Public wealth

“ Whether the real foundation for wealth must not be laid in the numbers, the frugality, and the industry of the people? And whether all attempts to enrich a nation by other means, as raising the coin, stock-jobbing, and such arts are not vain?
198. Qu. Whether a door ought not to be shut against all other methods of growing rich, save only by industry and merit? And whether wealth got otherwise would not be ruinous to the public? ”

“ It is the glory of our nation that its literature is amongst its best possessions; and that the general scope and tendency of that literature are calculated to raise and cherish an enlightened public sentiment. Whatever be the amount of national wealth—however various the comforts and luxuries which private riches may command—it is quite certain that without that courage and intelligence which make a people free and keep them so, the public [Pg 321] and private accumulations are comparatively worthless. ”

“ Those who make use of the great modern accumulations of wealth, gathered together by the dragnet process of the sale of stocks and bonds, and piling up of reserves, must be treated as under a public obligation; they must be made responsible for their business methods to the great communities which are in fact their working partners, so that the hand which makes correction shall easily reach them and a new principle of responsibility be felt throughout their structure and operation.
What are the right methods of politics? ”

“ I show how, directly and indirectly in the control of opinion, in the requirement of bonds and stamp duties, in the public press, in the growth of individual taxation, etc., capitalized wealth, as a basis of participation in public affairs, must work out its inherent tendency with the same thoroughness and the same historical necessity as landed property had done in its time. ”

“ In this wealth, without reckoning the large portion which adheres to the hands employed in collecting it, many persons of course participate, besides the immediate household of the sovereign. A large part is distributed among the various functionaries of government, and among the objects of the sovereign's favour or caprice. A part is occasionally employed in works of public utility. ”

“ On these slabs every grade of dignity in a long career is enumerated with minute care. The exact value of a man’s public benefactions or his official salary will be recorded with pride.1193 Even the dealer in aromatics or in rags will make a boast of some petty office in the college of his trade.1194 But, although rank and office [pg 211] were extravagantly valued in these societies, wealth was after all the great distinction. The cities were in the hands of the rich, and, in return for social deference and official power, the rich were expected to give lavishly to all public objects. ”

“ In the United States, a vast rapidly developing country, with relatively much kinetic wealth, this central influence is the financial support of the Boss, consisting for the most part of active-minded, capable business organizers; in England, the land where irresponsible realized wealth is at a maximum, a public-spirited section of the irresponsible, inspired by the tradition of an aristocratic functional past, qualifies the financial influence with an amateurish, indolent, and publicly unprofitable integrity. ”

“ Sources of Wealth.—The large majority of persons of wealth have won or inherited their property from the economic industries of manufacturing, trade, commerce, and transportation, or real estate. Certain individuals have been fortunate in their mining or public-service investments; others make a large income as corporation officials, lawyers, physicians, engineers, and architects, but most of them have attained their success as capitalists, and they are able to maintain a position of prominence and ease because they use rather than hoard their wealth. ”

“ All things considered, we are making progress, and will continue in the ratio we obtain education and wealth, and come forward in the incipiency of public enterprises with our money and practical knowledge from the best possible sources ”

“ If industry, frugality, and disinterested integrity were alike the virtues of all, there would, apparently, be more of the social spirit, in making all property a common stock, and giving to each individual a proportional title to the wealth of the whole. ”

“ It therefore belongs of right to the people. For what are its sources? In twenty-five years the wealth of the nation is reported to have grown from fourteen billion to forty-four billion. Why? What is the secret of this marvelous growth of wealth? ”

“ Lands, for the purposes of pleasure and magnificence, parks, gardens, public walks, etc. possessions which are everywhere considered as causes of expense, not as sources of revenue, seem to be the only lands which, in a great and civilized monarchy, ought to belong to the crown. ”

“ The reader will, of course, understand that the political or industrial power of capital is entirely a separate thing from the ability of wealth to buy luxury, deference or social recognition for its possessor. ”

“ Suppose, sir, that all the sales that have been effected had been made by the state, and that the proceeds had gone into the state treasury, to be returned back to the people in some of the various shapes in which a beneficient local government exerts its powers for the improvement of the conditions of the citizens. Who can say how much of wealth and prosperity, how much of improvement in science and arts, how much of individual and social happiness, whould have been diffused throughout the land! ”

“ Remember that a government based upon gold, {7} wealth, sordidness, must end unhappily. We must have other and higher ideals for our people.
Do not misunderstand me; I do not decry individual, and, in certain degrees, aggregate wealth. Let our citizens accumulate money "beyond the dreams of avarice." Through the natural channels open for its circulation, it will gradually flow back to the community. ”

“ It is a possession surpassing all others in value. The gold and silver in your Treasury may be counted; it stands recorded, dollar for dollar, in the national ledger; but the sums which the unsuspected credit of a magnanimous nation can command are beyond the record of any ledger. Public Faith is more than mines of silver or gold. Only from Arabian story can a fit illustration be found, as when, after all human effort had failed, the Genius of the Lamp reared the costly palace and stored it with beauty. Public Faith is in itself a treasury, a tariff, and an internal revenue, all in one. ”

“ The royal revenues and princely preserves, are they not supported out of the sweat of the poorer classes, upon whom all the burdens of society fall at last? And why should there be royal revenues and princely preserves? Do they add anything to the wealth of a nation or the happiness of a people? ”

