Wilhelm Roscher

“ History teaches us that we can reach nothing great or lasting, but by addressing ourselves to the soul. If the soul decays, there can be no longer great thoughts or great actions. Society lives by the spirit which inhabits it. It may, for an instant, submit to the empire of force, but, in the long run, it hearkens only to the voice of justice. It was thus that the greatest revolution which history records, that of Christianity, was accomplished. ”

“ The efficacy of the repressive hinderances to over-population either consists in immoral acts or easily leads to immorality. Until a "surplus" child has died, what a series of troubles for good parents, and what a chain of evil deeds for bad ones, to say nothing of the poor child itself.
Further, every man, no matter how short or long his life, requires a large advance of capital and trouble which he has later to return to society through the activity of his riper years. If he dies before his maturity, this advance has been made in vain. ”

“ From the moment that Political Economy ceases to be considered a new science, it finds a long series of ancestors behind it, since it is compelled to investigate a past to which so many bonds unite it. This duty may increase its difficulties, but, at the same time, it singularly adds to the attractions of a study which, instead of presenting us only with the arid deductions of dogmatism, comes to us with all the freshness and all the color of life. ”

“ The national income of a country is, on the whole, much less affected by a change of fashion than the separate incomes of its people. The same whim which lowers the value of one commodity increases the value of another; and what has ceased to be in fashion among the rich, becomes accessible, properly speaking, to the poorer classes of the community for the first time. [208-5] The want of varying his enjoyments is so peculiar to man, and so intimately connected with his capacity for progress, that it cannot in itself be blamed. ”

“ The Socialists of our day would prefer to see the whole net income of a people employed in the satisfaction of the necessary wants of an ever increasing population. By this procedure, as a natural consequence, we should witness first the curtailing of the taxing power, of the funds for the satisfaction of the more refined wants and of the saving of capital, nor would it be long before even the existing generation would experience the bitterness of this "living from hand to mouth." After a time, even the possibility of progress and even of mere increase of population would cease. ”

“ This shows us how firm and unshaken are those reforms which have begun by taking hold of the minds of men, the precise spirit of which had penetrated into the souls of whole nations before they had manifested themselves in facts.
Law and Economy constitute a part of the life of nations in the same way that language and customs do. The power of history in no way contradicts the supremacy of reason. ”

“ But even among the successors of Hume and Smith, a deeper insight into, so to speak, the physics of money and of international trade must have led to the recognition of many a truth which the mercantile system had, indeed, badly formulated, insufficiently proved, but which it had, nevertheless, an inkling of. And, indeed, how frequently it happens that the progress of science proceeds from one one-sidedness, through another opposed but higher one-sidedness, to the all-sidedness which knows no prejudice! ”

“ The communist, viewing all other things, especially the organization of the state, only as instruments to supply his material and absolute wants, considers the liberal either as a fool who is ever pursuing the phantoms of the brain, or as a knave who covers his own selfishness under the mask of the public welfare.480 Hence the adherents of communism are satisfied with any form of government which seems to offer them most, and this a ruthless despotism can do, at least, for the moment. ”

“ Benjamin Franklin calls out to workmen and says: If any one tells you that you can become rich in any other way than through industry and frugality, do not listen to him; he is a poisoner! And, in fact, only those changes permanently improve the condition of the working classes which are useful to the whole people: enhanced productiveness of every branch of business in the country, increased capital, the growth (also relative) of the industrial middle classes, the greater education, strength of character, skill and fidelity in labor of workmen themselves. ”

“ Victor Cousin, a very competent authority on the subject, has said that the history of philosophy is the torch of philosophy itself. The remarkable works which have enriched it in this direction are well known. History, on its side, is enlightened by philosophy. Thus, it teaches us not to despise facts, but at the same time not to be slaves to precedent. It does equal justice to the incredulous and to the fanatic, to too supple practitioners and to intractable theorizers. ”

“ The new is always attractive, by reason of its newness; but at the same time, we hold to the old too precisely because of its age: and the force of inertia would always turn the scales in favor of the latter. This inertia, both physical and mental is so general, that perhaps the majority of mankind would continue forever satisfied with their traditional field of occupation and with their traditional circle of food, were it not that an impulse as powerful and universal as the sexual and that of the love of children compelled them to extend the limits of both. ”

“ Henceforth, there is no security for the stability of the world but in the contentment of minds. There is no rest for mankind, unless men will understand the conditions of their destiny; unless, instead of running,
“Toujours insatiable et jamais assouvis,” after the intoxicating cup of material enjoyment—for wants not governed by the intellect and the heart are infinite in number, and the gratification of one gives birth to another—they submit to the law of sacrifice, and give play to the noblest faculty with which the Creator has endowed us, moral empire over self. ”

