Material interest

“ The economic interest, our desire and esteem for solid and matter-of-fact things like market commodities and standardized market services, has been conceived as nothing visionary and speculative, as no peering into the infinite or outreaching of an inexpressible discontent, but an intelligent, clear-eyed grasping and holding of known satisfactions for measured and acknowledged desires. ”

“ A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes actuated by different sentiments and views. ”

“ All these possessions are, in short, regarded as of one standard of value, as chattels or instruments in which man still discovers evidence of his craftsmanship, his positive wealth and interest whereof he may be justly proud. ”

“ What do we say, in fact?
To determine value,—in other words, to organize within itself the production and distribution of wealth,—society proceeds exactly as the mind does in the generation of concepts. ”

“ Material wealth is an abstraction. Its usual evidence is the possession of property, which may be money, land, goods or chattels, as the case may be. In final analysis this concrete evidence of wealth is not real. ”

“ Yet we should put our gains to good interest; for when one tries to make a beautified living creation out of dead money, as we have done, and at the same time to increase the comfort of those around one,—as I did by employing them, and you by the more direct means of bounty,—surely one has gained usurious interest. ”

“ And on the other hand, the material value is apt to undermine the manly character; so that it must be our work, in the issue, to examine what evidence there is of the effect of wealth on the minds of its possessors; also, what kind of person it is who usually sets himself to obtain wealth, and succeeds in doing so; and whether the world owes more gratitude to rich or to poor men, either for their moral influence upon it, or for chief goods, discoveries, and practical advancements. ”

“ Used thus, with understanding of the relation which it bears to spiritual and intellectual wealth, material wealth becomes one with them, and is no more to be shunned and feared than it is to be sought for its own sake. ”

“ Vigor, genius, diligence, and all the personal advantages which result therefrom, are the work of Nature and, to a certain extent, of the individual; society awards them the esteem which they merit: but the wages which it pays them is measured, not by their power, but by their production. Now, the product of each is limited by the right of all. ”

“ The natural differences in men find their highest expression in the varieties of influence which one man exercises over another; this influence can either be of a religious, moral, political, or purely material nature. Material influence generally takes the form of money, or the financial nexus, as an English writer has termed it. ”

“ Can you do it alone, and feed and pay yourselves? But if the rich must do it, what shall be their reward? They give you money—what will you pay them in? Money, or money’s worth, and human bodies, are the only values that the world has ever known. ”

“ These use values form the material of wealth, whatever its social form may be. In modern societies, where the business of production is carried on to meet the demands of the market, for exchange, these use values appear as exchange values. ”

“ This term interest, which commonly implies little more than our property, is sometimes put for utility in general, and this for happiness; insomuch, that, under these ambiguities, it is not surprising we are still unable to determine, whether interest is the only motive of human action, and the standard by which to distinguish our good from our ill. ”

“ Uses of interest.—In closing the subject of interest, it is well to recall the fact that interest exists in the very nature of productive energies, and that ability to transfer the use of property in any form of capital without transferring the interest is most useful to society. It sustains the aged, who must otherwise be wholly dependent, and the childhood of the race in all development of body, mind and soul. Interest sustains the mass of educational and charitable institutions, as well as the individual life of multitudes whose present earnings could not keep body and soul together. ”

“ And do you think that he, a merchant, who probably places a very high value on money, because experience has taught him its value, will say, like you, 'Palace or hovel, poverty or wealth, it makes no difference'? ”

“ Interest is therefore the equalizer of the value of things in different periods. Put into the scale of judgment when present and future are compared, it helps to balance the disparity in the gratifications given by economic goods in different periods of time. ”

“ For this value or wealth, produced by the activity of all, is by the very fact of its creation collective wealth, the use of which, like that of the land, may be divided, but which as property remains undivided. ”

“ To this definition, the only objection seems to be, that it leaves in uncertainty a question which has been much debated—whether what are called immaterial products are to be considered as wealth: whether, for example, the skill of a workman, or any other natural or acquired power of body or mind, shall be called wealth, or not: a question, not of very great importance, and which, so far as requiring discussion, will be more conveniently considered in another place. ”

“ A man should prize events and possessions as the ore in which this fine mineral is found; and he can well afford to let events and possessions, and the breath of the body go, if their value has been added to him in the shape of power. ”

“ But you cannot get something for nothing. You must pay for everything worth having. You must pay the price set upon it, and in the coin of the realm.
The coin of the realm is industry—just that. Industry and only industry. Nothing but industry. ”

“ This tone consisted chiefly in making the proper distinction between the laws of the Production of Wealth—which are laws of nature, dependent on the properties of objects—and the modes of its Distribution, which, subject to certain conditions, depend on human will. ”

“ I will juggle into my own hands all the instruments for the production of wealth that I can lay hold of; and I will use them for myself against the producer and the consumer. I will enrich myself by 'corners' on the necessaries of life ”

“ Teach him to be prudent, industrious, economical as you will, and my example and teachings shall be added to your own; but impress not upon his young mind the doctrine that the acquisition of wealth is the chief end of his existence, and its possession the chief source of man’s enjoyment. ”

