Henry Fawcett

“ Should not all the wheat which a country possesses be regarded as a portion of its capital, when it is consumed as usefully as any commodity can be? A prodigal farmer may sell his wheat, and squander the money which he obtains for it, but the wheat will not be wasted, and therefore it might be very plausibly urged that the individual owner of a commodity like wheat does not prevent it being productively employed, or, in other words, has not the power of determining whether it shall or shall not form a portion of the capital of the country. ”

“ But political economy never even gives colour to the suspicion that the creation and accumulation of wealth ought to be the great object either of a nation's or of an individual's existence. The springs of life's action are numerous; society is held together by a vast aggregation of motives and sympathies. Wealth is necessary to man's existence; a great portion of human exertion is stimulated by the necessity to labour, in order to procure the commodities which maintain life. ”

“ Hitherto, the great social and economic importance of securing the greatest efficiency of labour, by giving the labourer some pecuniary interest in the work in which he is employed, has been most imperfectly understood. The relations between employers and employed will never become satisfactory until they are more united by the bonds of mutual interest. Too many of our labourers pass a life of hopeless drudgery; they in no way share their master's prosperity. ”

“ And yet the skill of our workmen ought to be classed as wealth, because the loss of this skill would diminish the wealth of the nation, as much as if she were deprived of a great amount of material wealth. If, however, the skill of the labourer is classified as wealth, we strain the use of the word 'wealth' beyond its usual acceptation; because wealth is always popularly conceived to be something material. We will therefore adopt the following definition:—Productive labour is that which either directly or indirectly produces utilities fixed and embodied in material objects. ”

“ As a nation advances in commercial prosperity, a constantly increasing quantity of national wealth assumes a permanent and fixed form. The docks, the railways, our unsurpassed mercantile navy, the great manufactories of Lancashire and Yorkshire, with their machinery as costly as it is ingenious; these works, and not the food and clothing stored in our warehouses, are the striking evidences of England's vast accumulated wealth. If all the food were destroyed except just enough to prevent the people starving, England in one year might present an unchanged aspect of commercial prosperity ”

“ When such opinions were current the labour of the schoolmaster must have been considered entirely unproductive, because it would have been supposed that, even if he did not impede, he certainly did not promote, the efficiency of the labourers, regarded as mere machines for the production of wealth. But now facts are every day coming to light which must impress us with the conviction that the schoolmaster occupies a most important position in the material economy of the nation. ”

“ From such a source, either directly or indirectly, any large increase of capital which may be required is mainly supplied. At any particular time there is a certain interest upon capital which people expect, and with less they will not be satisfied. But it will perhaps be said, what does a capitalist do with his capital? If he wants 3 1/2 per cent, interest and can only obtain 3 per cent., he will not squander it because he is not satisfied with so low a rate of interest; will, therefore, less wealth be saved? ”

“ If they become more anxious to have expensive clothing or expensive food, which may perhaps have to be imported from other countries, they will at once have a motive to work, and the West Indies will cease to suffer from the present great scarcity of labour. England, therefore, offers a striking contrast in every respect to the West Indies; nothing can exceed the ceaseless industrial activity of the English people. We all of us labour, because there is some desire which we wish to gratify. Our labourers are pressed on to continuous hour by the necessity of procuring a livelihood. ”

“ The loan is not altogether supplied from capital which was previously unemployed, but England has vast sums invested in almost every civilised country. Magnificent as are the tokens of England's wealth which surround us on every side, yet our manufactories, our railroads, our mercantile marine will not give us an adequate idea of England's riches, unless we remember that there are few countries either in the new or the old world that are not our debtors. ”

“ It will have been remarked, that every kind of wealth, which in any way assists future production, has been, in this chapter, described as capital. Capital, therefore, is not confined to the food which feeds the labourers, but includes machinery, buildings, and, in fact, every product due to man's labour which can be applied to assist his industry; but capital which is in the form of food does not perform its functions in the same manner as capital that is in the form of machinery: the one is termed circulating capital, the other fixed capital. ”

“ If any, nation should ever threaten England with invasion, England ought to speak in unmistakable language that her vengeance should not be confined to a retributive slaughter of soldiers, but that she would destroy all the public works upon which the wealth of the nation mainly depended. ”