“ From this time forward, the usual seeking of prices for a level requires that our commodity should, like all others which suppose an equal sacrifice of the means of production, claim an equal value in exchange. If from any peculiar causes, the production of this commodity is not at all possible, or if it is capable of no great extension, its price, which would under the circumstances, be limited only by the purchasing power of the buyer, might attain the utmost extreme reached in prices under the spur of vanity or of the mere love of the commodity itself. ”

“ The reasons and counter-reasons advanced by those writers apply not only to luxury but to the lights and shades of high civilization in general. When a political economist declares for or against luxury in general, he resembles a doctor who should declare for or against the nerves in general. There has been luxury in every country and in every age. Among a healthy people, luxury is also healthy, an essential element in the general health of the nation. ”

“ 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? ”

“ No man who manages his own affairs well, or those of a household, lives on the capital or income of another man; but every one lives on his own income, by the things he has himself produced; although with every further development of the division of labor, it becomes rarer that any one puts the finishing stroke to his own products, and can satisfy himself by their immediate consumption alone. ”

“ The immoderate competition of workmen involves the majority of the nation in misery, not only materially but also morally; one of the most dangerous temptations, for the rich to a contempt for human kind, for the poor to envy, dishonesty and prostitution. In every suffocating crowd, the animal part of man is wont to obtain the victory over the intellectual. Precisely the simplest, most universal and most necessary relations are most radically and disastrously affected by the difficulty or impossibility of contracting marriage, and the sore solicitude for the future of one's children. ”

“ In every long and far-reaching revolution, whether undertaken in the interest of the crown, the nobility or the middle classes, we find, side by side with the seed it intended to sow, the tares of communism sprout up. ”

“ Adam Müller is a writer who deserves recognition for his advocacy of national economy, and of the state as a whole, paramount to individuals, and even generations. He gives war the credit of causing the scientific knowledge of the state to cast deeper roots, and of enlightening individuals in the most forcible way, that they are parts of one great whole. (Elemente der Staatskunst, 1809, I, 7, 113) . He calls public economy, as a whole, the product of all products. What, he inquires, is the use of all wealth, if it does not guarantee itself? ”

“ An uncivilized nation will frequently not care to increase its consumption of our manufactures, if to do so it becomes necessary to carry on its agriculture more industriously. Another nation that has already tasted of the fruit of the tree of economic knowledge may not be satisfied with the mere production of raw material forever. In time it may want to carry on commerce and industry itself, and hence consider the breaking of its commercial course with us as a species of emancipation from us. ”

“ With an advance in a people's public economy, we find an increased rapidity of circulation connected, both as cause and effect. Every improvement, every thing which shortens the process of production, must facilitate and accelerate the circulation of commodities. And so, the perfecting of the means of transport of commodities, of the media of exchange and of credit, an increase in the number of middlemen who make it their business to purchase in order to sell again. On the other hand, the more rapid the circulation of wealth, the more can it promote production. ”

“ It is but seldom that the workmen will be in a condition to stop work for more than a few months, without feeling the sting of hunger. The purchaser of labor can live longer on his capital; and the victory here belongs to the party who, in the struggle, holds out longest. Hence, a strike that lasts more than six weeks may, for that reason alone, be considered a failure. The employers of labor, on account of their smaller number and greater education, make their counter-coalition much more secret and effective. ”

“ It teaches moderation instead of exciting covetousness, nor does it come in conflict with the sublime words of Saint Augustine: “The family of men, living by faith, use the goods of the earth as strangers here, not to be captivated by them or turned away by them from the goal to which they tend, which is God, but to find in them a support which, far from aggravating, lightens the burthen of this perishable body which weighs down the soul.” ”

“ The national-economic advantage of insurance consists in this, that the damage which is divided among many, and which, therefore, is felt but lightly by each one, is probably made up for, not by an inroad upon the body of still existing original resources, but by savings made from income. This, indeed, is unconditionally true only of such damage as does not depend at all on the will of man, such as, for instance, the damage caused by hail. ”

“ Science has preceded art.
In the foremost rank of the studies just referred to is philosophy, which initiates us into the knowledge of human nature, the basis of right, and which translates its legitimate aspirations into a language which we can understand; history, that prophetess of the truth, as one of the ancients called it, which places before us the faithful picture of times past, not by simply putting together a skeleton of facts, but by following the living progress of events and the organic development of institutions. ”