“ It must be seen, unless a commodity could be found which would answer every useful purpose, and could be readily obtained by all, it could not be made a tender without inflicting great injustice on the many. ”

“ It appears to be clear that whatever constitutes wealth must be useful, and that wealth is one class of useful things; and now we have to enquire, What is the use of those useful things which constitute wealth? ”

“ In ordinary use, and I think it is the most convenient use, wealth comprehends all those things, and those things only, which, directly or indirectly, are made the subjects of purchase and sale, of letting and hiring. For this purpose, they must, in the first place, possess utility, or, in other words, be capable of affording pleasure or preventing pain, since no one would purchase or hire anything absolutely useless. ”

“ My own theory of value, which finds the roots of economic value ramifying through the total social psychological situation, rather than in utility or labor-pain alone, involves possibilities like these. ”

“ The possession of wealth is the great object of human desire, its production is the great purpose of human exertion. The modes and the degree in which it is distributed, accumulated, and consumed, occasion the principal differences between nations. The philosopher who could teach such an art, would stand at the head of the benefactors of mankind. ”

“ To be sure the rich waste more goods than they actually require to satisfy the regular requirements of the body, but amongst these goods the most material, provisions, are in the smallest proportion to the rest. ”

“ His measures are the hours; morning and night, solstice and equinox, geometry, astronomy, and all the lovely accidents of nature play through his mind. Money, which represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in parlors without an apology, is, in its effects and laws, as beautiful as roses. Property keeps the accounts of the world, and is always moral. The property will be found where the labor, the wisdom, and the virtue have been in nations, in classes, and (the whole life-time considered, with the compensations) in the individual also. ”

“ How plain is it that we regard them merely as instruments of acquisition; centers of attraction for the drifting of capital; that they are important only as indications of commodities; and that their human personality hangs as a mere label upon a mass of treasure! Every one must have met with a few instances in which this character is realized, and with many in which, notwithstanding the relief of some redeeming and delightful features, it is at least approached. ”

“ Among the variety of commodities which attract the attention of mankind, there is one thing of more value than all others. A principle which, if once possessed, will greatly assist in obtaining all other things worth possessing, whether it were power, wealth, riches, honors, thrones, or dominions. ”

“ And one service you render which I regard as wholly indispensable. In our country, where altogether too much prominence is given to the mere possession of wealth, we are under heavy obligations to such a body as this, which substitutes for the ideal of accumulating money the infinitely loftier, non-materialistic ideal of devotion to work worth doing simply for that work's sake. ”

“ There are not only the wants of the intellectual and learned and poetic men and women to be met, but also the vast interests of property, public and private, of mining, of manufactures, of trade, of railroads, etc. ”

“ To reward certain industries and pay for certain products, a society is needed which corresponds in size with the rarity of talents, the costliness of the products, and the variety of the arts and sciences. ”

“ Their rights, another's conveniences; their interests, wares on sale; their happiness, a household utensil; their personal inalienable ownership, a serviceable article, or a plaything, as best suits the humor of the hour; their deathless nature, science, social affections, sympathies, hopes—marketable commodities! ”

“ If one purchaser values an article more highly than another, by what principle will he be prevented from offering a higher price? How is it possible to measure the relative painfulness or repugnance of labour? What allowance is to be made for superior skill or natural capacity? ”

“ It is easily seen that the acquisition of fortunes by tradesmen is in reality nothing but a participation of landed property, which is the basis, the source, and substance of all wealth, and into it all must be resolved. ”

“ Modern economists—chiefly those of the Austrian school—have analyzed the subject more thoroughly, especially the relation between the two conceptions, and have shown that utility or subjective value, as it is generally termed by them, is an expression both of human desire and of the quantity of the necessary commodity available to satisfy such desire. ”

“ The social action, therefore, has set apart the particular commodity in which all values are represented, and the bodily form of this commodity has become the form of the socially recognised universal equivalent—money. ”

“ In these three we have, perhaps, the firmest basis which it is possible to construct for the value of anything! When religion is added, as has often been the case with the precious metals, the basis becomes solid indeed! Modern social psychology has increasingly made clear the power of the first. Social expectation can take the raw stuff of human nature, and mold it into almost any form it pleases. ”

“ In order that property may henceforth inspire more confidence and become more moral, we should keep open all the paths of work for small fortunes, but should prevent the effortless and sudden acquisition of wealth. ”

“ The view which has here been taken of the nature of wealth, namely, that it consists in an intrinsic value developed by a vital power, is directly opposed to two nearly universal conceptions of wealth. ”

“ While money is the medium of exchanges, and while it is in use representative of valuable materials, it is in its last analysis the objective of that department of life of which labor is the subjective, and, therefore, when scientifically viewed, it resolves itself into a principal which is one of those upon which society must be built when a perfect foundation is formulated. ”

“ The abstract idea of wealth or of value in exchange, a definite idea, and consequently susceptible of rigorous treatment in combinations, must be carefully distinguished from the accessory ideas of utility, scarcity, and suitability to the needs and enjoyments of mankind, which the word wealth still suggests in common speech. ”