“ In England an abundant supply of cheap food is required; in India, an increase of capital is most essential; and in the West Indies, an increase of labour. In America the production of wealth meets with no serious impediment, and it advances with the most extraordinary rapidity. Yet, in America, there is a comparative scarcity of labour, and an ample supply of productive land. America and England have conferred upon each other the most important mutual benefits. Cheap food is essential to England's progress, and our greatest supplies are obtained from America. ”

“ In the first place, money provides a measure by which to record the value of each commodity. If, for instance, it is known that a sack of wheat is worth twenty shillings, the value of the sack of wheat, compared with any other article, can be at once ascertained when the price of this last article is known. Money, moreover, is not only a universal measure of value, but is also a universal medium of exchange. A man may possess a store of wheat which he requires to exchange for various other commodities ”

“ The air we breathe is of course not only a want, but a necessity of life; yet it cannot be regarded as wealth, because it can be obtained without labour and its supply is unlimited, and it therefore has no exchange value. ”

“ What is really intended to be asserted is that the purchase of commodities, which are unproductively consumed, does not exert the same influence in increasing the demand for labour as if the wealth with which the purchase was effected were used as capital, and were devoted to the employment of labour. ”

“ Thus political economy assumes all that we can tell at the present time with regard to the fertility of the soil. It is not the business of political economy to decide whether chemistry can suggest any particular manure which will greatly increase the productiveness of the land; but if the land, by any such cause, is rendered more fertile, then political economy would trace the consequences of this increased fertility upon the production, the distribution, and the exchange of wealth. ”

“ Agricultural labourers, manufacturing operatives, bricklayers, &c., must all be manifestly ranked as productive labourers. All those, too, who are employed in transporting merchandise from one place to another, are productive labourers, for they confer upon commodities the utility of being in the place where they are required. The labour of policemen and others who are engaged in protecting industry is productive, because they confer upon commodities the important utility of security. But even the labour of productive labourers is not unfrequently unproductive. ”

“ Even to manual labourers a properly developed mind is as essential as a well-developed body; and there can be no doubt that he who contributes in any manner to improve either the physical or intellectual condition of the people takes no unimportant part in assisting the nation's wealth. Much labour, therefore, which at first sight may seem unproductive, will appear, on further consideration, to exert an indirect influence upon the production of wealth. Popular notions attach a certain stigma to unproductive labour. ”

“ Functions of labourBefore the characteristics which distinguish productive from unproductive labour are explained, it will be necessary to revert to our primary conception of wealth. Nature, as has been before remarked, supplies the materials. Man is powerless to create any material object; he combines substances together which would never be combined without his interposition, and thus creates a product which nature could never construct without his aid. Man takes the wheat and puts it in that situation where it will be ground ”

“ Combination of labour requires good means of communication.There cannot be any extensive cooperation of labour between one employment and another, or between one district and another, unless the means of communication are good. Nothing, probably, has more contributed to perpetuate the poverty and backwardness of India than the want of good roads. There, it frequently happens that one district can scarcely lend any assistance to another; an interchange of commodities, which would be advantagous to all concerned, is often prevented by the want of a road. ”

“ There was a time when England was as poor as any country which is now consigned to the wandering savage, and yet she possessed then those same natural resources which now so materially contribute not only to form but to sustain her present wealth. ”

“ When, therefore, the distinct operations of any industry are performed by different workmen, then each of these operations may become a separate trade, for which men may be separately trained. If all the processes of pin-making were performed by one man, he would not have sufficient practice to acquire the requisite dexterity in any single operation, and, therefore, if there was no division of labour in pin-making, all the labour employed must be, comparatively speaking, unskilled, and consequently very inefficient. ”

“ The gold may have been the primary stimulus of her prosperity; but the gold which has been produced most inadequately represents the extent to which her wealth has been augmented. Not only has all her labour, whether agricultural or not, been rendered more efficient by the increased cooperation of labour which is now practised there, in consequence of the growth of the town population; but even her land has been rendered far more productive of wealth, because, at an earlier period, much of the produce which was obtained from it, was not required, and therefore could not be accounted wealth. ”

“ Thus if one overlooker is required to superintend the labour of twenty men, and if he is paid, as he probably is, twice as high wages as the ordinary workman, it is obvious that the amount paid in labour for the production of a certain commodity is just one-tenth more than it would be, if it were not necessary to employ the overlooker. If therefore his services were dispensed with, the productiveness of labour would be increased ”