“ Our public system, when economies are concerned, first considers money, property. It seems sometimes as if our free individualistic plan of government were, after all, adapted for the minority of the bright-witted. ”

“ Our moralists were prattling of Captains of Industry, exploitation—but under a prettier name—and the remote sacredness of being a millionaire; public office was a matter of victory and patronage; the saving of pennies and the spending of lives was preached as an ideal of the perfect existence. ”

“ Yet now, what president or minister, legislator or judge, would announce as his aim to acquire the greatest financial profit from his position? Even in autocratically governed countries, it is at least the assumption that the good of the state does not mean solely the prestige and wealth of the ruler. ”

“ The Peer of the realm, the landed proprietor, the Government annuitant, the clergyman, the medical and the legal adviser, with the banker, merchant, dealer, and handicraftsman of every class and kind,—derive what is necessary to support their state and condition, and their daily sustenance, from these spring-heads of national wealth. ”

“ Success consists in close appliance to the laws of the world, and, since those laws are intellectual and moral, an intellectual and moral obedience. Political Economy is as good a book wherein to read the life of man, and the ascendency of laws over all private and hostile influences, as any Bible which has come down to us.
Money is representative, and follows the nature and fortunes of the owner. The coin is a delicate meter of civil, social, and moral changes. The farmer is covetous of his dollar, and with reason. It is no waif to him. He knows how many strokes of labor it represents. ”

“ People would have relied more upon their own energies and less upon the Government to make them rich. But, in my opinion at least, the aggregate production of wealth and the general state of popular prosperity would not have been less. ”

“ With respect to the other patrons, to whose encouragement these tables have been recommended, the proprietors of the publick funds, who are busy in the improvement of their fortunes, it is sufficient to say—that no motive can sanctify the accumulation of wealth, but an ardent desire to make the most honourable and virtuous use of it, by contributing to the support of good government, the increase of arts and industry, the rewards of genius and virtue, and the relief of wretchedness and want. ”

“ He intoned, "The man of wealth has a special responsibility in our society. He is the trustee of invested capital, on which our economy rests. His proud charge is to direct and build his holdings wisely; and natural economic laws have justly placed the nation's considerable estates in the hands of men equal to the charge. ”

“ Yet what can be more conducive to Progress? A financial system which promotes the one, conduces, by the very same excellences, to the other. Economy, for example, equally preserves the existing stock of national wealth, and favors the creation of more. A just distribution of burdens, by holding up to every citizen an example of morality and good conscience applied to difficult adjustments, and an evidence of the value which the highest authorities attach to them, tends in an eminent degree to educate the moral sentiments of the community, both in respect of strength and of discrimination. ”

“ By the separation of arts and professions, the sources of wealth are laid open; every species of material is wrought up to the greatest perfection, and every commodity is produced in the greatest abundance. The state may estimate its profits and its revenues by the number of its people. It may procure, by its treasure, that national consideration and power, which the savage maintains at the expense of his blood. ”

“ It became synonymous with power; and since power with the common herd of mankind gives power, wealth became the chief source of personal consideration, and the measure and stamp of success in life. To get out of one rank in society into the next above it, is the great aim of English middle-class life, and the acquisition of wealth the means. ”

“ And this species of individual wealth, constitutes the whole mass of power and talents, by which the poor and uninformed are secured in their rights and liberties, under the bond which unites all persons having the same interest. ”

“ No man in his right mind would make an assault upon wealth as such, or upon property as such, or upon the honest acquisition of property—we simply call upon those who have the good fortune to have accumulated wealth to respond to the expenses of the great government under which they live and thrive. ”

“ Doing not a stroke o' work for theirselves, and living on the sweat of our brows!' I should like to force them to see that the money, which those 'haristocrats' are spending, represents so much labour already done for the community, and whose equivalent, in material wealth, is due from the community. ”

“ Some plead the revenue of our wealth. Our wealth is in our citizens. The state can not add to its treasury at the expense of its manhood without punishing herself. The state must guard the character of its citizens. ”

“ Walk up and down the streets where you find the most comfortable homes, the largest dwellings, the abodes of the most affluent and respectable in any city, and then answer the question, whether or no the wealth of the nation is not to-day largely in the hands of Christian men and Christian women? These are the people who have the best credit, who can draw checks for the largest amounts. Among this class you will find the most influential in business, the owners of our largest mercantile establishments. Men who direct and control the commerce of the world. ”

“ That the wealth of the country has greatly increased, is not a matter of doubt. This is not only an acknowledged truth, but it is the boast of the millocracy. It is at the head of all their demands—"Mark our wealth—our importance to the conntry." ”

“ We really, and justly, look upon a person as possessing the advantages of wealth, not in proportion to the useful and agreeable things of which he is in the actual enjoyment, but to his command over the general fund of things useful and agreeable; the power he possesses of providing for any exigency, or obtaining any object of desire. Now, money is itself that power; while all other things, in a civilized state, seem to confer it only by their capacity of being exchanged for money. ”

“ As the kings of finance were the representatives of the great merchants, manufacturers and investors, so was I the representative of the masses, of those who wished their small savings properly invested. The power of the big fellows was founded upon wealth and the brains wealth buys or bullies or seduces into its service ”