makes such idleness respectable. It should be the desire of all good citizens to increase the ability of every other citizen, not only to live, but to live well. This thriftlessness can be overcome only by a strong public sentiment that corrects the early tendencies of youth to waste of means and energy.

Waste in rivalry.—There is another kind of wastefulness resulting from excessive competition for a particular business or a particular trade. Immense amounts are expended upon rival advertisements, all of which enter into the general cost to consumers. A multitude of retail dealers maintain stocks of goods entirely out of proportion to the needs of the community, because they are rivals in trade. Very likely the business rents are higher than they need be because of such rivalry. Not only is there a strong competition for a place, but also [pg 327] for showy equipment and elegance of display. All this could be saved by better organization. A still more evident waste is from the multiplication of agents and middle men of all kinds, employed simply in catching trade. Some of them act simply as interlopers, hoping to gain a small commission without the use of capital or painstaking in their business. These are the useless middle men maintained at the expense of the community. Full market reports and general information of buyers and sellers greatly reduce such waste.

[pg 328]

Clyx.com