“ The direction which luxury takes in times when civilization is advanced, is towards the real, healthy and tasteful enjoyment of life, rather than an inconvenient display. This tendency is exceedingly well expressed by the English word comfort, and it is in modern England that the luxury of the second period has found it happiest development. It is found side by side with frugality; and it frequently even looks like a return to the unaffected love of nature. ”

“ Liberty is not license. It refuses to bend under the yoke, [pg 038] but it submits to rule. The mission of authority is not to constrain, but to counsel; not to command, but to help accomplish; not to absorb individual activity, but to develop it. It does not pretend to raise a convenient indifference on the part of government, nor the indolent withdrawal of all protective influence to the dignity of a principle. ”

“ The maintenance or support of those workmen whom they themselves acknowledge to be productive is presumably accounted productive consumption by all political economists. Why not, therefore, the cost of supporting and educating our children, who, it is to be hoped, will grow up later to be productive workmen. Man's labor-power is, doubtless, one of the greatest of all economic goods. But without the means of subsistence, it would die out in a few days. ”

“ The person who calls a good doctor or a good judge unproductive should, to be consistent, call those who by their greater intelligence are fitted to superintend agricultural and industrial enterprises unproductive, also, as is done by the coarser socialists with their apotheosis of mere manual labor. Unfortunately, such a settlement as is above contemplated among the different factors of production, whose owners are desirous to divide the common product among them, is possible only where the factors of production are either of the same kind, or can be reduced to a common denominator. ”

“ This liberty has no need of Political Economy to shine with the luster of evidence; nothing can prevail against it. We can prove that it is as fecund as it is respectable; but if the science of wealth should endeavor to demonstrate the contrary, the primordial bases of society, liberty, property and the family would not be less sacred nor less necessary, for they are the right of humanity. ”

“ Foreign trade, that great means of coöperation of labor among different nations, affords such a remedy in a very special manner. It very frequently happens that the undertakers of one country, when a certain factor of production seems too dear at home, borrow it elsewhere. Thus, for instance, a country with a high rate of wages draws on another for labor, and one with a high rate of interest on another for capital. ”

“ Petty shows very clearly that national wealth does not consist exclusively nor mainly in money. Every country, he says, needs a certain quantity of money to carry on trade. It would be a waste to increase the former, the latter remaining the same. But the precious metals, by reason of their durability and universally recognized value, possess the character of wealth in a higher degree than other commodities.
On the whole, the use of money in a nation is like the use of fat in the individual. ”

“ But, a community of goods would, in the strictest sense of the word, be a journey on foot through the whole of life with numberless “friends.” Here, every one would believe himself entitled to possess whatever pleased him. And, who would decide; since so many communists preach the dissolution and extinction of all government, and the reign of anarchy? Besides, there can be no doubt, that the difference of human talents and human wants, would soon, spite of every law, lead to a difference in property again. ”

“ We, men of to-day, are lookers-on at a marvelous spectacle. Steam furrows the earth. Industry has taken an immense start. Mechanical force bends the most rebellious materials. Chemistry, physics and the natural sciences are discovering a new world. ”

“ We shall meet on this road, hard of ascent, not only peace of soul, but goods, more real and more numerous, than those with which the allurements of error would dazzle our eyes. The greatest obstacles to be overcome are not material ones, but moral difficulties. As Franklin says, in substance, he that tells you you can succeed, in any way but by labor and economy, is a quack. ”

“ Here we are ever brought back to the undulating ground of living science, instead of having to follow the rectilineal way traced out by the dead letter. We are always driven back, whatever may be pretended to the contrary, to the realities of which history alone possesses the secret. The idea of wealth cannot absorb everything when there is question of judging and enlightening men. ”

“ Man ceases to be an inert element, and manifests himself as a sensible being, and the sublime thought of Pascal: “Humanity is like one man who lives and learns always,” is verified by the result. The wish to violently abdicate the past, it would be vain and rash to attempt to realize. The lessons it transmits to us are as instructive as the picture it unrolls before our eyes is attractive. We have no longer but to see and hear, to be cured of the most generous impatience with what is, and to retreat from the most perilous attempts. ”

“ Under pretext of painting a picture of economic doctrine, we are given its caricature. Such has never been the system, to the elaboration of which the purest hearts and noblest intellects have devoted themselves. A negation does not constitute the science of Political Economy.
It is very convenient to inclose humanity within a circle of action, drawn with rigorous precision, and to govern movements seen in advance. But such artificial conceptions mutilate the activity of man. To guarantee man all liberty, and prevent its abuse—such are the data of the problem. ”